Bollox Britain

A young man has been arrested after allegedly tweeting a bad taste joke about the Glasgow bin lorry crash.

The man reportedly handed himself in to police after a number of whinges were made about the joke. He is alleged to have written:

So a bin lorry has crashed into 100 people in Glasgow eh, probably the most trash its ever picked up in one day that.

Northumbria Police made the ludicrous claim that the joke was 'a malicious communication', and the persecution has not stopped at the arrest. The police investigation is continuing and the victim has been bailed pending further inquiries.

A group of 12-year-old girls had the police called on them after they decided to bring their iPhones and iPads to a showing of The Hunger Games at a local cinema. The police officers who rushed to the scene were unable to find any recorded footage, but by then the children were too distressed to watch the rest of the film.

In a disgraceful code of conduct the movie industry and cinemas have agreed that employees will take immediate action when they spot someone with a recording device, regardless of whether there is any evidence that they are being used to record films.

At a Cineworld cinema in Brighton Marina, UK, employees dialed the national 999 emergency number after they spotted a group of 12-year-old girls with iPhones and iPads at a showing of The Hunger Games. The girls, accused of recording parts of the movie, were hauled outside where two police cars rushed towards the scene with flashing lights.

The police obliging acted as the hired bullies, and presumably without checking with the cinema staff that there was any evidence of a crime, the police carefully inspected the devices for bootleg material. After their search turned up nothing the girls were allowed back in. However, the teens decided to wait outside, reportedly in tears, until their parents came to pick them up. Presumably the police for some reason decided not to take action against the staff for making false allegations.

Louise Lawrence, the mother of one of the girls, is outraged by the treatment. Not just the false piracy accusation, but also the fact that they were left out in the cold afterwards.

Our girls were falsely accused, had the police called on them and then just left in tears. It's outrageous. If they have done this to our children they will do it again.

A Cineworld spokesprat said that they apologized to the parents for the mistake, and admitted that it's common procedure to take such actions. No word about compensation for the trauma caused.

Skaters are facing another battle to keep the scene above board, this time not in London but in Norwich. Members of the city council are seeking to ban skateboarding in parts of the city after damage caused to the War Memorial Gardens. They claim that wear and tear is primarily down to skaters.

So far, almost 4,000 people have signed a petition calling for the proposed ban to be scrapped. Residents polled by a local newspaper also voted hugely in favour of keeping skateboarding in the city centre.

Long Live Southbank , the group behind the campaign to preserve the area underneath the Southbank centre in London, have sent a carefully worded open letter to Norwich City Council. The organisation pointedly and correctly explained:

Skateboarding supports more than just the physical act, it supports other creative practices such as filmmakers, photographers, visual designers and provides opportunities for other transferable skills and values. It promotes physical and social well-being and a much-needed alternative to gadgetry as it encourages young people to get outdoors, get physical, and explore their cities and local areas.

Add to that that skateboarding is one of the fastest-growing physical activities in the world, particularly with girls and young women, and there is enough reason to suggest local authorities encourage these physical expressions as opposed to discourage and, as in this instance, criminalise them.

The skaters are all in agreement that the war memorials should be left alone, but the ban would cover a much larger area of the city centre than that. Campaigners believe the move needless demonises of the local skate scene.

In response to the offsite article above, Angelus comments:

It's not really all that comforting to know that single adults without children are banned from Puxton Park when the same rule would have allowed couples like Ian Brady and Myra Hindley or Fred and Rosemary West to get in!

 

Theresa May has ludicrously opposed Sajid Javid's phone plan for all phones users to be able to use the best network signal available.

The culture secretary's project to massively reduce issues of poor network coverage spots for users of a single network.

A leaked letter suggests that Theresa May is moving to stop plans to improve mobile phone coverage, amid fears that state snoopers may have to work a little harder to track phone users over several networks instead of one.

May's objections centre around concerns that roaming would make it more difficult for the snoopers to track suspects. She also reportedly objected to the likes of Tesco offering customers mobile phone packages with access to the four main networks, called for studies to ensure the changes do not prevent police from having access to information that is crucial to keeping us safe .

The intervention by May is likely to revive criticism that she often acts in an uncollegiate way, a point made by the Liberal Democrat home office minister Norman Baker when he resigned this week. May's letter may also be seized on by civil liberties campaigners who say she appears not to challenge the views of the intelligence agencies.

Offsite Comment: Theresa May and her worrying enthusiasm for so-called not-spots

10th November 2014. See  article from  strangethingsarehappening.com by David Mitchell

The home secretary's argument that not being able to get a phone signal is in the interests of national security is truly disturbing

...Read the full article

Parliament routinely grants massive powers to the police and demonstrates an awful lot of trust in the police not abusing these powers. So it is very alarming when it seems that the police are indeed found to be abusing their powers.

Every police force in the UK is to be asked by a parliamentary committee to reveal how many times they have secretly snooped on journalists by obtaining their telephone and email records without their consent.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said he wanted a detailed breakdown of police use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) to force telecoms companies to hand over phone records without customers' knowledge.

His intervention comes after it emerged that police investigating the former MP Chris Huhne's speeding fraud secretly obtained a Mail on Sunday reporter's phone records without his consent , despite laws protecting journalistic confidential sources.

The newspaper said it had learned that officers from Kent police used laws designed for anti-terrorism to identify a source they had failed to secure through a court application.

It is the second time in a month that revelations have emerged of the police secretly ordering phone companies to hand over journalists' phone bills, fuelling fears that media organisations will not be able to protect sources, particularly police whistleblowers.

In September it emerged accidentally that the Metropolitan police had obtained the Sun's newsdesk telephone records and those of its political editor, Tom Newton Dunn, to try to identify who had leaked it the Plebgate story about the former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell's altercation with police at the gates of Downing Street.

Update: Simon Hughes will ask the police to consult a judge before snooping on journalists' sources

13th October 2014. See  article from  theguardian.com

The UK government will reform the law to prevent the police using surveillance powers to discover journalistic sources, the justice minister, Simon Hughes, has confirmed in the wake of growing outcry at the misuse of powers.

Hughes said the police's use of powers had been entirely inappropriate and in future it would require the authorisation of a judge for police forces to be given approval to access journalists' phone records in pursuit of a criminal investigation. He said the presumption would be that if a journalist was acting in the public interest, they would be protected.

Speaking on Sky News's Murnaghan programme, Hughes added that if the police made an application to a court he would assume a journalist would be informed that the authorities were seeking to access his phone records. He said:

The principle has to be a) freedom of expression, b) journalists have a job to do and there is a public interest defence available to all journalists so you would be able to argue that case.

The naked rambler has been jailed for another two-and-a-half years just for walking out of prison wearing only his boots and socks.

Stephen Gough was found guilty by a jury at Winchester Crown Court of breaching an anti-social behaviour order (Asbo). The order bans him from taking off his clothes in public.

Judge Jane Miller suggested moves should be made to find Gough a closed nudist community to live in to prevent the cycle of imprisonment which has seen him jailed for much of the past eight years.

A Second World War re-enactment has been ludicrously banned by Barnsley Council because some participants would have been wearing Nazi uniforms.

The 1940s Goodnight Sweetheart charity weekend at Elescar Heritage Centre in South Yorkshire would have seen the Northern World War II Association recreate a battle between Allied and Axis troops.

But Barnsley Council dictators banned the event because of supposed complaints over soldier's attires.

Elsecar Heritage Railway chairman Del Tilling said:

I'm absolutely baffled as to how the council can think this is offensive when the people involved are a responsible group of military re-enactors.

They refused permission for our World War II weekend because there are "Germans" in military uniform taking part.

The Northern World War II Association website says the event has been cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control:

It is disappointing and only seems to hit out at local charities and local people who are being deprived of the opportunity to visit an enjoyable educational event about the Second World War. Cause:

The event would have raised money for Help for Heroes and the centre's steam railway restoration programme

A council spokesprat spewed:

This decision has been for several reasons relating to duty of care and the safety of businesses and visitors.

Liverpool City Council want to ban takeaway food outlets in the town centre.

Nick Small, Liverpool council's anti-enterprise chief claimed the move was intended to tackle city centre littering. He told the Liverpool Sunday Echo:

We don't want people buying chips, eating them outside and then dropping their litter.

The new rules will apply to city centre businesses with outdoor seating areas and any new business will be forced to serve food on plates with cutlery instead of in a paper bag or polystyrene tray.

The move will mainly affect fast food outlets, chippies, kebab houses and takeaways but the council cannot go back and review businesses that already have a licence.