Category Archives: liberty

Diane Abbott, racism and “positive discrimination”

Robert Henderson

The black shadow minister and  Labour MP for Hackney Diane Abbott has  been up to her racist tricks again labelling whites as being those who wish to keep blacks down through a policy of divide and rule.  Replying  on Twitter  to a black correspondent  who complained about the lumping together of all blacks  in Britain with phrases such as “the black community”  Ms Abbott replied that wicked ol’ whitey  just loves playing “divide and rule” and that was why a united black front should be presented:

This immediately prompted cries for her to resign from conservatives on the grounds that she was obnoxiously stereotyping whites (http://www.mirror.co.uk/2012/01/05/labour-mp-diane-abbott-faces-calls-to-resign-over-racist-tweet-storm-115875-23681033/). But white liberals and their non-white auxiliaries were strangely tolerant of her racism.  Her fellow black Labour MP David Lammy was positively outraged that  anyone should have accused Abbott of racism when her  mistake was simply “ Forgetting to add the word “some” [before white in her offending tweet]  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8999638/Posturing-and-indignation-do-nothing-to-curb-racism.html).  To put the cherry on the top of the forgiveness cake,  the leader of the Labour Party  not only failed to withdraw the Labour whip from  Ms Abbott but allowed her to remain in his shadow cabinet as his spokesperson for Public Health.

All this liberal forgiveness meant Ms Abbott  was consequently allowed to escape with no more  than a non-apology   -“I apologise for any offence caused. I understand people have interpreted my comments as making generalisations about white people.”  (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8998430/Diane-Abbott-and-Luis-Suarez-are-not-really-apologising.html )- and,  unlike so many white people these days,  she escaped the attention of the Metropolitan Police whose representative  dutifully said  “The service was contacted by members of the public in relation to the comments made by Diane Abbott.”

“We reviewed the circumstances of the comments and having considered all of those circumstances and the information available to us, we do not believe a criminal offence has been committed.” “http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9001757/Diane-Abbott-will-not-face-police-action-over-racist-tweet.html

To add insult to injury, after the storm broke  Ms Abbott offered a  gross misrepresentation of what she had tweeted.  She tried to claim that the offending  remark referred  to the distant colonial past.   ”Tweet taken out of context. Refers to nature of 19th century European colonialism. Bit much to get into 140 characters.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/05/diane-abbott-accused-racism-twitter). As can be seen from the tweet I reproduced above this is nonsense.   “White people love playing “divide and rule”   is a simple unqualified statement  which refers to whites generally and in the present.   The hash tag “tactic as old  as colonialism”  merely states that whites have used the tactic from the time  they gained colonies. In short, Ms Abbott was making a statement attributing a quality and mentality to whites as a group throughout the centuries up to and including the present.  Moreover, even if the statement had been made about the colonial past,  it would still have been racist because it assumed that all white people had felt the same during colonial times. Clearly they did not,  as the British anti-slavery movement and the  later critics of Empire show.    It is also worth noting that she did not use her full 140 characters in the original tweet.

Ms Abbott has “previous” on the hating whitey front.  In 1988, a year after being elected an MP, she claimed Britain invented racism (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082527/Diane-Abbott-Twitter-race-row-MP-faces-calls-resign-racist-tweet.html ).

In 1996 she delicately  said that she disapproved of her local hospital employing “blonde, blue-eyed” Finnish nurses’ rather than  black West Indian ones (John Rentoul Independent Friday, 29 November 1996  Diane Abbott is sorry (For the record Miss Finland is also black – go to  http://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-20066.html and scroll down), which elicited another feeble apology but no withdrawal of the Labour whip.

In that fracas she received the robust support of her now dead fellow black MP Bernie Grant ,  a man who came to public prominence in 1985 when he greeted the murder of Pc Keith Blakelock  by near decapitation during the  Broadwater Farm  estate  black riot  with a jolly “The police got a good hiding “ (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/706403.stm).  In the matter of the “blonde, blue-eyed” Finnish nurses’ Mr Grant offered a judicious  “”She [Abbott]  is quite right… Bringing someone here from Finland who has never seen a black person before and expecting them to have some empathy with black people is nonsense. Scandinavian people don’t know black people – they probably don’t know how to take their temperature.”   (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-20066.html). Mr Grant, like Ms Abbott, did not have the Labour whip removed from him.

In 2010 Ms Abbott had  further bites  at the racist cherry. She was having a little local difficulty on the BBC Late Night show with the political commentator Andrew Neil. (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289868/Diane-Abbott-fumes-branded-racist-TV-This-Week-host-Andrew-Neill.html#ixzz1iQ5ZvyRW). The subject was her son’s education. Ms Abbott had always been a strident critic of private education and frequently publicly criticised  Labour politicians who sent their children to private schools or even worked the state system, like the Blairs, to send their children to state schools which offered a similar educational experience.  In 2010 she suddenly announced that her son would attend the £12,000-a-year City of London School.

Neil attacked her hypocrisy.  Abbott defended herself  with : ‘West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children.’  This led to the following exchange:

“Mr Neil hit back by demanding: ‘So black mums love their kids more than white mums, do they?’

Furious Ms Abbott said: ‘I have said everything I am going to say about where I send my son to school.’

Mr Neil persisted: ‘Supposing Michael said white mums will go to the wall for their children. Why did you say that? Isn’t it a racist remark?

‘If West Indian mums are as wonderful as you say, why are there so many dysfunctional West Indian families in this country? And why do so many young West Indian men end up in a life of crime and gangs?

‘You didn’t want your son to go to a school full of kids who have been brought up by West Indian mums.’

As Ms Abbott repeatedly refused to reply, Mr Neil asked: ‘Would you like to make it clear that West Indian mums are no better than white mums or Asian mums?’

When Ms Abbott, squirming in her seat, replied, ‘I have nothing to say,’ Mr Neil taunted her:

‘You don’t want to do that – you still think West Indian mums are the best?’” (ibid)

Ms Abbott also referred to David Cameron and George Osborne as ‘two posh white boys’ in 2010 (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1280358/Diane-Abbott-race-row-calling-Cameron-Clegg-posh-white-boys.html).

Since her “divide and rule” tweet  Ms Abbott has been working hard on her  “hate whitey” credentials .  Again on Twitter she  accused tax drivers of routinely ignoring black people hailing cabs ‘Dubious of black people claiming they’ve never experienced racism.  ‘Ever tried hailing a taxi I always wonder?’  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083252/Diane-Abbott-sparks-ANOTHER-Twitter-race-row-branding-taxi-drivers-racist.html).

A 25-year-old black politics graduate Jade Knight has also added to our knowledge of  Ms Abbott’s attitude towards Britain and its white population. Miss Knight   had the temerity to approach Ms Abbott  in a Boots store and engage her in conversation. After describing her conservative with a small c politics and saying  she admired Abbott and  desperately wanted to work for her , Ms Knight encountered this response :

‘She [Abbott]  said, “You’d be better off working for a white Conservative. You’re a black conservative, you don’t do the black thing.” I couldn’t believe she had said it.

‘She was basically accusing me of selling out, which is not true. I told her being a conservative wasn’t going against my heritage. Anyone who understands black culture knows black culture can be very conservative. I thought she would understand that as she is educated.’  (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086722/Work-white-Conservative-What-Abbott-told-Tory-voting-graduate-asked-job.html#ixzz1jYOlQf4K).  Note  the reference to “white” rather than just conservative.

There are several things interesting  about  Diane Abbott’s frequent and casual racism. She clearly sees herself as living as in a country  divided into “them and us” with her  ‘us’ being the black population and her ‘them’ is the white population.   She has no sense of being part of a society entitled British or English. Her world is black “us” and  white  “them”.  Her use of “blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls”  suggests that she has an  active hostility to white physical attributes.  Had she wished to merely complain about cultural differences between Finns and West Indian nurses there would have been no reason to mention the physical differences between the two.  It is rather  difficult to see how someone with  her mentality could represent her constituents or the interest of  British society generally without racial fear or favour.

An anti-white racist she may be, but if  other things were equal I would enthusiastically defend Ms Abbott’s right to say whatever she wants  because  I truly believe in free expression for everyone except those who would deny it to others.  But in politically correct modern Britain others things are not equal.  Whites who made the sort of statements that Ms Abbott has made would have been treated very differently.  If they were politicians the media would have bayed unceasingly for their blood.  They would have lost any position held within the government or on the opposition front bench. They would probably have had the whip withdrawn or,  if that did not happen, been deselected as a candidate by their party before the next election.   Indeed, they could have suffered such things for far less obviously racist than any of Abbott’s remarks. The Tory MP Patrick Mercer was sacked from his shadow cabinet post by simply being  honest about his experience of black soldiers when he was a serving army officer: “”I came across a lot of ethnic minority soldiers who were idle and useless, but who used racism as cover for their misdemeanours “  (http://conservativehome.blogs.com/torydiary/2007/03/patrick_mercer.html).

More generally, any white person who made similar statements to Ms Abbott could expect to  be the subject of disciplinary action by their employer up to and including the sack; suffer  media vilification and,   increasingly,  find themselves involved in a criminal prosecution, for example,  the England football captain John Terry (http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/dec/21/john-terry-racism-case-cps).     Even putting golliwogs for sale in a shop window can result in a visit from the boys in blue (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-452477/Police-order-shopkeeper-remove-golliwogs-window.html).

Racist blacks and Asians generally are treated very leniently .  Even where the racism is violent and unambiguously  directed at whites,  it is treated very different to racism by whites against non-whites.   Recently four Somali Muslim girls  – Ambaro and Hibo Maxamed, both 24, their sister Ayan, 28, and cousin Ifrah Nur  28 – viciously attacked a white British girl Rhea Page, 22.  They  were charged with Assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm (ABH),  having torn part of Miss Page’s  scalp away, knocked her to the ground and repeatedly kicked her, including kicks to the head  and repeatedly screamed racist abuse at her (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070562/Muslim-girl-gang-kicked-Rhea-Page-head-yelling-kill-white-slag-FREED.html#ixzz1flw8TY6p). The Somali girls were not only not convicted of a racist attack but were given non-custodial c sentences.

There is a strong argument for disregarding the  motivation for a crime in sentencing. A crime is a crime. Allowing motive to intrude provides a lever for subjective likes and dislikes to be given the force of law. However, as with the prosecutions for “inciting racial hatred”  and their ilk, while such laws are on the statute book they must be applied even handedly to preserve the rule of law.

The ideal thing would be for all criminal restrictions on speech  to be lifted  and motivation to be ignored when prosecuting.

Diane Abbott and Cambridge

The special treatment Ms Abbott  has received extends to other aspects of her life.  She is a history graduate having studied at Newnham College, Cambridge.  In 2003 she  wrote a piece for the BBC’s Black History Month  entitled Multi-racial Britain. It  contained this gem:

“From the days when the Norman French invaded Anglo-Saxon Britain, we have been a culturally diverse nation. But because the different nationalities shared a common skin colour, it was possible to ignore the racial diversity which always existed in the British Isles. And even if you take race to mean what it is often commonly meant to imply – skin colour- there have been black people in Britain for centuries. The earliest blacks in Britain were probably black Roman centurions that came over hundreds of years before Christ.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/dabbott_01.shtml).

For any educated person brought up in Britain the belief that the Roman legions came to Britain “hundreds of years before Christ”  would be to put it mildly surprising for the dates of 55 and 54 BC for Julius Caesar’s  two expeditions  to Britain (the first Roman military action in Britain) and  43 AD for the Roman conquest of Britain are iconic  dates in British history. For a history graduate from one of the two leading British universities to make such a howler is astonishing for it  shows a disturbing  lack of historical perspective and absence of very basic general historical knowledge.

But that is not the only startling part of the passage. Ms Abbott also says  “The earliest blacks in Britain were probably black Roman centurions”.  Why on earth should she imagine that if blacks did come to Roman Britain they would all be centurions?  That is not only historically dubious in terms of blacks coming to Roman Britain in ant guise, but absurd in its conception that the blacks were  probably all drawn from the centurion class.  That is a simple failure of intellect.

In the light of  the mental capacity revealed in  Multi-racial Britain, it   would be interesting to know exactly how and why Ms Abbott was selected for a much sort after place on a popular degree course at one of the two most prestigious British universities and once there how she managed to take a history degree. Could it be that an informal “positive discrimination”  was exercised in both the granting of the place at Newham and her completion of her degree course?

Diane Abbott and Is it in the blood?

In 1995 I wrote an article for a specialist  cricket magazine Wisden Cricket Monthly. This dealt with the use by the England cricket team of many black and white immigrants. In the article I argued that this made a mockery of the very idea of national sporting teams.  This created a vast media outcry. Ms Abbott sent me an unsolicited letter which I reproduce below together with my reply to which Ms Abbott did not reply.

Her comments  “You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores” and “I believe that we have a duty to write on subject we know about”  prompt a smile at her lack of self-knowledge, but the most important aspect of her letter is the quiet desperation of her “Black and Asian culture is now an integral element of British society. I have always thought that the best thing about British culture is its diversity and receptiveness to new, creative influences.”    Of course, if that were the case there would be no need to say it.

————————————

DIANE ABBOTT, M.P.

Labour Member of Parliament for Hackney North & Stoke Newington

Our ref: DPV/Rcm

Date: 3 August 1995

HOUSE OF COMMONS LONDON SW1A 0AA

Tel: 0171 219 4426 Fax: 0171 219 4964

 

Dear Mr Henderson

A constituent of mine has sent me a copy of the article you wrote for Wisden Cricket Monthly entitled, “Is it in the Blood?”

I was rather saddened by your article. You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores. I know that your article was focusing on cricket. But it shows a level of ignorance which is pervasive in many walks of British life. Imagine a young white man born in England, one parent English, one parent Spanish. Is it unnatural for him to express an interest in his Spanish origins. Does it make him any less British? No.

Black and Asian culture is now an integral element of British society. I have always thought that the best thing about British culture is its diversity and receptiveness to new, creative influences.

As an ex-journalist, and someone who still dabbles, I believe that we have a duty to write on subject we know about. And if we are not fully conversant with the topic to undertake the necessary research. I believe that if you had undertaken the appropriate research you would find that your assertions are flawed.

I hope that you will give my comments some thought.

Yours sincerely

DIANE ABBOTT MP

————————————

Miss Diane Abbott MP

House of Commons, London SW1

13/08/95

Dear Miss Abbott,

If you take the trouble to read the enclosures you will see  that I am more than ordinarily qualified to deal with the  subject of coloured alienation. (I wonder if you could claim  such a comprehensive experience of white or indeed Asian  society?) Moreover, even the proverbial visiting Martian  could see the illogic in the claim (incessantly made by ”anti-racists”) that English bred blacks and Asians are both  alienated from and unquestioningly loyal to England.

The evidence of coloured alienation is mountainous. The tape  I enclose of the BBC Radio 5 programme “Word Up” is of  particular interest for it contains both the visceral hatred  and irredeemable resentment of your colleague Bernie Grant  and the uncommitted  internationalism of self-described black  professionals, whose adamantine smugness achieved what I  would have thought impossible, a fleeting moment of sympathy  in me for Mr Grant when he railed against their selfishness  and lack of concern for the working class. You might also  wish to note Mr Grant’s comments about the House of Commons.

I am undecided as to whether you were disingenuous or naive  in your example of the white man with a Spanish father. It is  true that such a person might have some feelings for his  father’s homeland. However, his potential circumstances are  vastly different from those of the son of a coloured  immigrant, for if he chooses the white man may be accepted  without question by the host people. Do you seriously wish  to maintain that there is no difference in the lots of a  white and a coloured person in this country? If so, why do  you join in with the “anti-racist” shouting?

The most disturbing message of your letter is your rejection  of the right to free expression. Both “You show no appreciation of acceptable terminology or mores” and “I  believe we have a duty to write on subject (sic) we know  about” are attempts to suppress my right to free expression. This is a supremely dangerous thing for once you try to take  away my right you have no moral argument to repel those who  would suppress your right. I suggest that you study the short  essay ‘The fulcrum of freedom’ to see exactly how dangerous  the absence of free expression can be to a society. Free  expression is not merely a civil right designed to improve  the amenity of a man’s life, it is the surest guard against  tyranny. You might also wish to reflect on the fact that you  are willing to sit in the Commons with a colleague who  gloated over the near decapitation of a white policeman by a  black mob which had shed every vestige of civilised  behaviour. I presume Mr Grant’s behaviour after that event  comes within your definition of “acceptable terminology or  mores”.

You, Miss Abbott, have been sold a most monstrous pup by the  white liberal establishment. All your life (or at least your  adult life) you have allowed yourself to believe that the  liberal view of Race was the only reasonable view on Race.  You have luxuriated in the fool’s paradise of believing that  the remarkable international security and stability enjoyed  by Europe since the war – the only circumstances in which  liberals could have held such sway – was the natural order of  things. In fact, it has been an abnormality.

The age of liberal internationalism is drawing to a close,  perhaps in five years, perhaps in ten. Nothing anyone does  will prevent this process. What we do have is the choice  between a benign nationalism and authoritarian government,  probably fascism. If we are to save ourselves from fascism  all races must begin to talk honestly. That is what I am trying to achieve, the honest discussion of Race. (Do not  think, incidentally, that Britain can live in a cocoon  shielded from the racial events on the continent,  particularly in Germany – within ten years Germany will be  displaying all her old racial arrogance. You are, I presume,  aware that de facto black and Asian British citizens already cannot travel freely throughout the EU).

Your friend, Darcus Howe, recently wrote to me offering a  chance to discuss the subject of coloured loyalties. This I  have turned down for the moment because of my health.

However, I may well be cured within the next six to nine  months through a revolutionary treatment. I have written to  Mr Howe suggesting that in the event of my recovery I would  be willing to take part in a programme debating the subject  of black and Asian commitment with one other. I enclose a  copy of my letter to Mr Howe detailing the conditions under  which I would take part. If you are interested, why not  suggest to Mr Howe that you be my protagonist?

You asked me to think about your comments. I would ask you to  do the same with mine. In particular ask yourself whether if  racial shove comes to racial push you can imagine the likes  of Tony Blair risking anything substantial for blacks and  Asians. Remember Blair has overturned one of the main planks  of Labour policy simply to serve his own petty convenience in  the choice of his children’s schools. Do you think such a man  would risk his life for blacks and Asians? He would not even  risk his comfort.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

Referral of Piers Morgan’s perjury to the Leveson Inquiry

Leveson Inquiry

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand

London WC1

22 12  2011

Dear Lord Leveson,

Piers Morgan indubitably lied to the Inquiry (20 December) when he claimed that he had never illicitly received information from the police.   On 25 November I submitted a series of complaints backed by documentation to the Inquiry.  These were definitely received by the Inquiry  because an acknowledgement was sent to me.

My submission included a letter from Piers Morgan to the PCC in which he admitted that the Mirror had received information from the police illicitly. I include  a copy of that letter below with the relevant passage highlighted.  As Morgan refers to it in his letter to the PCC, I also send you a copy of the article I wrote in response to the Mirror story. This  Morgan refused to publish.

Because Morgan gave his evidence to the Inquiry under oath,  he added perjury to his original criminal offence of illicitly receiving information from the Metropolitan Police.  I ask you to take action against Morgan for this perjury and to recall him for questioning about his receipt of illicit information from the Metropolitan Police,  both in terms of that which he admitted to in his  letter to the PCC  and the extent  of the practice generally during his editorship of the News of the World and the Daily Mirror.

In my submission I asked to give evidence in person.  You have failed to answer that request to date.   However, I see from  the Inquiry website that you are seeking, amongst others things, the following for module 2 of  the Inquiry:

“The Inquiry would be interested in the experiences of the victims of crime and the public more generally, who feel that they have been adversely affected (perhaps through a data leak or breach, or through the reporting of a case) by the current relationship between the press and the police, with examples where possible. The Inquiry would also be interested to receive submissions in relation to this issue on whether it is felt that the current investigation and complaint regime are adequate to properly address instances of this type”. http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Key-Questions-Module-2.pdf

The evidence which I have already  given the Inquiry  relating to Piers Morgan and the subsequent failure of  Scotland Yard to meaningfully investigate the crime – the officer responsible Det Supt Jeff Cutis admitted to me that the “investigation”  had been closed without  anyone at the Mirror being questioned – indubitably falls into this category  of information.  This case has the great advantage for you of having objective and categoric proof of both the Mirror’s receipt of illicit information from the Metropolitan Police and the failure of the Metropolitan Police to meaningfully investigate my complaint about the illicit disclosure of information.  The full details of these events  were supplied in my submission of 25 November.

You are asking for applications for Core Participant status for Module 2 of the Inquiry to be made by 13 January.  Please treat this email and my original submission of 25 November as an application for Core Participant Status.

Please acknowledge receipt of this email by return.

Yours sincerely,

Robert Henderson

For the text of Morgan’s letter to the PCC see  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/piers-morgan-lied-to-the-leveson-inquiry/

For the Mirror story see http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-failure-to-charge-piers-morgan-with-illicitly-receiving-information-from-the-police/

For my response to the Mirror story see  http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/moral-simpletons-target-innocent-man/

Emma West, immigration and the Liberal totalitarian state

Emma West of New Addington, London has been arrested and placed in “protective custody” following the publication on YouTube of  a two minute 25 sec  recording labelled by the YouTube poster as “Racist British Woman on the Tram goes CRAZY at Everyone ! (Must watch!)”  You can find the recording at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8IlOBKaeTI.

Here is a partial transcript of  what was said during the recording published in  the Daily Mail  : ‘What has this country come to? A load of black people and a load of ****ing Polish. A load of ****ing, yeah… you’re all ****ing… do you know what I mean?

‘You ain’t English. No, you ain’t English either. You ain’t English. None of you’s ****ing English. Get back to your own ****ing… do you know what sort out your own countries, don’t come and do mine.

‘It’s nothing now. Britain is nothing now. Britain is **** all. My Britain is **** all.

‘Yeah its fine. I have got a little kid here. Have respect? I have a little boy here. **** you. I dare you, I ****ing dare you.

‘Don’t watch my language. Go back to where you come from, go back to ****ing Nicaragua or where ever you come from. Just ****ing go back.

‘I work, I work, I work, this is my British country until we let you lot come over.

‘So what. It is my British country, you ain’t British. Are you British? You ain’t ****ing British. **** off.

‘You ain’t British, you’re black. Where do you come from?

‘No, someone’s got to talk up for these lot. Look the whole ****ing tram, look at them. Who is black and who is white.

‘There is all black and ****ing burnt people.’

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2067557/Youre-British-youre-black-Woman-charged-racially-aggravated-harassment-vile-rant-aboard-tram.html#ixzz1fBE50Xkd)

Her delivery gives her words an articulacy which is not apparent from a transcript.  As you listen to her try not to be  distracted by  the copious swearing because the woman is a white working class Londoner,  or at least part of  what Jerome K Jerome called “greater Cockneydom”,  and the effing and blinding goes with the territory.  She is also speaking  in a very stressful situation and allowance has to be made for that.

She does not come across as  thick.   The  fact that  she has worked as a dental receptionist  suggests that she is at least reasonably bright.  She is also respectably dressed and there is nothing in her appearance to mark her out as being  mentally ill or on the margins of society. Her son  (aged between two and three I would judge)  is smartly dressed and generally  looks well cared for. (Contrary to some press reports, the child looks  unfazed throughout ).   I can see no sign that she was significantly drunk or under the influence of drugs.

The teasing question is why someone like her would  take such a chance,  both from the view of what the police might do in oh so  politically  Britain and the risk to her and her young son of saying such things in a carriage filled with ethnic minorities and white immigrants.  We do not know what happened just before the recording begins. It could be that she was somehow provoked by being in a dispute with someone.  But her  first words in the recording are “’What has this country come to? A load of black people and a load of ****ing Polish” and throughout the recording she seems to be addressing the general point of mass immigration and its consequences rather than having a particular quarrel with one person on the tram.  Perhaps she started sounding off generally  after a specific occurrence, for example,  someone ethnic brushing against her or perhaps  someone foreign making a disparaging remark about Britain or England. It could even have been simply being in an enclosed environment and hearing nothing but foreign voices in her ears.

But if it was any of those things it would only give us the trigger for her behaviour. There would still be the question of why Miss West would express such views.  I suggest it was simply desperation.    She lives her life constantly bombarded by the multicultural propaganda and unlike the white liberal; elite probably encounters circumstances every day in which she finds herself  in the ethnic minority in her own country.   She will feel that her country has been invaded,  whilst at the same time being denied any opportunity to protest  or have any mainstream politician put her point of view.  That type of drip, drip pressure on the most vital thing to any human being – the ethnic nature of your society – can build a rage within a person like no other.

Since the posting of the video on YouTube other recordings of white women on public transport  expressing similar views have appeared, for example,  http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3969559/More-rail-racist-videos-emerge-online.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News.   Miss West is far from being alone.  Interestingly, there are also regular incidents of supposedly politically correct white liberals  being crudely racist (http://www.minorityperspective.co.uk/2011/05/30/black-tv-presenter-called-a-nigger-at-the-baftas/).  It is also a fact that white liberals have an uncanny ability to arrange their lives so that they live in very white, and in England, very English worlds, my favourite example of this being the English folk singer Billy Bragg who is wondrously right-on and lives in  Dorset, arguably the whitest county in England.  The truth is that white liberals are not only  aware of the effects of mass immigration on the white working class, but have inside them exactly the same primal feelings about ethnicity and the invasion of territory that those who openly rail against the effects of mass immigration.

There is a great deal of suppressed anger  amongst native Britons of all classes  about the profound act of treason which is mass immigration.  The liberal elite have suppressed dissent   to the extent that most people have developed the mentality normally associated with  totalitarian states, namely, a belief not that certain  views are morally wrong but, rather,  that  they are not to be spoken because they are dangerous for anyone might be a potential police  informer.  But the resentment is still there and growing.  It will become an unstoppable political energy  if a mainstream political party has the courage to release it by offering the electorate an end to mass immigration and the removal of all the apparatus created by the state which places ethnic and racial minorities in a privileged position and the native population under the ideological hammer.

The retention of Miss West  in “protective” custody  is positively sinister, as is the suggestion Miss West  is mentally ill.   It is reminiscent of the Soviet Union and Communist China still. Both  are indicative of  the fear the British elite have of the truth about immigration being told.  They fear this because  it would  both dismantle the world which they have built (and which has often enough provided them with a very decent income) and the fact that the finger of blame for the treason would be pointed at them.

That the white liberal’s position is purely political and self-serving rather than principled can be seen by the tolerance they extend to racial and ethnic minorities, especially blacks, when they make  nakedly racist comments about whites.  The black Labour MP Diane Abbott was allowed to remain within the Labour Party despite complaining in 1996 about the employment of “Blonde, blue-eyed Finish nurses” instead of black West Indian ones (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20066) , while the great black liberal totem is the unreservedly racist Muhammad Ali (http://livinginamadhouse.wordpress.com/2011/11/09/muhammad-ali-and-the-white-liberals/).  All the white liberal does is defend those of whom they approve.

Her   son  will have been taken into care if there is no relative to look after him. It will be interesting to see  if he is, in effect,  removed from his mother  on the grounds that she holds “racist views”.

The English in North America – Locating the Hidden Diaspora

http://www.northumbria.ac.uk/browse/ne/uninews/searchenglish
Northumbria University

In search of the English

Historians at Northumbria University are embarking on a groundbreaking project to explore why “Englishness” has been overlooked in America, while other ethnic groups are celebrated and well-known.

Englishness as an ethnicity is now being rediscovered and defined in opposition to other competing groups
St George's flag facepaint
The team, led by Professor Don MacRaild, Dr Tanja Bueltmann and Dr David Gleeson, argue that the existence of English cultural communities in North America has been largely ignored by traditional historians who see the English as assimilating into Anglo-American culture without any need to overtly express a separate English ethnicity.
Their initial research has found that from the late eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, North American towns and cities boasted organisations such as the Sons of St George, where traditional English food and folk culture were maintained. The evidence suggests that the English were distinctly aware of being an ethnic group within the emerging settlements at the time, exhibiting and maintaining their ethnicity in similar ways to the Irish, Scottish and German colonists. Yet this does not appear to be recognised in history.
The three-year project entitled ‘Locating the Hidden Diaspora: The English in North America in Transatlantic Perspective, 1760-1950’, has received £286,000 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). It aims to take a fresh look at English ethnicity using thousands of untapped sources, including manuscripts and newspaper articles from this period. The team believes that their research will have wider reaching implications in shedding light on current debates in UK identity politics and Englishness.
Professor MacRaild said: “It struck us as highly surprising that, though the English in North America formed an array of ethnic clubs and societies, such as the St George’s Society, no one has shown much interest in these associations, their activities and English cultural legacies.
“The English were one of the largest European groups of immigrants in the US yet, while they settled alongside the other migrants who powerfully exerted ethnic awareness, the English are not ascribed the attributes of ethnicity associated with other immigrants.
“The Irish, Scots, Germans, and many other European ethnic groups have been subjected to dozens if not hundreds of studies, but not so the English. The standard historian’s answer has been that the English assimilated more easily to Anglo-American culture so removing the need for ethnic expression. However, far from being an invisible group within a world of noticeably ethnicised European immigrants, the English consciously ethnicised themselves in an active way. ”
Evident expressions of Englishness are found in English immigrants to America celebrating St George’s Day, toasting Queen Victoria, marking Shakespeare’s birthday, and Morris dancing. Benevolence was also of great importance, with many English associations being involved in providing charity – from meal tickets to ‘Christmas cheer’ – towards English immigrants experiencing hardships.
The team believe that Englishness has been overlooked by historians because, as the founding colonists, the English were the benchmark against which all other ethnic groups measured themselves.
Ironically, England’s relatively recent decline in global influence and the cultural changes produced by mass immigration and regional devolution has sparked increasing attempts to rediscover and define Englishness – seen in calls to celebrate St George’s Day as a national holiday and the rise in the English Defence League (EDL).
“At present,” Professor MacRaild argues, “Englishness in England is bedevilled with fears about right-wing extremists, football hooligans, and the uses and abuses of the now prevalent St George’s flag. We hope a project which will demonstrate the vibrancy of Englishness beyond England’s shores will contribute to debates about how Englishness fits into today’s multi-ethnic and increasingly federal political culture.”
Dr Tanja Bueltmann, an expert in the history of ethnic associations in the Scottish and English diasporas, added: “The growing movement for an independent Scotland has raised the issue of “Britishness” and “Englishness” in the wider society and influenced national debate about identity.
“Englishness as an ethnicity is now being rediscovered as a result of a crisis of confidence, partly influenced by the increasing fluidity of national borders and migration. Englishness is again being defined in opposition to other competing groups.”
Dr David Gleeson, historian of nineteenth-century America, said: “The project also has implications for the other side of the Atlantic. Recognising the English as a distinct diaspora gives us a clearer picture of the development of an American identity in that it complicates the idea of a coherent ‘Anglo’ cultural mainstream and indicates the fluid and adaptable nature of what it meant and means to be an American or Canadian.”
The research project will produce books, articles, an exhibition, and a series of public lectures to expatriate community groups throughout North America. The team will also work with local folk groups, including the Hexham Morris Men, and Folkworks at the Sage, Gateshead, to disseminate their findings to the wider public. International partners also working on the project are based in Guelph and Kansas Universities and from the College of Charleston.
Dr Gleeson added: “Perhaps English-Americans and Canadians will make a ‘Homecoming’, similar to the one organised by the Scottish government in 2009 for those of Scottish background, to re-establish connections with the land of their ancestors.”
Date posted: May 24, 2011

———————————-

Locating the Hidden Diaspora

The English in North America in Transatlantic Perspective, 1760-1950
Starting in 2011, the project will be funded by the AHRC for three years (Standard Route Research Grant).

Project Context

Emigration from the British Isles became one of Europe’s most significant population movements after 1600. Yet compared to what has been written about the migration of Scots and Irish, relatively little energy has been expended on the numerically more significant English flows. In fact, the Scottish and Irish Diasporas in North America, together with those of the German, Italian, Jewish and Black Diasporas, are well known and studied, but there is virtual silence on the English. Why, then, is there no English Diaspora? Why has little been said about the English other than to map their main emigration flows? Did the English simply disappear into the host population? Or were they so fundamental, and foundational, to the Anglo-phone, Protestant cultures of the evolving British World that they could not be distinguished in the way Catholic Irish or continental Europeans were? Given the recent vogue for these other diasporas, our project seeks to uncover the hidden English Diaspora in North America.

Aims & Objectives

The project’s overall objective is to offer a knowledge-shaping new reading of English ethnicity abroad, particularly in North America, by exploding enduring historical mythologies about the absence of a strong ethnic identity among emigre English between the 17th and 20th centuries. Some of the key issues of concern are:

English ethnic associationism: examining aspects of English clubs, societies and sociability around the Diaspora.

  • English folk traditions in the Diaspora: locating the popular culture of celebrating particular forms of Englishness.
  • English sporting traditions: examining the export around the world of sports from cricket, rugby and association football to Cumberland wrestling.
  • English literary and dramatic cultures: exploring the cultural transfer of key literary figures around the Diaspora.

Project Team

The English Diaspora team is led by Prof Don MacRaild, Dr Tanja Bueltmann and Dr David Gleeson. Researchers associated with the project are Dr James McConnel (History), as well as Dr Monika Smialkowska(English), Visiting Fellow Dr Mike Sutton and Dr Dean Allen (Stellenbosch). Dr Joe Hardwick from History also works on related themes.

You can contact us using our project email address: az.englishdiaspora@northumbria.ac.uk

The right to own and carry weapons in England

The desire to  restrict the possession of weapons has always come from those who wished to not  only monopolise power but to do so on their own terms. When the crossbow was
invented, the medieval nobility attempted to ban it because it reduced the  effectiveness of the armoured and mounted knight. Failing in that, they  attempted to restrict, with some success, its ownership to people they could  control. The Samurai in Japan enforced ruthlessly their rule that only Samurai should  carry swords. When the demobbed conscripts of British Army returned to Britain after  the First World War, the British government passed the first serious laws  regulating gun ownership not because they feared that the British would begin  to murder one another in great numbers but because they feared Red revolution.

As things stand in  Britain, legal gun ownership has become so onerous, that many long-time licence  holders have given up. The effort in obtaining a licence and in maintaining it is  considerable, because of both the draconian storage conditions required by the police
and their eagerness to engineer the revocation and denial of licences. Even if  you legally own a gun, woe betide you if you are spotted openly carrying it in  a public place. Assuming you are not gunned down by over-excited policemen, you will not merely have your licence revoked but probably end up in court as well. As for other  weapons, if the police want to pick you up for possessing an offensive weapon  there is a fair chance they can do so even if you do not mean to carry one.

Forget about knives or coshes, which are complete no, nos, you are conceivably
committing an offence if you have an aerosol of hairspray about your person or
a hammer, for the 1953 Prevention of Crime Act creates a general offence of
possessing an offensive weapon in a public place, an offensive weapon being
anything from a gun to a piece of wood or stone or a kitchen knife which is made,
adapted or intended to cause physical injury to a person.

Is there an historical basis for private weapon ownership in England?

This is an impossible  question to answer categorically. It is undeniably true that weapons were held  widely by private individuals. Feudal military obligation was in fact built on  the private provision not merely of men but of arms and equipment. In late  medieval times statutes were enacted to encourage long bow practice. The Spanish  Armada which attempted to invade England in 1588 was repulsed by a mixed  English fleet of private and Royal ships. Yet although  weapons were commonly held by private individuals for many centuries, the right  of the individual to hold weapons, especially guns, was far from being absolute  or accepted by authority. The Bill of Rights passed after William of Orange
came to the throne in 1689 stated:

By causing  several good subjects, being Protestants, to be disarmed, at the same time when  papists were both armed and employed, contrary to law. (Clause 6 of the Bill of
Rights 1690)

That the subjects  which are Protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their
conditions, and as allowed by law. (Clause 7 of the Bill of Rights 1690)

There are four points  to note. First, Catholics were not thought to have the right to have arms.  Second, the clear implication is that Protestants were to be armed to defend themselves Catholics. Third, the very fact  that such a clause was included means that the right to weapons was not so much  of English life that it was taken for granted. Fourth, it uses the phrase  ”suitable to their conditions”. This must mean that the right to  weapons was limited and not limited merely in the sense that a private  individual might not have a cannon but might have a musket. It is also  illuminating that when the US Bill of Rights was created a century later it  ran:

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of
the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”  (American Constitution Second Amendment)

The American Bill  of Rights was based on firmly on English tradition, the founding fathers of the  USA considering themselves to be preserving English liberty after  it had fallen  into corruption in England. Yet they did not say that a man has the right to bear
and keep arms full stop. They say he has it because of the need to maintain a  militia.

Nonetheless the 1690  Bill of Rights does grant a right to bear arms of some sort. Leaving aside the  question of what arms are permitted, does the Bill of Rights have any force
today? The problem for those who would say it has is that the Bill of Rights is  simply an Act of Parliament. It has no special constitutional status, any more  than does any other British law with constitutional implications. As such it is  difficult to see how it can not have been amended by the subsequent passing of  laws restricting the ownership of weapons. It is true that none of those laws  specifically nullifies the Bill of Rights, but it is a long established practice in English law that the passing of a new Act which contradicts a
previous law is treated as automatically nullifying the earlier law (the concept of implied repeal).  Whether  this practice is entirely sound in law is perhaps debatable, but I cannot
imagine any English court overturning the de facto principle retrospectively simply
because of the immense implications of doing so.

It is also argued  by some people that a Common Law right to bear and own weapons exists because  in the past men were permitted to own and bear arms and a Common Law right developed  accordingly. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. A Common Law right can
be removed by statute and indeed the vast majority of our law today is Statute law.  Our present gun laws are all statute based.

What the position should be in a free society

In my perfect world  a man would be able to purchase a gun and ammunition in England as easily as he  might buy a pound of potatoes. Similarly, a man should be able to carry any
other weapon or implement he chooses. He should have the right to keep and carry weapons not merely for self-defence, but because otherwise arms are left in the  hands of governments and criminals and denied to the ordinarily law-abiding  citizen. Not only should a man be able to own a gun (or any other weapon) he should be able to do so without accounting for it to the police. What, you say, anyone  able to own a gun and no licences to boot? Would not that result in Britain  being turned into the Wild West? The answer is no. Consider this, at present  there are plenty of guns in private hands in Britain, whether held illegally or  legally, yet gun crime remains  rare  in – 39 in England and Wales in 2009 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/21/murders-drop-home-office-figures).  Much more of a problem were knife and other sharp instrument (for example, broken bottle) murders which totalled 255 for the same year.

Even if all guns  were made illegal, there would still be a large and by all accounts increasing  number of illegally held guns in private hands. Now comes the clincher. The
vast majority of gun crime is committed with illegally held guns. In other words
the present wearisome system of licensing and the penal conditions of security under
which guns must be stored on private premises have next to no effect on solving
gun crime.

If guns were  allowed to everyone without restriction, the situation would be essentially the
same as it is today. Gun crime would be committed with weapons which were registered. But would not more guns mean more gun crime? That presumes there  would be a massive increase in gun ownership. This is far from being certain. Before  serious legal restrictions on gun ownership in Britain were enacted, gun ownership  was not the norm. Nor does the ownership of a gun mean the owner will habitually  carry it any more than the near universal ownership of lethal knives has meant  that most people carry such knives. It is also worth reflecting on the fact  that even criminals in Britain rarely use guns, despite their widespread  availability in our larger cities. If criminals do not routinely use them to  kill and wound, why should we believe the law abiding citizen will?

Generally, it  does not matter if people are not policed because, Man being a social animal, will  not normally act in a fatally harmful way to others. Moreover, in a very law  abiding society such as ours, there is less chance of seriously socially  disruptive behaviour than in most, perhaps all, other societies. The English have  a remarkably low murder rate generally (about 800 a year in a population of 60  million) and always have done. Some  years ago, the Canadian  criminologist Elliott Leyton published a study of murder in England entitled Men  of Blood. This analysed English murders from mediaeval times to the present. Leyton  found that the murder rate at any time was abnormally low. The paucity of English  murder is not the result of a careful control of weapons through the ages, especially  guns, for as mentioned above for much of our history weapons were available. The only rational explanation for it is that there is something in the English
character and society, that has made extreme personal violence rare. If any people
can be trusted to own weapons the English can.

That guns do not  equal mass homicide can also be seen from the example of Canada where seven  million guns are owned legally in a population of 30 million. They have a   higher rate of gun killing than England, but it is still very low. Switzerland  with its citizen army with all males of military age having a gun at home is  another example of widespread ownership with a low gun crime rate. If you want a  lethal weapon you can always get one quite legitimately because there are so  many things which will do. The Government bans commando style knives? No  problem, you just go to your local hardware store and buy a decent 6″ blade  cook’s knife. Or why not make yourself an old-fashioned cheese cutter out of  cheesewire with a couple of pieces of wood to act as grips and Bob’s your uncle  once you have the wire wound around someone’s neck. The state trying to outlaw lethal   weapons is like the state trying to outlaw pornography in the age of the  internet.

What to do if you become involved with the criminal law

Robert Henderson (30 March 2011)

Contents

Paras

1-2        What this guide is for

3-8        General tactics

9-13      Choosing a lawyer

14-22   The Arrest

23         Your mental state if under arrest or seemingly under arrest

24-29  How you will be treated after arrest

30-32  How to behave after arrest

33-35  Stop and Search

36-38  Searches with warrants

39-41  Searches without warrants

49-51  The caution

52-58  What to do when cautioned

45-51  The right to silence

59-65  Interrogation

66        The planting of evidence

67         If you are charged

68-71   Detention

72-74  The police

75-78  The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

79-81   The government law officers

82-86   What to do if you get to court

87-89   Should you go into the witness box?

90-98   Expert witnesses

99-100 Other paths to explore

101-102 Formal police caution or court?

103-105 When should you plead guilty?

What this guide is for

1. Over the past twenty-five years fundamental safeguards have been removed or are in danger of being removed from our legal system through measures such as the Serious Crime and Disorder Act, various anti-terrorism laws, the retention of the fingerprints and DNA of those not found guilty of a crime and the breach of the convention that no one is placed in “double jeopardy” by being tried twice for the same offence. At the same time, the whole thrust of government policy and behaviour is ever more authoritarian, vide the neutering of Parliament, the series of gratuitous and aggressive wars and the increasingly intolerant treatment of protestors. In such circumstances the chances of becoming involved with the criminal law are increasing even for the law abiding. That being so it pays to be prepared to deal with the police, lawyers and the courts.  This what the guide is designed to do.

2. The guide does not tell you what the law is with regard to a particular crime. Rather, it tells the reader what to expect from the police, lawyers and courts, what can and cannot be legally done by the police and associated agencies such as the security services and how you can best defend yourself whilst keeping within the law.  The law most useful to know in this context is that related to these Acts:

Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984

Public Order Act 1986

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act

Terrorism Act 2000

Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005

The full text of these acts can be found http://www.legislation.gov.uk/

General Tactics

3. Your general tactics should be three. First, give the authorities particularly the police) as little cooperation as possible within the law, whilst remaining formally polite and reasonable. Second, lay down markers all the way along the line if official misconduct occurs. This covers everything from complaints by you about the failure to observe legal procedures, such as advising a suspect that he is under arrest, to complaints about physical violence. Such markers will provide you with powerful weapons to dissuade the police and the Crown Prosecution Service from mounting a prosecution against you (from embarrassment if nothing else), provide you at your trial with ammunition to taint the prosecution evidence and conceivably give grounds for appeal.  Third, ensure that those in authority know that you will fight to the limit any attempt to prosecute. Such behaviour will both give the police or the prosecuting authority (The Crown Prosecution Service) little to go on and be quietly intimidating to both.

4. Whenever you are abused, whenever you feel that your legal rights have not been observed, whenever you believe that police procedures have not been followed, do the following: (1) make it clear immediately to the nearest police officer that you will be making a formal complaint and (2) make a written note, as soon as possible, of what has happened and sign and date that note. If you have a solicitor, pass the note to them as soon as you physically can so that he or she may certify the date that they received it. Ensure that a copy of your notes exists.

5. If you have a means of recording conversations, use this to record any conversations relating to you by police officers after you are arrested. These may be conversations in which you are a participant or conversations about you but not involving you, by police officers. Make it clear on the recording who you are, when and where the recording was made and the people recorded. Hand this recording to your solicitor as soon as possible. Ensure a copy of any recordings is made. Nothing but nothing is as effective a check on official misbehaviour as their knowledge that they are being recorded.

6. If you have one on you, use your mobile phone to tell others about your arrest if you can. If you have the means of connecting to the Internet put out details of your plight through the Internet.

7. If the police stops you from doing (6) and (7), ask the reason why, the rank of the officer and the name of the officer. Make a written note of it as soon as you can. Include the time the refusal was made, where it was made, the time and date of when the note was made and your signature. 

8. If you threaten to make a complaint, always do so. Never cry wolf.

Choosing a lawyer

9. You will need a solicitor experienced in criminal law. Solicitors often appear in the magistrates courts, although they may also instruct a barrister to act for you. The solicitor will normally instruct a barrister if you get as far as the higher court. Specially licensed solicitors can also appear in the place of barristers in the higher courts(Crown Court, High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court), but I would not recommend trusting your fortunes to one, especially if it is a very serious charge. 

10. If a barrister is instructed, make sure that he is experienced in the area of criminal law with which you are involved. Make certain that the person who turns up to represent you if you are taken to a police station is a qualified solicitor and not a legal executive. Refuse to say anything if a solicitor is not available.  

11. Wherever possible give your instructions to your solicitor and barrister in writing. Keep a copy. This will prevent them going their own sweet way. Barristers in particular always believe that they know best and often disregard or bend their clients’ instructions out of all recognition.

12. Written instructions can be useful if your lawyers let you down. If you feel your solicitor or barrister is incompetent or dishonest, you can sue them and/or make a complaint to their governing bodies, the Law Society (solicitors) and Bar Council (Barristers).  Moreover, if your barrister or solicitor does not follow your instructions, that could be grounds for appeal under the more liberal appeal rules which now apply.  Written instructions are also useful if you want to dismiss your barrister during a trial. The court will look on your request more kindly if you can show that your instructions have not been carried out. They could also provide grounds for an appeal or retrial.

13. The quality of lawyers you will get is largely governed by the amount of money you have. If you are on legal aid, you will probably have to take what you are given by way of a barrister. Your choice of solicitor will also be restricted to those willing to take legal aid work. The already unfair situation is about to become worse.  New rules governing legal aid are shortly to come into force. These will restrict legal aid to lawyers licensed by the government. This will greatly reduce the number of solicitors available for criminal work  and in many parts of the country it will be difficult to find a lawyer able and willing to take a case. In addition, legal Aid is no longer automatically available for criminal cases (since 2010) and you may have to pay all or part of the defence costs (http://www.legalservices.gov.uk/criminal/criminal_legal_aid_eligibility.asp). However, if you are arrested you will get free legal advice at a police station.  If you are charged with a really serious offence, you should end up with competent lawyers and most probably get your full costs met from public funds.  

The Arrest

14. An arrest can be made with or without a warrant being issued. Until the Serious and Organised Crime Act 2005 (SOCA) there were significant restrictions on the power of arrest without a warrant, most notably the restriction of an automatic right arrest to  an arrestable offence. An arrestable offence was any offence which has a fixed mandatory penalty (e.g.  murder) or which carries a sentence of at least five years’ imprisonment. Inciting, attempting, or conspiring to commit, or being an accessory to, an arrestable offence was also an arrestable offence.  There were also a few other offences, such as taking and driving, which are arrestable offences even though they carry a sentence of less than five years.

 15. Prior to SOCA a police officer could also make an arrest for a non-arrestable offence if he reasonably suspected that a non-arrestable offence has been or is being committed and (1) he thought that  “a general arrest condition” is satisfied (for example, he reasonably believed that an arrest was necessary to prevent a suspect causing injury) or (2) he had the statutory power to  make the arrest (for example, for drunken driving) or the common-law power to arrest (e.g. for a breach of the peace).  SOCA has made the power of arrest so broad that it in practice an arrest can be made for any suspected offence. Here is the relevant section from the Act:

(1)For section 24 of PACE (arrest without warrant for arrestable offences) substitute—

24 Arrest without warrant: constables

(1)A constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is about to commit an offence;

(b)anyone who is in the act of committing an offence;

(c)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be about to commit an offence;

(d)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an offence.

(2)If a constable has reasonable grounds for suspecting that an offence has been committed, he may arrest without a warrant anyone whom he has reasonable grounds to suspect of being guilty of it.

(3)If an offence has been committed, a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is guilty of the offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.

(4)But the power of summary arrest conferred by subsection (1), (2) or (3) is exercisable only if the constable has reasonable grounds for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in subsection (5) it is necessary to arrest the person in question.

(5)The reasons are—

 (a)to enable the name of the person in question to be ascertained (in the case where the constable does not know, and cannot readily ascertain, the person’s name, or has reasonable grounds for doubting whether a name given by the person as his name is his real name);

 (b)correspondingly as regards the person’s address;

 (c)to prevent the person in question—

 (i)causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

 (ii)suffering physical injury;

 (iii)causing loss of or damage to property;

 (iv)committing an offence against public decency (subject to subsection (6)); or

 (v)causing an unlawful obstruction of the highway;

 (d)to protect a child or other vulnerable person from the person in question;

 (e)to allow the prompt and effective investigation of the offence or of the conduct of the person in question;

 (f)to prevent any prosecution for the offence from being hindered by the disappearance of the person in question.

 (6)Subsection (5)(c)(iv) applies only where members of the public going about their normal business cannot reasonably be expected to avoid the person in question. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/part/3/crossheading/powers-of-arrest)

 16. There is one great exception to this arrest regime.  The Terrorism Act 2000 (sections 40-43 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/40) allows an arrest without reasonable suspicion for any suspected breach of the Act. In all other circumstances to make an arrest without a warrant the arresting officer must have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been  committed, is being committed or is about to be committed. Offences include not leaving a designated area when ordered to do so or holding a demonstration without a licence in a designated area – an area designated by the government  (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/section/128)

If an officer cannot show that he had such reasonable suspicion, he has prima facie wrongfully arrested and falsely imprisoned. The officer might also be guilty of an assault if force was used.

17. In principle anyone may make an arrest, the popularly called “citizen’s arrest”. Such arrests are in practice fraught with difficulty for the arrester, because of the potential for disputes over the circumstances of the arrest and what constitutes reasonable force. Someone effecting what they thought to be a “citizen’s arrest” might well end up on charges of assault, the use of an offensive weapon and false imprisonment.  If you wish to chance your arm here are the situations which justify such an arrest:

24 Arrest without warrant: other persons

(1)A person other than a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is in the act of committing an indictable offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be committing an indictable offence.

(2)Where an indictable offence has been committed, a person other than a constable may arrest without a warrant—

(a)anyone who is guilty of the offence;

(b)anyone whom he has reasonable grounds for suspecting to be guilty of it.

(3)But the power of summary arrest conferred by subsection (1) or (2) is exercisable only if—

(a)the person making the arrest has reasonable grounds for believing that for any of the reasons mentioned in subsection (4) it is necessary to arrest the person in question; and

(b)it appears to the person making the arrest that it is not reasonably practicable for a constable to make it instead.

(4)The reasons are to prevent the person in question—

(a)causing physical injury to himself or any other person;

(b)suffering physical injury;

(c)causing loss of or damage to property; or

(d)making off before a constable can assume responsibility for him.”

(http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/part/3/crossheading/powers-of-arrest)

18. For most practical purposes only the various police forces and Customs and Excise (now amalgamated with the Inland Revenue as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs) have an exercisable power of arrest. Members of the security forces (M15 and M16) have no powers of arrest beyond those of the ordinary citizen. However, a “citizen’s arrest” by the security services would almost certainly carry fewer dangers for the arrester than it would for the ordinary citizen. This is because the state authorities will generally protect the arrester through their de facto control of prosecutions. (Politicians and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) will deny vehemently that such control is exercised. The facts are heavily against them.  Our justice system is controlled by law officers who are part of the government. The DPP is appointed by the government. One of the reasons the DPP may give for a failure to prosecute is that “prosecution is not in the public interest,” which can easily cover security service illegality. It is also doubtful whether any security officer, that is, an officer formally employed by the security services, has ever been prosecuted for offences committed during the course of his or her work.)  It should be borne in mind that Special Branch – which is often mistakenly thought of as part of the security forces – is part of the Police and its members consequently can effect an arrest as easily and safely as any other police officer.

19. If a warrant is sought for someone’s arrest, the officer applying to the magistrate (or judge) must satisfy the granting authority that there are sufficient grounds for an arrest, that is, there are grounds for a reasonable suspicion that an offence has been committed.

20. When making an arrest with a warrant the arresting officer must show the person arrested the warrant, but he need not do so at the time of the arrest. Always attempt to obtain a copy of the warrant, the name of the person who has granted it and the reasons given by the applying officer for its granting. If possible ask to photostat or photograph the warrant.  If this is not possible, ask for time to make notes about the detail of the warrant. If this is denied, note the officer who denies the request and the words in which the denial is given. Make a written note as soon as possible. Ask the person(s) engaged in the denial to sign the note you have made certifying it to be a true record.  As soon as possible either you or your solicitor should write to the magistrates (or judge) who granted the warrant asking them to confirm the reasons for granting the warrant. If necessary, call the magistrate (or judge) to your trial to justify the granting of a warrant.

21. When an arrest is made, the officer must tell the suspect why he or she is being arrested and give the grounds for the  arrest. The officer will probably do the former but may well  omit to do the latter. If you are arrested, and the officer  fails to give the grounds for your arrest, always ask  immediately what his reasonable grounds are and the crime of  which he suspects you. Note any failure to give the grounds. Never resist arrest. That in itself constitutes a criminal offence if the arrest is deemed legitimate. Moreover, it is very easy to end up on a charge alleging some form of assault.

22. The police’s favourite time to arrest is in the early hours of the morning. They do this because they believe – quite rightly – that the suspect will be at their most susceptible at that time. However, such arrests tend to be for serious crimes and more often than not crimes involving career criminals. Most arrests are made on the spur of the moment.

Your mental state if under arrest or seemingly under arrest

23 The bad news is that you will almost certainly panic if you have no previous experience of such circumstances. That is nothing to be ashamed of, it is just the way human beings are made. The good news is that panic can be controlled. Visualise now the circumstances under which you will be arrested before you are arrested. Do this regularly. When you are arrested, use deep breathing to control the panic, preferably with your eyes closed. It should calm you down. Then cling on tightly to the idea that if you follow my instructions, you have a very good chance of never being convicted of anything provided the evidence against you is not overwhelming.

How will you be treated after arrest?

24. The physical circumstances you will experience after arrest will vary greatly. At the police station, you will probably be held either in an interview room or a cell. The cell experience may be simply a question of being locked in a small room or, particularly in the inner cities, resemble something rather more demonic, with a rich stew of the mentally ill, the drugged and the drunk either in your cell or ensconced nearby. Ignore them as best you can. Even if you have someone seemingly threatening in your cell, it is unlikely they will be violent without provocation.

25. If you are unlucky enough to be remanded in custody, obey the golden rule of giving no provocation. If you do not go looking for trouble there is a fair chance you will not find it. If you are educated, offer your help to other prisoners with letter writing and such forth. Try to get yourself remanded to the hospital wing. If all else fails, ask to be put in solitary confinement for your own safety – you have legal right to this.  Time served in custody counts as time served if you receive a prison sentence.

26. With the restrictions created by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), especially the requirement to record interviews, it is unlikely that you will be physically assaulted by the police. However, it is just possible that you may be. Your chances of being assaulted – other than in a resisted  arrest – are virtually nil if you are a woman, although you might be subjected to some form of indecent assault. If you are old, it is unlikely you will be assaulted.  If you are a middle class man they are small, unless you are extremely provocative or unlucky. If you are working class the odds of assault improve somewhat. If you are a career criminal they go up sharply. You also have to bear in mind the crime which is being investigated. If it is (1) serious, 2) causing public outrage and (3) intrinsically sick making, such as the rape and murder of a young child, your chances of being assaulted to gain a conviction will decidedly improve.

27. If you are physically assaulted your best means of resistance is to go inside yourself mentally. Exclude the outside world, make everything seems far off and unimportant. Remember also that the human body can take an immense amount of physical abuse without you dying or being permanently crippled. If you are young, you are practically indestructible if you  receive a routine beating. Moreover, the type of physical abuse you are likely to be subjected to is unlikely to be more than beating on non-vital parts. If you are attacked and free to move, go down on the floor and roll yourself into the foetal position.  Just try to hang in there. Unless you are arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000,  They can only keep you in custody without charge for 24 hours normally and 36 hours at most unless there are exceptional circumstances. If you are charged, you must go before a magistrate’s court as soon as possible. Make any complaint you have to the court. The Terrorism Act 2000 allows a person to held for 28 days without charge.

28. The police have the right to take from someone under arrest fingerprints, DNA samples  and shoeprints from anyone arrested for a  a recordable offence . This covers the overwhelming majority of arrests – see  http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/recordable_offences.html . At present these details are retained routinely on the police database in England and Wales (only convicted offenders samples are kept in Scotland)  even if no charge is brought or if a charge is brought but the defendant is found not guilty. The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2009 that this was a breach of the Convention on Human Rights and any records held of those not convicted of a crime should be deleted. The UK  Government promised to bring forward a scheme but has not done so to date. (http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snha-04049.pdf).

29. Being arrested is no longer a small matter. The retention of details of an arrest, especially your DNA, on a searchable database means that you are a potential object of suspicion even if you have never been charged with a crime. It would increase your chances of being investigated for other crimes significantly, not least because with a database contained thousands of DNA samples there is a reasonable chance of false positives, that is, another person’s DNA being identified as yours or vice versa. There is also a growing tendency of the police to go after close matches whereby the DNA of a close relative may lead to you being drawn into an investigation. Finally, planting another person’s DNA at a scene is easily done, a fag-end or used tissue will do the trick. 

How to behave after arrest

30. Use a polite but firm manner. Many people imagine that they can gain an advantage by showing the police that they are subordinate, normally by being ingratiating. This is an unqualified mistake.  The police will interpret such behaviour as weakness. On the other side, aggressive or abusive behaviour merely alienates those in authority and those who will judge you, magistrates, judges or juries.  Avoid it.

31. It is important that you maintain a psychological distance between the police and yourself  at all times. You may think that by becoming on ostensibly friendly terms with the police you will get better treatment. The reverse is the case. The police will identify your wanting to be liked as weakness and will use a surface amiability to lull you into a false sense of security. You are then more likely to volunteer information.  This may either be directly incriminating or prompt a line of questioning which either incriminates you or leads to a situation where you have to suddenly refuse to answer. That will not look good in court.

32. If you encounter behaviour from the police which you judge to be unacceptable, for example physical threats or serious verbal abuse, make it clear instantly that you will be making a formal complaint. Having issued the threat, you must always carry it out. Ask to see the most senior officer present to make the complaint. Such complaints can of themselves be useful in discrediting in court police evidence or defusing any suggestion that by keeping quiet you had something to hide. They can also ward off any further attempts at abuse. 

Stop and Search Laws

33. There is no general power of stop and search but there are a number of  laws which allows it in specific circumstances. Most of these can only be exercised where the officer has ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a particular crime has been committed, for example, the power to search a person for illegal drugs under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and the power to search for stolen or prohibited items under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). Two Acts provide for stop and search without reasonable suspicion, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994.

33. Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows a Chief Constable or the Metropolitan Police Commissioner to designate an area as stop and search areas. Within these the police can use stop and search powers without the need for any reasonable suspicion. In the past section 44 has been used within peaceful public protests. At the moment the whole of London is a designated area for stop and search under section 44. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/44)

34. Section 60 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, empowers  a police officer of the rank of inspector or above to issue a written authorisation for additional search powers on the basis of a reasonable belief that incidents involving serious violence may take place or that people are carrying dangerous instruments or offensive weapons in the area without good reason. The powers relate to pedestrians and vehicles in a specified locality, for a specified period, not exceeding 48 hours at a time. (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/33/section/60)

35. Where an authorisation has been issued, any constable in uniform may stop and search any pedestrian or anything carried by the pedestrian, or any vehicle or anyone in it, for offensive weapons and dangerous instruments and may seize any such items which are found. In addition, the police may require you to remove any item which they reasonably believe you are wearing wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing your identity.

Searches with warrants

36. Search warrants are authorised by magistrates or occasionally judges. When the police come knocking on your door you will not have time to scrutinise the document closely but check the warrant for the address and the magistrate or a judge’s signature.  If the first is wrong or the second  missing, point this out to the police and make it clear you consider the warrant to be invalid.  The police may well ignore what you say, but you have laid down a marker for the future. If the warrant was not valid the police will be unable to claim they did not know it was invalid and acted in good faith. If the police do ignore your complaint and search, record or make a written note of their response. If you can make a video or audio recording from the moment you realise what they have come for. If you refuse to let the police in, be prepared for them to make a forced entry. As with the arrest, it is better to allow the police to do what they will then argue the toss afterwards.  

37. If it is  an all premises warrant “no premises which are not specified in it may be entered or searched unless a police officer of at least the rank of inspector has in writing authorised them to be entered.” http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/15/section/113

38. To obtain a warrant for offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, all the applying officer is required to do is show that the person falls within the very broad definitions offered in section 1 of the Act (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/11/section/1)

Searches without warrants

39. Under section 18 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, where a person is under arrest because of a reasonable belief that an offence has been committed, a police officer of the rank of inspector or above may authorise a search of premises which they have reasonable grounds for believing contain evidence of the suspected offence. Such a search should be restricted to looking for such evidence, but in the nature of things if other evidence of unrelated offences is uncovered the police will act on it.

40. A search can also be made of premises without authorisation by an inspector or more senior officer if “the presence of the person at a place (other than a police station) is necessary for the effective investigation of the offence.]” (http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/60/section/180. This would apply if someone is arrested and the arresting officer has reasonable grounds for believing that a search of premises before taking a suspect to a police station will provide evidence of a suspected offence. If such a search is made, the officer conducting the search must advise an inspector or more senior officer of the search at the first opportunity.

41. Whether a search is made with or without a warrant, there is a reasonable chance that the police will leave the place searched in a mess and/or with damage. If this happens, make a complaint at the time, take photographs and follow it up with a formal letter of complaint to the Chief Constable or in London the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Depending on the circumstances, there may be grounds for either criminal charges or civil action against the police.

The caution

42. The present caution is this syntactical abortion:

“You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence”

43. The police, Customs and Excise and certain Inland Revenue officers (Customs and Excise and the Revenue are now amalgamated with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs or HMRC for short) can administer the caution, question under the caution and take statements under the caution.

44. The caution must be administered in accordance with a code of practice issued under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE). It can only be administered where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that a criminal offence has been committed. It must be administered as soon as is practically possible after the officer reaches the conclusion that such reasonable grounds exists. For example, if you are being questioned without caution, the questioning officer cannot continue questioning you without administering the caution if it becomes apparent from your answers that a reasonable ground for suspecting that you have committed an offence exists. An example of when a caution could not be immediately administered would be during an arrest involving violent resistance where the person being arrested was saying things which indicated guilt, for example, “Take your hands off me or I’ll do you like I did X”, X being someone injured in a brawl. 

45. Anything you say after the caution is administered is admissible in evidence unless you can show that the statements were obtained incorrectly.  Anything you say before the caution is given is not normally admissible in evidence. However, there are exceptions where pertinent statements are made in circumstances where the officer cannot  reasonably be  expected  to issue  a  caution.  Such circumstances are most commonly found where a resisted arrest occurs – see above. These statements, even though not after a caution, may or may not be admitted in evidence depending on the court’s judgement of the circumstances. However, in any circumstances, the officer must, as previously mentioned, administer the caution at the earliest possible opportunity.  It is unlikely but not impossible, that words uttered before the caution was given to a person peaceably under arrest would be admitted as evidence. However, bear in mind that statements you make to anyone else other than the police could be given in evidence. For example, if you are on remand, a cell mate might decide to give evidence against you based on conversations you have had.

46. When the caution is given, the officer must make clear whether or not the person to whom it was administered is under arrest. If he is not under arrest, the officer must make it clear that the person is free to go about his business. In any circumstances, the officer administering the caution must remind the suspect of his right to legal representation.

47. The officer administering the caution must note the fact in his notebook or interview record as appropriate.

48. After a caution has been administered, an officer continuing an interrogation after an interval or an officer beginning a new interrogation must remind a previously cautioned suspect that he or she is still under caution.

What to do when cautioned

49. If the officer giving the caution states that you are not under arrest you may leave immediately. Do so after asking what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting that you have committed a crime.  Say nothing in response to any further questions.

50. If the officer fails to advise you whether or not you are under arrest, ask whether you are under arrest. If you are not, make a note of the officer’s name and the failure to advise you of your arrestable status. Then ask what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting you of a crime. Then leave without saying anything further. The police cannot detain

51. If you are under arrest, try to obtain the officer’s identification whether it be a name, number or office or station from which he or she works. Make a formal complaint about any failure to advise you whether you are under arrest.  This is important because it may give grounds for invalidating the caution and thus affect the admissibility of evidence, in this cased your failure to respond. Ask what his reasonable grounds are for suspecting that you have committed a criminal offence.

 The Right to Silence

52. Contrary to popular opinion, the Right to Silence has not been abolished. All the present caution does is provide an opportunity for the court to draw to the attention of the jury (or magistrates), the fact that the accused refused or failed to give information, at some pre-trial moment, on which they base their defence partly or wholly. The change in the rules has not resulted in a significant change in the general conviction rate which suggests that it makes little if any difference. 

 53. If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone cautioned, arrested or charged with an offence it would be this: “Say absolutely nothing”.  That advice would apply whether or not the person had a solicitor in attendance during police questioning. Those who doubt that it is good advice should ask themselves two questions: (1) why do smart career criminals do it as a matter of course? and (2) why did the  last government circumscribe the right to silence? The answer is that it is generally the most successful tactic in both avoiding prosecution and if brought to court, conviction.  Always go with the professionals – in this case smart career criminals – is a good piece of advice in any circumstances.

54. The reason for the tactic’s success is that many criminal prosecutions involve some self-incrimination from the accused. This does not necessarily mean that the accused has admitted to anything which directly implicates them in a crime. It may often simply mean that they have told a lie which is discovered or have inadvertently contradicted themselves when speaking of circumstances not directly linked to a crime. The trouble with that is that it casts doubt about their general truthfulness, which is an important consideration, particularly in a jury trial.

55. Information given in writing is a different matter. A letter to the police is obviously controlled by the writer. A formal statement is also controlled by the suspect. The police will almost always try to write statements for you. They will say it will be better because they know what the courts want. Resist these blandishments. Always write your own statement.

56. But written information should only be given where there is (1) a pressing reason such as the provision of an alibi and (2) where you are absolutely certain that the story you tell is not merely true but the whole truth. Where possible avoid giving any written information.

 57. If you do refuse to answer questions, one question only needs to be addressed by the jury or magistrate:  was it reasonable for the accused not to have given information at an earlier time. Obviously there are particular reasons for a failure or refusal particular to a case, such as the information not having been available to the accused at an earlier time.  However, there are also general reasons.

 58. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak without a legal advisor being present. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if recording facilities were unavailable. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you had just been arrested in an unexpected and/or violent manner. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you had been abused by the police. It would be reasonable for you to refuse to speak if you believed that police procedures had not been observed. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you feel ill. It would be reasonable to refuse to speak if you have been kept in circumstances in which you might reasonably be judged to be exhausted.  It is always reasonable to refuse to speak if your legal adviser tells you not to. 

 Interrogation

 59. The good old bad old days when people could be simply “verballed” by the police into prison or onto the gallows are happily gone, although many an old copper doubtless still sheds a tear for their passing and old, unreconstructed members of  the Met’s Sweeney doubtless moisten their pillows nightly.  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 changed all that. The onus is now on the police to video record – interviews wherever possible. The police must show that recording was not possible. 

60.  Once you have been cautioned, a simple statement that you do not wish to say anything should be enough to prevent further questioning. However, the police will most likely keep pressing you to say something. The best tactic is simply to refuse to say anything. 

61. If you do decide to be interviewed, insist that your legal representative is present. Insist also that the interview is videoed. Insist further that a copy of the tape is given to the legal representative immediately the interview is completed. Get your legal representative to record the interview. Apart from obvious reason of ensuring the police do not doctor the interviews, such behaviour will be intimidating for the police.

62. Once the interview begins, refuse to answer any questions until the interviewing officer has answered some questions of your own. Ask first, do you have reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have committed an offence? If he answers no, get up and walk out. The police have no right to detain you and you have a prima facie case of wrongful arrest and false imprisonment. If the officer answers yes, ask: what are your reasonable grounds for suspecting that I have committed an offence? Let your legal representative judge whether the answer he gives meets the criteria for arrest. If it does not, seek to leave immediately. If prevented, do not answer any questions.

63. Doing interrogation, the police must make it clear within the recorded and written records when breaks are taken. Do not relax your guard if a break is taken. Reasonable refreshment must be provided to the suspect. The suspect must be given reasonable opportunity for rest. Bullying, in the form of a question being frequently repeated might well disqualify the interview from being admitted in evidence.

64. The police may still try to play their age old tricks on you – “tough cop, soft cop”, “You play ball with us son, and we’ll make sure the judge goes easy on you”, “Your mate’s coughed” etc. (Yes, policemen do actually speak like this. I blame this on them watching too many TV police series).  Do not believe a word they say. The police have no interest in  you beyond obtaining a conviction. They will lie to their hearts content in pursuit of that end.

65. If you are unlucky enough to be the subject of physical violence in an attempt to obtain a confession, what should you do? Resist signing if  you can. If you cannot, I suggest that you pretend to agree to sign a statement, but then write on it “I have been physically abused in an attempt to get me to sign this statement.” Then initial your words. Remember, initial not sign. Your action will present the police with a straight choice: do they leave the document intact (in which case it is evidence of sundry criminal behaviour on their part) or do they destroy it and commit the criminal act of perverting the course of justice? Alternatively, sign your name in a way it would not normally be signed. If your normal signature is John Smith, sign J.Smith. If you are right handed, sign left handed. This abnormal behaviour would provide evidence that you signed under duress.

The planting of evidence

66. Although “verballing”,is now a largely past black art, the police can still plant evidence. This can be extremely difficult to disprove. The main means of disproving it are circumstantial. If, for example, you have no history of drug abuse, it might seem implausible to a jury if the police claim that they have found a gramme of heroin in your possession. In your favour is the fact that modern juries are far less trusting of the police than they were even twenty years ago.

If you are charged

67. Being charged does not necessarily mean that you will be prosecuted. However it is a formal accusation of a crime. It indicates that the police (or other authority such as the Customs and Excise branch of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs)think that there is evidence which may lead to a prosecution. The charge should be entered in the charge sheet at the relevant station and a copy should be supplied to the accused.

Detention

68. You may be detained by an authorised officer, normally the police, only after arrest, You may be detained without charge. However, such detention may only occur when it is necessary to secure or preserve evidence or to obtain it by questioning. If detained without charge, always ask the detaining officer for justification of your detention.  Normally such detention should cease after 24 hours unless it is in connection with a serious charge such as rape, kidnapping, causing death by dangerous driving etc. Then a superintendent or more senior officer – chief superintendent, assistant chief constable, deputy chief constable and chief constable in all cases except the Metropolitan Police – may authorise an extension to 36 hours. Magistrate’s courts may authorise a extension of detention without charge for a further 36 hours. With exception of those held under terrorist laws who made be held for 28 days, a suspect held without charge may thus be kept for 72 hours at most.

69. If a suspect is charged with an offence, he or she must be granted police bail or brought before a court as soon as is reasonable. If the delay in bringing a suspect before court seems unreasonable, a writ of habeas corpus may be sought by the person detained. This will force the police to bring you before a court.

70. An arrested person held in custody may have one person told of this, although if a serious offence is concerned and a senior police officer reasonably believes that this would interfere with an investigation, this advice to the person can be delayed for up to 36 hours. If you are refused a chance to tell one person that you have been arrested, ask for the reason, the name of the person making the decision and the name and rank of the person making the decision.

The police

71. The police do not decide whether a prosecution is to be undertaken. Their responsibility is to gather evidence and then  prepare the evidence (with a covering submission) for forwarding to the Crown Prosecution Service.

72. The police may seek the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service at any point in an investigation, whether or not charges have been brought.

73. Many policemen are neither very bright nor well-educated. The minimum educational qualifications for most forces are still dire: 4 GCSE’s is par for the course. This means that they are not too hot on the paperwork side, either in its actual preparation or in their desire to undertake it. This natural reluctance has been built on in recent years by an immense increase in the paperwork required for a submission to the Crown Prosecution Service. Thus it is in your interest to make a case as unattractive to them as possible. Keeping silent does this. Occasionally, it may be expedient to flood the police with entirely legitimate paperwork, for example in the case of company fraud.

74. Bear in mind that policemen are only too human. If they make a serious mistake, they will wish to cover it up even if it means killing a strong case against a subject. It is in your interest to see they make mistakes if you possibly can.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)

75. The CPS is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The DPP is appointed by the government. The present DPP is Keir Starmer QC who was appointed in 2008. The DPP reports to the attorney-general, who is a member of the Government.

76. The CPS is the public body which determines whether most criminal prosecutions are to be brought – the DPP has the formal responsibility for these decisions.

77. At the decision making level, the CPS is staffed by qualified lawyers. Apart from the most senior, these tend to come in two sizes: the young and inexperienced and the older and incompetent. This is because it is rare for competent, experienced lawyer to work for the CPS as a case worker because(1) they can earn far  more in private practice and (2) he is not his own master.

78. The incompetence of the CPS lawyers can be exploited. As with the police, they do not like either difficult or complicated cases. The action you take to dissuade police officers from submitting a case to the CPS will also work at the level of the CPS lawyer. In addition, as with policemen, bear in mind that CPS lawyers are human. If they make a serious mistake, they will also wish to cover it up even if it means illegally dropping a strong case.

The government law officers

79. These are the Justice Secretary/Lord Chancellor (the two offices are held by the same person), the attorney general and the solicitor general. They are all politicians of the ruling party. The formal position is that they act only as impartial law officers when concerned with legal matters. This is of course utter tosh. Their existence is the main means by which government of the day manipulates the justice system.

80. The few criminal prosecutions not left to the DPP to decide are matters such as treason, offences under the Corruption Acts and offences under the Race Relations Act. The decision on such prosecutions is made by a member of the government, the Attorney-General, the second most senior political law officer after the Lord Chancellor. In the Attorney-General’s absence, the decision is made by the Solicitor-General, the third most senior law officer.

81. The Attorney-General (or the Solicitor-General) also has the right to intervene in criminal prosecutions. He or she may enter a plea of nolle prosequi (Latin: to be unwilling to prosecute) to terminate criminal proceedings. In the case of criminal proceedings on indictment, that is those tried by jury and thus generally the most serious, the proceedings are automatically ended. In the case of summary proceedings –  those in magistrate’s courts – the leave of the court is required. This leave would normally be automatic. Pleas of nolle  prosequi  are  not appealable.  Nor does the attorney-general (or the solicitor-general) have to give a reason for their plea, although normally a reason will be given such as “not in the public interest” or “unfit to plead”.

What to do if you get to court

82. Tempting as it may be to represent yourself, there is a good deal of truth in the adage that a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.

83. Most people have little experience in speaking in public. That alone will make them very nervous. The court atmosphere will be intimidating even if the court is a modern one. Then there is the problem of court procedure which the novice will find bewildering. Above all, there will be the need to question witnesses. This might seem simple but it is not. The average person will not be able to keep the flow of questioning going or construct sequences of questions which logically build up to a “killer” question. The average person will also put questions to witnesses which are irrelevant or inadmissible (which tries the patience of the court), questions which allow the witness to embroider their reply (which slow proceedings and may influence the jury in ways you do not want) and questions to which no certain answer can be expected. Good barristers ask only questions to which they know the reply, which is ideally yes or no.

84. However, having said all that there are cases where it may be necessary to defend yourself. This is where you cannot reasonably have any confidence in any barrister (or these days, solicitor) presenting your defence, honestly, ably or energetically in court. Such cases are very rare and are likely to arise only where the charge being answered is essentially political. Charges under Section 70 of the Race Relations Act might fall into this category.

85. The only other occasion when you should consider presenting your  own case is when you come to the conclusion during your trial that your counsel is making such a hash of your defence that to take it over yourself could not make matters worse.

86. If you do end up defending yourself, you may make use of advice in court from someone who is not your appointed counsel (a Mckenzie’s Friend – http://www.mckenzie-friends.co.uk/), for example a friend with some legal knowledge such as a solicitor’s clerk. However, the person does not need any legal knowledge. The judge should also extend a good deal of latitude to you when it comes to questioning of witnesses. He may even question witnesses on your behalf if he feels that you are failing to do the job adequately.

Should you go into the witness box?

87. Generally I would say no for the same reasons that I hold to the belief that keeping silent is on balance the best tactic. Give the court as little to go on as possible. It also hamstrings the judge, for “summing ups” frequently revolve around evidence given by the accused in the box. Such advantages will more than counterbalance any disadvantage you may incur by the magistrate or jury questioning why you have not taken the stand. But there are other reasons as well.

88. If you go into the witness box you will probably be very nervous. Prosecuting counsel will hold all the cards. He determines what questions will be put. You will be restricted more often than not to yes or no answers. Even if you are completely innocent, you may well come out of the box seeming dishonest. Moreover, if you do not go into the box, the jury or magistrate do not get a glimpse of your personality. They have to go entirely on the facts of the case. That is generally an advantage, particularly where a jury is concerned, because most people who give evidence come across as either frightened (which tends to make the jury despise them) or bombastic (which makes the jury dislike them.

89. The one occasion you probably should go into the witness box is if you are engaged in a political trial for that will give you the chance to expose the nature of the charge against you.

Expert witnesses

90. If you want an “expert” opinion to support your case you can usually find one. Moreover, certain types of evidence are either intellectually worthless or so questionable that they should, rationally, immediately create a “reasonable doubt”, the evidential test for a criminal conviction. It is up to you and your lawyers to make sure the questionable nature of the evidence is brought out emphatically during your trial. Even the most famous of forensic evidence, fingerprints, are not as secure a piece of evidence as the courts make out. A few years ago an historian of science, Simon Cole, published Suspect Identities:  a history of fingerprinting and criminal identification (Harvard University Press) which demolishes their infallibility and attacks the science which underlies fingerprint evidence.

 91. Such things as handwriting comparisons and voice prints are inconclusive – try getting a so-called handwriting expert to identify correctly fifty pieces of handwriting when he does not know how many were written by the same person. If you are faced with such an expert, get your counsel to set him such a test. If an audio recording is produced purporting to contain your voice, have it tested to see if it is edited and the recording is an original not a copy. Different recording machines of even the same model may produce different “electronic footprints”. Ditto video recordings. If you are faced with an audio alone, simply claim the person is not you. It is damned difficult to prove otherwise. Much video evidence is inconclusive because of camera angles and image quality. If all else fails, rest you claim on the fact that digital recordings can be manipulated in very sophisticated fashion and even what seems to be a cast iron recording of you doing whatever the prosecution says you were doing is no real proof.

 92. Psychiatry is no better than institutionalised quackery. As the psychologist Hans Eysenck never tired of pointing out, people suffering from mental illness who receive treatment from psychiatrists show no greater rates of recovery than those who receive no treatment. Incredible but true.

 93. You can refuse to be seen by a psychiatrist unless you have been sectioned under the Mental Health Act. If you agree to be seen by a prosecution psychiatrist before your trial, insist on (1) your solicitor being present and (2) the interview(s) being recorded by your solicitor. Then say that you will not answer any questions unless the psychiatrist can provide objective evidence that his understanding of the human mind is any better than the next man’s as a result of his psychiatric training. There being no objective evidence, the psychiatrist will be unable to provide it. He may or may not admit so much. However, he can be forced in court to make the admission when he is under oath. Moreover, you can enter the recording of your meeting with him before the trial as evidence of quackery and your willingness to cooperate if it could be shown that such cooperation would have any worth.

94. You may be faced in court with psychiatric evidence which has not involved your cooperation, for example “Cracker” type speculation. Again, get your counsel to ask the psychiatrist to show objectively that he has special expertise. If he cannot show that he has special expertise, then he should be disqualified as an expert. At the worst you will have demonstrated to the jury or magistrate that there are solid grounds for doubting the evidence.

95. Eye witness evidence is so suspect that it is a wonder it is allowed. Academic study after academic study has shown the same thing: eye witnesses are monumentally unreliable. Get a psychologist who specialises in the field to give evidence on your behalf. Pay special attention to the time lapse between the crime and the first time the eye-witness makes a statement – the longer the time, the more suspect the evidence.

96. If you require expert advice for your defence, you have two main problems: (1) finding and paying the expert and (2) getting counsel who can understand the expert. (If you want to see counsel making an idiot of themselves, go and see a case involving serious forensic evidence. Second favourite for this sport is a case where counsel has to deal with a company fraud case involving arcane accountancy practices.) A further problem is that much of the forensic expertise readily available in this country is to be found in government controlled laboratories.

97. If you cannot get your own forensic tests done, you could be convicted simply because of incompetence by the laboratory used by the prosecution. Quite a few instances have come to light in recent years. Moreover, there have been a number of cases where there has been a deliberate attempt to cover up mistakes. So do try to get your own forensic tests done.

98. There is also the question of forensic evidence being planted by the police. Take DNA. It is a simple matter to obtain DNA evidence from a suspect. Get them to touch something. Get them to eat something like an apple. Take a hair from them without their knowledge. Pick up a used tissue. I think a defence could reasonably be mounted against DNA evidence on the grounds that it was planted. Similar objections could be made against other forensic evidence. Juries are much more susceptible to claims of the planting of evidence than they once were.

Other paths to explore

99. Try putting prosecuting counsel into the witness box on the grounds that he is being dishonest and that cross-examination will reveal that dishonesty. (For example, why has counsel asked about Y when he also knew about Z and Z discounts Y?) I do not think that this has ever been done, but it would be interesting to see what the judge’s response would be. A refusal might also provide grounds for an appeal.

100. Similarly call the Crown Prosecution case worker who dealt with your case. It is a fair bet that cross examination will reveal him or her to be incompetent. This could cause a prosecution case to simply collapse.  Again whether you will be allowed to call this witness is dubious. But is worth trying.

Formal police caution or court?

101. The police are increasingly using formal cautions as alternative to taking a case to court. The caution has nothing to do with caution issued to warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence against you. It is a procedure whereby the person accepts their guilt and receives what amounts to a form of administrative justice by being formally advised of his offence, the acceptance of the crime and the consequences of accepting a caution, namely, that the caution and all the details of the crime  will go on the Police Computer together with their DNA and fingerprints (as things stand) for all time.  

102. There is a strong temptation to accept a caution even if you are innocent because it takes away the stress of a trial with the possibility of a significant punishment if convicted, the expense of defending yourself if you cannot get legal Aid, gets the matter ended rapidly, avoids publicity and does not leave you with as criminal conviction. However, a caution will be taken into account by a judge if you are sentenced for a future offence and may cause you difficulty with employers especially those needing a Criminal Records Bureau check. You need to take legal advice before accepting a caution. It could also cause problems if you want to go to countries which require a declaration of criminal offences – they may consider a caution a conviction even though it is not considered so in this country.

When should you plead guilty?

103. Discounts on sentences are available for those who plead guilty. An admission of guilt at the earliest opportunity could earn a one third discount on sentence although that would depend on the circumstances of an admission. Being caught red-handed during a burglary would count for less than the man who went to the police and gave himself up because he was troubled by a bad conscience.  Pleading guilty at a later stage will get smaller discounts.

104. The question of whether you should plead guilty is obviously dependant on circumstances. Listen to your lawyer. However, if you confess to your lawyer(s) that you are guilty then they cannot continue to represent you if you insist on a not guilty plea.   

105. A special circumstance is when plea bargaining comes into play. There is no official plea bargaining, but the prosecution may informally make it clear to the defence that they will drop a more serious charge if a guilty plea is entered on a lesser charge. There is a strong temptation to accept such a deal even if the defendant believes themselves to be innocent. If you find yourself in such a position,  you will have to decide whether conviction even though you are innocent is the lesser of two evils.

The Levellers: the first English radicals

Radical has a special meaning in English political history. It describes those whose instincts were democratic although they did not espouse the idea of a full male adult  suffrage let alone a suffrage which included women until very late in their existence. But what they all had was a desire to see political power taken from the few and given to many more.  Their means of doing this was not to overthrow Parliament but to make it responsive to the interests and needs of the general population, something which was to be achieved by devices such as broadening the franchise, ending rotten boroughs, annual parliaments. As for the monarchy, this might be allowed or not, but if it was to continue the powers of the crown had be emasculated.  With few exception such as Gerrard Winstanley and his Diggers,  they were not  socialists or egalitarian in a general sense.  The sort of people who became radicals were typically men with some material independence and education such as tradesmen and  those educated at non-conformist colleges. Constitutional reform – in which they had a naive trust as a panacea for all the ills they wished to mend –  was what they sought, not social revolution. 

The English radical emerged in the struggle between Charles I and Parliament. The  group  which gave the strongest voice  and  effect  to the new radical  was the Levellers. They  were  a  disparate  and ever  shifting  crew,  drawing  their support primarily from the ranks of the  Parliamentary  armed forces (especially after the New Model Army was  formed  in 1645), small  tradesmen,  journeymen and apprentices. However, they also included those from higher social classes,  their most famous leader, John Lilburne,  being the child  of minor gentry.

What the Levellers were most certainly not, were the thorough going democrats and proto-socialists portrayed by the likes of Tony Benn and Bill Bragg.  Rather they were men who would have fitted much more comfortably into the ideological sleeve of Margaret Thatcher than that of social democracy.

Their opponents attempted to portray the Levellers  as social revolutionaries  who  would take the property  of  the  rich,  most  particularly  their land, and give it  to  the  poor.   Hence the epithet of Leveller which  originated as a term  of  abuse. But the Levellers consistently  denied that they had  any such programme and were staunch defenders of the right to  property. They  might  best  be  characterised  as  radical  democrats with a very strong libertarian streak.  Indeed,  so  far  were they  from being proto-communists that they had an almost sacramental belief in the  individual’s right  to personal property. 

Intellectually, they  started  from  the  view  that  all Englishmen  had a birthright  which  entitled them to have  a  say  in who should govern them,  although  at  times they  accepted  that  the  birthright  might  be  breached  through  dependence on a  master  or  by  receiving alms. More  importantly,  their  ideology  contained  the germ  of  the idea  of a social contract between the people and  those  who held power,  an idea which was to come to dominate  English  political  thinking  for the next century or so  through  the  philosophy of Thomas  Hobbes and John Locke.  

The  Levellers were,  with one or two  exceptions  such  as Richard  Overton,  who was a deist at best and an atheist  at worst, or John Wildman,  who was a libertine  and  chancer,  religious.  But their belief had a strong vein of rationalism in  it. They  saw God not as  the often  cantankerous  and domineering supernatural being  of traditional  Christianity, but as  a  rational intelligence who entered every man  and  allowed  him to see what was naturally just  and  reasonable.  For  the Levellers,  it seemed a natural right –  a  rational  right –  for a man to have a say in who should hold power and  what they should do with the power.

The  Levellers  were happy to use  historical props  such  as  Magna  Carta  and the legend  of Norman  oppression  when  it  suited them, but their  rationality led them to  question how  men were governed  from first principles. One of the Leveller  leaders  Richard  Overton  actually called  Magna  Carta  a  ”beggarly thing” and went on to comment:

 Ye [Parliament]  were chosen to work our deliverance, and to estate us  in natural and just liberty,  agreeable  to  reason  and common equity, for whatever  our  forefathers  were, we are the men of the present age, and ought to  be  absolutely  free  from all  kinds  of  exorbitancies,  molestations  or arbitrary power. (A Remonstrance. Tracts  on  Liberty in the Puritan Revolution)

More balanced was his fellow Leveller William Walwyn:

Magna  Carta (you must observe)  is but a part  of  the people’s  rights  and liberties,  being no more but  what with  much striving and fighting,  was wrested from  the  paws of those kings ,  who by force had  conquered  the nation, changed the laws and by strong hand held them in  bondage.  (England’s Lamentable Slaverie,  Tracts  on  Liberty in the Puritan Revolution.)

To call the Levellers  a political party in the modern  sense  would  be misleading.  Yet they were the closest thing to  it  both  then  and, arguably,  for  several  centuries.  Their tactics and  organisation were  modern  –  the use of  pamphletering  and  newspapers, the ability  to get  large  number of supporters onto the streets (especially in  London)  at  the drop of a hat,  the creation of  local  associations.  Much of  this  was  the  work of  Lilburne, a  man of  preternatural  obstinacy,  courage  and general  unreasonableness. It  says much for the  restraint  of  the  English  elite of the day and  respect for the law that he  was not killed out of hand. It is difficult to imagine such  behaviour being  tolerated  anywhere  in  Europe in the  seventeenth century.

Lilburne by every account of  him was a most difficult man – it was said that his nature was so  combative that he would  seek  a  quarrel with himself  if  he were  alone  –  ‘Jack  would fight with John’.  Yet this man, who  came  from  a  very  modest  gentry background, remained alive  despite challenging the authority of first the king and  then   during and after the civil war, Parliament,  Cromwell and the   Commonwealth.  He  thus carried on  this  mortally  dangerous   behaviour for almost a generation.  To the end of his life in   1657, he was thought dangerous enough to imprison.

Lilburne  first came to notice for  seditious speeches  and writings in the 1630s. For that he was whipped from the Fleet  to  the Palace Yard where he was stood in the stocks.  Whilst  in the stocks,  he removed copies of the pamphlets which  had  caused  his  punishment  and threw them to  the  crowd.  That  little  episode  will  give a good  idea  of  the  Lilburne’s  general  mentality.  He was an extreme example one  of  those  necessary  unreasonable men without whom nothing  great  gets   done. 

From the time of his flogging onwards,  Lilburne’s career was one of studied defiance of authority. He was one of the  most  potent  pamphleteers England has ever seen.  For more than  a decade, he produced a flood of writings guaranteed to inflame  virtually anyone in public authority in the land. He  faced  down  judges  in  the most powerful courts in  the  land.  He  controlled  the  London  mob  consummately.  He  treated  the  greatest men in the land as equals. In any other place on the  planet at that time,  he would have been dead meat before his  career as an agitator began.  But not in England. He might be   flogged.  He  might  be  put  in  the  stocks.  He  might  be   imprisoned.  He might be tried twice for his life.  But  what   17th  century  England would not do was  unreservedly  murder him.

The Levellers  developed  an increasingly sophisticated political programme in a series of documents known  as  The  Agreements of the People.  These Agreements dealt extensively  with political representation and structure. They were also  very  successful in creating a  sense of  historic  grievance  and  an enemy.  They did this by portraying 1640s England  as   having declined from a golden age of freedom to an  oppressed  land and  people under the heel of the  Normans  and  their  French successors.

The Levellers  time was brief. They were a serious  political force for,  at most,  the years 1646 to 1649  and  that  is  probably  being a mite too generous.  They failed utterly  in  the  end,  not least because they were unable to carry  the  army,  especially the junior officers,  with them. But they  were  important  both  for  giving voice  to  the  ideas  and  creating  many of the practices on which modern  politics  is  founded.

England and the rejection of violence

Why was England so different from other countries in its political, social and economic  development?  How was it that only in England did parliamentary government evolve and the one and only bootstrapped industrial revolution arise?  Perhaps much of the  answer  lies  in the fact that the English, in comparison with any other large nation, have long been wonderfully  adept  in dealing  with the central  problem  of human  life –  how  to live together  peaceably.  A  Canadian  academic, Elliott Leyton,  has  made  a study of English  murder through  the centuries in his book Men of Blood. Leyton finds that the rate of English  (as  opposed  to  British murder) is phenomenally  low  for a country of her size  and industrial development,  both now  and for centuries past.  This strikes Elliott  as  so singular that he said  in  a recent interview “The English  have  an antipathy to murder  which borders  on eccentricity; it is one  of the great  cultural oddities of the modern age.” (Sunday Telegraph  4 12 1994).

 This  restraint  extends to warfare and social disorder. That is not to say England has been  without violence,  but rather that  at any point in her history the level of  violence  was  substantially lower than in any other comparable society. For example,  the  English Civil War  in the  17th  Century  was, apart from the odd inhumane blemish,  startlingly free of the gross  violence common on the continent of  the  time  during the 30 Years War,  where the sacking and pillage of towns and cities  was  the norm. A particularly notable thing,  for civil wars are notorious for their brutality. 

The  way  that  England  responded  to the  Reformation  is instructive. She  did not suffer the savage  wars of religion which  traumatised  the  continent  and  brought  human calamities  such as the  St Bartholomew Day’s  Massacre  in  France  in 1572,  when thousands of French  protestants  were   massacred at the instigation of the French king. 

It  was not that the English did not care deeply about  their  religion,  rather that they have been, when left to their own  devices,  generally loth to fight their  fellow  countrymen  over  anything.  English  civil  wars  have  always  been essentially  political affairs  in which the ordinary  person has little say, for the struggles  were either dynastic or  a clash  between Parliamentary  ambition and  the  monarch.  Even the  persecution of  the  Lollards  in  the late fourteenth  and fifteenth centuries and the persecution  of Protestants  under Mary I had a highly political aspect.  The former  was a vastly disturbing challenge to the  established social  order  with men being told,  in so many  words,  that   they could find their own way to salvation and the latter  an  attempt  to  re-establish not merely  the Catholic  order  in  England,  which had been overturned since the time  of  Henry  VIII’s  breach  with Rome,  but also what amounted to  a  new  royal dynasty with Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain.

Even the prohibitions on Catholics and non-Conformists  after the  Reformation had a fundamental political basis  to  them, namely, they were predicated on the question of whether  such people be trusted to give their first loyalty to the crown.

The treatment of foreigners

Compared with  other  peoples,  the  English  have been noticeably restrained  in their treatment of other  peoples residing  within their country.  A few massacres of  Jews  occurred before their expulsion from England in 1290,  but from that  time  there has not  been  great slaughter of a minority living within  England. Since  1290  there  have been occasional outbreaks of anti-foreigner violence. During the Peasants’  Revolt  London-based Flemings  were  murdered.  In later times an anti-Spanish “No Popery”  mob was  frequently  got up in London and he influx of Jews and Huguenots in  the 17th and 18th centuries caused riots,  one so serious in 1753 that  it  caused the repeal of a law naturalising  Jews  and Huguenots.  But  these riots did not result in great  numbers of dead, let alone in systematic genocidal  persecutions of any  particular group.  Most notably,  the English  fonts  of authority,  whether  the crown, church  or  parliament,  have   not incited let alone ordered the persecution of a particular  racial or ethnic group since the expulsion of the Jews.  They  have persecuted Christian groups, but that was a matter  of  religion  not  ethnicity, the  Christians  persecuted  being  English  in the main. The only discrimination  the  English  elite  have formally sanctioned against an ethnic group for  more than half a millennium was the inclusion of Jews within  the  general  prohibitions passed in the half century  or  so after  the Restoration in 1660 which banned  those  who  were  not members  of the Church of England from holding  a  crown  appointment such as an MP or election to public offices  such  as that of MP.

This comparative  lack of  violence  can plausibly be seen as the ground for England’s maintenance and unique development of a Parliament and  the development of the rule of law a  consequence  of England’s political  arrangements. From that sprung the gradual erosion of monarchical authority. Put those three developments together and there is arguably the ground upon which first a great commercial edeifice was built followed by industrialisation.  

But even if that is the immediate cause of English development it does not explain why  the English become  exceptionally peaceable within their own territory.  One could argue that being an island helped, not least because England has not been subject to a forced foreign conquest  from the continent  for the better part of a millennium. However,  England has suffered a good deal of inter-nation warfare within the British Isles, especially with Scotland. She has also fought many a campaign around the world, both as England and later under the banner of Great Britain. It is not that the English are or have been naturally timid.  

Perhaps the fundamental answer to English peaceableness  lies in the fact  that the English enjoyed a level  of  racial and cultural  homogeneity  from very early on.  Long  before  the English kingdom existed Bede wrote of the English as a single people.  The  English have never killed one another  in  any great  quantity  simply  because one part of  the population  thought  another  part was in some way not English.  That is the best possible starting point  for  the establishment of a coherent community. 

The  favoured  liberal  view of England is  that  it  is  the mongrel nation par excellence.  In fact,  this is the  exact opposite of the truth.  The general facts of immigration into England are these. The English and England were of  course created  by  the  immigration of Germanic  peoples.  The British  monk, Gildas,  writing  in  the  sixth  century, attributed  the  bulk  of  the  Saxon  settlement  to the practice  of  British leaders employing  Saxons  to protect   the Britons from Barbarian attacks after Rome withdrew around   410  A.D.  The English monk Bede (who was born in  A.D.  673)   attributed  the origins of the English to the Angles,  Saxons   and  Jutes who came to England in the century  following  the   withdrawal  of  the  Romans at the  request of  British  war leaders.

Archaeological  evidence suggests that  substantial  Germanic settlement in England had a longer history and  dated  from  the  Roman  centuries, perhaps from as early  as  the  third  century.  What is certain is that in her formative  centuries  following  the  exit  of  Rome, the  various invaders  and  settlers  were drawn from peoples with much in  common.

They  were  the  same  physical type, there  was  a  considerable similarity of general culture, their languages  flowed from a common linguistic well. When the Norsemen came they too brought a Teutonic  mentality and origin. Even the Normans were Vikings at one remove who, if  frenchified,  were not  physically  different  from  the English  nor  one imagines utterly without  vestiges  of  the  Norse mentality.  Moreover, the number of Normans who settled  in England immediately after the Conquest was small, perhaps as few as 5000.

After  the Conquest,  the only significant  immigration  into England for many centuries were the Jews.  They were expelled  from England in 1290. There was then no really large  scale  and  sudden immigration from outside the British Isles  until  the flight of the Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict  of Nantes (which granted limited toleration to the  Huguenots within France) in 1684 by Louis X1V.

There was other immigration in the period 1066-1650, but it was  small and highly selective. Craftsmen of  talent  were  encouraged particularly in the Tudor period. Italian families  with  trading and banking expertise (such as it was in  those days) appeared  after the expulsion of  the  Jews.  Foreign  merchants  were  permitted,  but for much of  the  period  on sufferance  and  subject  to  restrictions  such  as forced  residence within specially designated  foreign quarters. 

The  upshot of all this is that for six centuries  after the Conquest  England was an unusually homogeneous country,  both racially  and culturally. This is reflected in the  absence since  the  Norman Conquest of  any serious regional separatist  movement within the  heart of English  territory. There  has been meaningful resistance  at  the periphery  – Cornwall,  the Welsh marches and the  far north,  but  even that  has  been  effectively dead since the sixteenth century. Englishmen have fought but not to create separate nations.

The unusual restraint of the English  is also shown in their dealings with foreigners  abroad. England did not routinely go in for sack and pillage as was common on the continent and occasional massacres  often occurred in special circumstances,  for example,  Cromwell’s in Ireland happened in   aftermath of a  massacre of Protestants in Ulster in 1641 and the fear that Ireland would be used as a springboard for a Royalist invasion of England.

Nowhere was the restraint seen more emphatically than in the Empire. If  a people were forced to become part of an empire, the British Empire was indubitably the one to join. There were of course outrages committed in the Empire’s name,  but there was no general policy of  cruelty and, for the final century of the Empire’s existence, official British policy towards the colonies was that the interests of the natives should come first.  

If  the  theory that a homogeneous population long occupying a territory without suffering foreign conquest results in greater social restraint  is correct,  this may have  a profound implication.  Assuming that personality is substantially innate, natural selection will act upon the type of personality which is best suited to the environment. It could be that the native English are, on average,  genetically better suited to live in a society in which politics are decided by peaceful transfer of power and business and personal disputes are mediated through the law.   On top of any genetic propensity is added the culture of restraint which has developed from the genetic propensity over the centuries.

Should it be true that the English have a unique genetic national shape and  a culture which uniquely plays to that genetic national shape, then mass immigration will weaken both by introducing both different genetic types an competing cultures.

English liberty and the weakness of state power

There  were  two  great  sources  of  general  authority in  mediaeval  England.  The Church was  one,  the  other  was  the  Crown.  The mediaeval English man and woman had no great regard for either. This robust contempt for authority and the inability of either  priest or king to exercise enough power to quell it allowed the English to develop a mentality which was not customarily subordinate.

The English who  people the  pages  of Langland and  Chaucer show  a  mediaeval England where commoners  would  not  as a matter of  course  willingly  touch their forelock or  allow their lives  to  be circumscribed by those with social status. Later,  Shakespeare’s lowlifes and the characters in Ben  Johnson’s  Bartholomew Fair  often  show a rumbustious lack of deference  for  their social betters. It is improbable in the  extreme  that  the  worlds depicted by these authors  would  not  have  reflected  the  societies in which they lived. Traits  were  exaggerated for dramatic effect doubtless,  but the  cultural  story  they told was fundamentally rooted in the  England  in  which they wrote. 

Langland’s Piers Ploughman is especially interesting  because the  work begins  with  a  catalogue of  the  people  who inhabited  the  world he knew (Prologue – The plain  full  of people).  Here are the worldly and the devout,  the high  and the  low.  The cleric and the noble  jostle  with  minstrels, tramps, beggars,  merchants,  tradesmen, and  the  honest  ploughman who  tills  “the  soil  for  the  common good”.   Langland’s clerics are often corrupt,  the nobles capricious,  the merchants avaricious, the workmen  shoddy and cheating in  their  work,  the beggars dishonest and the minstrels  bawdy,  but  they  are  balanced  by  honest  men  in  their  various  callings. In other words, it is a world not so different in  terms of human personality to that we inhabit.

Before the Reformation the English were renowned throughout  Europe  for their anticlericism – a good  example  of  this attitude  was the response to Sudbury’s  warning  to  Wat  Tyler’s  rebels  that  England would  be  put  under  an  interdict  by  the Pope if he was harmed. This was  met  by hearty  laughter followed  by the grisly  dispatch  of  the unfortunate  cleric soon afterwards,  whose head  did  not  part  from his shoulders  until a goodly number of blows  had  been struck. 

The contempt in which many of the servants of the Church were held can be seen in both John Wycliffe’s complaints against clerical abuse in the latter half of the 14th century and in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and William Langland’s Piers  Plowman, both written  in the same century in  which the  Peasants’  Revolt took place. Both works  are full  of jibes  at fat illiterate priests and cheating  pardoners  who  peddled absolution from sins with their indulgences sold  for money.  

Wycliffe’s doctrine  contained the fundamental ideas  which were  later realised internationally in the  Reformation.  He questioned  the reality of transubstantiation  (the  Catholic belief that the  bread  and wine  at Communion turn literally into  the  body  and blood  of  Christ), he attacked  the authority  of  the pope, he  railed against the  abuses  of  simony and indulgences. He advocated a bible  in  English  and either he or his followers, the Lollards,  produced a complete  translation  before  the end  of  the fourteenth century.

Implicit  within  Wycliffe’s  thought was  the democratic spirit,  because  it is a short intellectual step  from the  belief  that  each man could be his  own mediator with  God to  the idea  that he should have a say in his earthly  life.  The Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries both promoted this individualist mentality in matters both sacred and profane and weakened the power of the Church as a source of authority in competition with the monarchy.

If the English were derisive of  their priests, they were, as the Peasants Revolt showed, even less enamoured of the Crown with its tax collectors  and the widespread existence of serfdom. But in truth the hand  of the mediaeval  state as embodied by the monarch was  remarkably light by  modern  standards,  especially  so  during  the century  long  struggle of  the houses  of  Lancaster and York and partly  because  mediaeval kingship  was of necessity  very limited in what it could  do administratively  because of a  lack of funds,  the power  of the  peerage,  primitive  technology, poor  communications, administrative  naivety  and  a radically  different view  of what  government and society should be – apart  from  looking after  his own privileges and estates, kings were expected to defend the land,  put down rebellions,  provide legal redress through the royal courts, maintain the position of the church and  lead in war against other  rulers. And that was  about it.  

But  there was also a further check on the  monarch.  Perhaps the  most  important practical  adjunct  of  this  desire  for  freedom,  has  been that  the  English  long  hated  and mistrusted  the  idea of a standing army as the  creature  of tyrants.  The  English were eventually content  to  have  the strongest  navy  in the  world because it could not  be  used against them, but  a substantial  army  was not accepted as reasonable until the  experiences of the  Great War accustomed  men to  the  idea. Soldiers  were held in contempt before then.  “Gone  for  a soldier” was  little better  than “taken for  a  thief”. The  needs of  Empire produced more ambivalence into  the  English view of soldiers  as Kipling’s poem “Tommy” shows:  “Oh, it’s  Tommy this an’  Tommy that, and chuck him out the brute! But  it’s ‘Saviour of ‘is country’  when the guns begin to shoot.” But the old resentment, fear  and  contempt remained  until  the  stark democracy of experience in the trenches during the Great  War  tempered the English mind to tolerance of the soldier.

Because  of  a lack of a large standing army,  English  kings were ever dependent on the will of others,  be it  their  nobles,  parliament or the gentry.  Even the most practically tyrannical  of English kings,  Henry VIII, was most careful to use Parliament to sanction his acts. 

The  consequences  of  this  weakness  was  that power  was localised.  Incredible  as it may see  today,  the  practical governance  of  day-to-day  life  in England until  well into the  nineteenth  century  lay  largely  in  the  hands of private gentlemen  occupying the post of JP,  whose  powers were much greater than they  are  today.  Indeed, the central state  impinged  very  little  on the  ordinary  Englishman  before 1914.  George Bowling, the hero of George Orwell’s “Coming  up for air” reflecting on  how  the arms  of the state  touched an honest citizen before  the  Great War  could think only of the registration  of  births,  deaths and  marriages and the General Post Office.

By  keeping the king dependent upon the will of  others,  the English ensured that a despot  such as Louis  X1V could not  arise in  England and in so  doing  underwrote their general liberties. Without that, it  is  improbable  that parliamentary government (as  opposed  to  a  parliament) would have arisen.  England would  almost certainly have been  involved in many debilitating wars  for  the aggrandisement of  the  king. In those circumstances it is  unlikely  that England as a modern state would have arisen. 

The inability of English monarchs to create  an absolute monarchy on the lines of Louis XIX’s France is a reflection of the independent spirit of the English and their natural instinct for liberty.

English liberty and the Black Death

The  Peasant’s  Revolt  has to set in  the  context  of the dramatic social changes wrought by the plague. When the Black Death  came  to  England in 1349  it was  a  source  of  both immediate  misery  and  future  opportunity for  those  who  survived. Estimates  of the numbers who died range  from  a quarter  to a half of the population, but whatever the true  proportion  it  had  the  most  dramatic  effect on the  organisation  of  society. The immediate  result  was a  widespread  transfer of property and consolidation of  wealth  as the  lucky survivors inherited. This consolidation aided  people a long way down the social scale, for a man inheriting   no more than a couple of  oxen  and a plough was considerably  better off than a man with none. 

Most  importantly,  the country went from being one  with  an oversupply  of labour – England prior to the Black Death  was probably as well populated as it was in any time before  1700 – to  a country where labour was  scarce. Landowners  were  suddenly  faced with a new economic  world.  They  had either  lost  many of their  workers  through death or were faced  with  serfs  who  were no longer  obedient  and  frequently

absconded, often  lured  to  work  as  free  men  by  other landowners, or  drawn  to the  anonymity  of  the  towns.  Landowners had to employ  free men who demanded  what  were  considered extortionate wages. The Statute of Labourers  of  1351  was a forlorn attempt to  keep things as they had  been  before  the Black Death by restricting wages but, like  all  attempts to buck fundamental economic forces, it failed.  

It is probably not overly sanguine to see English society  in the  late medieval period after the Black Death as  a  golden age for the common man. Not only was labour scarce and land plentiful,  but the great enclosure movement was still in the future  and a very large proportion of the  population  were, to a large extent,  their own masters as they worked  their land.  Even  where labour services were still performed, they were  not crushing,  being commonly 40 days work in  a  year.   Moreover,  agricultural  work  is  seasonal,  especially  the  arable, and  for substantial parts of the year there is  relatively little to do on a farm.

Beyond agriculture, many people had a large  degree  of control  over  their daily lives.  This was the  time  before industrialisation, before the wage-slave and  the  factory. Skilled  craftsmen  were often their own masters, and  even those who worked for a master will have  organised their  own time  because  they worked from their  homes. Indeed,  most   English  men and women today almost certainly have  far  less  control  of their time than the average mediaeval  inhabitant  of England.