This is one of the most frightening pieces of video I’ve ever seen – a British Prime Minister, and worse still a Labour Prime Minister calling for more power for the Police to dispense summary justice without recourse to the courts, describing our legal system as ‘Victorian’ and complaining – yes actually fucking complaining – that the rights of accused to defence counsel get in the way of ‘justice’ [watch from around 15 minutes 30 seconds onward for this bit].

For the record, Tony, as you clearly have no sense of history whatso-fucking-ever, the fundamental basis of our legal system is NOT Victorian – parts of it can be readily traced to Anglo-Saxon law while the bit which seems to piss you off the most; the right to a trial before a jury of your peers, belongs to the transitional period between Norman and Plantagenet rule, being encapsulated in a document I don’t suppose you’ve heard of – Magna Carta – as its seems that none of the history books in your household start much before 1979.

Even our right not to be fined without due judicial process – you know, the one you keep ignoring – predates the Victorian era. Why not look it up, you’ll find it in the legislative archives of Houses of Parliament under the 1688 English Bill of Rights – not that such rights apparently mean much to you anyway.

I guess its because you have no sense or understanding of history that you keep spouting this bullshit about the overriding importance of the ‘right to life’ and how the government’s self-appointed duty to protect that ‘right’ at all costs warrants denuding and taking away our other rights – hell, who cares about the right to a fair trial, to be considered innocent until proven guilty, to have access to defence counsel, to not be detained without charge – look that last one up, its called ‘habeus corpus’ and been been around for quite a while longer than the 19th century as well – to remain silent and not incriminate yourself, to not be sent to a country where you face torture, to have a little basic privacy as you go about your daily life…

For fucks sake, Tony, ask your wife – she’s a fucking human rights lawyer!

Lets try and make it simple for you.

The Right to Life; as set down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and our very own Human Rights Act 1998 does not – let me repeat that as you’re obviously hard of thinking – DOES NOT place a duty on the State to provide for the security of the citizenry.

Human Rights exist, in the main, to PROTECT THE CITIZENRY FROM THE EXCESSES OF THE STATE.

Got that? Good. I’ll go on.

The duty of the State to provide for the security of its citizens it not based on the rights of its citizens to life but on a basic element of the implicit social contract which exists between the citizen and the state in which the State accepts and takes on the duty to protect the security of its citizens in return for which the citizenry extends to the State a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within the bounds of the State and against those who [alleged;y] threaten the security of the citizenry; that last bit being what we call ‘war’ – yes, you do understand that bit, don’t you.

Human rights have absolutely fuck all to do with this arrangement which is strictly on a quid pro quo basis – you might want to look up Charles I to find out what happened when the State tries welching on that particular deal.

Now we get to the bit you clearly have difficulties with.

Having handed the legitimate authority to use force to the state, the citizenry then have certain rights which we call human right – note the important bit there, the CITIZENRY HAVE RIGHTS NOT THE STATE – which define the extent to which state may legitimately make use of force against the citizenry of the State, under what rules [generally the rule of law] and in what circumstances – again, if you’re unsure what happens when the State exceeds its legitimate authority, see Charles I – you might be starting to notice a bit of a pattern by now. Yes?

There, that wasn’t so difficult now was it?

So let’s cut the bullshit here about protecting the rights of citizens and how the right to life is so all-important that other rights can be allowed to fall by the wayside. It just doesn’t work like that!

So please, Tony. Do us all a favour. Take your putative Police State and shove it firmly up your arse where it belongs because we, the people – I’ve heard that phrase somewhere before, I’m sure – don’t want any of it.

Now be a good boy, fuck off and start a double act with Bill on the US lecture circuit.

Thank you.

… Jeez, where are the Levellers when you bloody well need them.