The road to hell is paved by Labour
Dear Alan Johnson,
Having presumably given up on any short-term leadership ambitions, you are now rejoining the fold by announcing that local councils are to get the power to seize the assets of minor offenders. Home Office claims that seizing “ill-gotten gains” are a key part of the fight against all kinds of crime is misleading and deliberately designed to silence doubters of what is without question another brutal assault on our civil liberties.
Under this new move, ‘Accredited Financial Investigators’ – which include customs officers, Department of Work and Pensions investigators, trading standards and other local authority workers - are to be given the power to seize assets worth more than £1,000 ahead of a court ruling on their origin and to execute search warrants. At the moment, these powers are executed on the investigators’ behalf by police officers. A spokeswoman said the powers would not be used against people in arrears on their council tax or parking fines, as has been reported. She said: “We are determined to ensure criminals do not profit by breaking the law. Seizing ill-gotten gains is a key part of the fight against criminals — whether it is from small-time offences or organised crime. Accredited Financial Investigators have played an integral role in the recovery of criminal assets since the Proceeds of Crime Act was introduced in 2003, they are fully trained and their powers carefully controlled in law. By giving them some new powers we are extending the fight against crime and freeing up valuable police time.” Oh, how noble of you. Thankfully, the backlash against your plans was immediate and poignant.
Paul McKeever, of the Police Federation, said: “The Proceeds of Crime Act is a very powerful tool in the hands of the police and police-related agencies and it shouldn’t be treated lightly.” He added that there was a “behind-the-scenes creep of powers occurring” and the public “would want such very intrusive powers to be kept in the hands of warranted officers and other law enforcement bodies which are vetted to a very high standard rather than given to local councils”. Too bloody right. Law enforcement is the concern of the police and a select few other individuals, not some pen-pusher from the local council. ‘Power creep’ is a wonderful way of describing this sop to local authorities, who should have no right to enter people’s homes. To think that some insignificant little council worker could execute a police search warrant is truly chilling. Far be it for me to agree with Caroline Spelman on a regular basis, today I will make an exception. She rightly pointed out that ”surveillance laws designed to tackle terror and serious crime have been routinely abused and over-used by town hall officials” to snoop on local residents and prosecute them for minor offences that have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism. Furthermore, when the Proceeds of Crime Act was introduced it was meant to be used to deprive major organised criminals of their lavish lifestyles, so I hardly think it is appropriate to extend such far-reaching powers to unaccountable jobsworths in the local council.
The truth is that Labour have become specialists in wildly inappropriate and intrusive legislation. The road to hell is paved with Labour’s good intentions, evident in both the DNA database (which was extended way beyond the remit of tracking criminals) and anti-terrorism powers (which have been routinely abused by local councils ever since they were set up). Your desire to manipulate the public and your opponents by pretending that this will be an effective crime-fighting tool is palpable. As if your deceit and disdain for civil liberties were not enough, you will push this plan through Parliament next week in a Statutory Instrument, meaning that it will not even be debated by MPs.
Yours disrespectfully,
A.Tory
Witanagemot Blogs
“As if your deceit and disdain for civil liberties were not enough, you will push this plan through Parliament next week in a Statutory Instrument, meaning that it will not even be debated by MPs.”
They know the jig is up, and they are determined to push through as many powers as they can for their sympathisers and quislings in local and national government organisations.
Knowing full well that the Conservative committment to reduced state powers (under Call-Me-Dave) is weak and far, far too many influential people within his inner circle have the same view of ‘the people’ as Labour.
The use of Statutory Instruments was traditionally a means of speeding legislation when there was a general consensus within the House on matters of small concern, or when already agreed measures were needed to be passed in times of national emergency. (No doubt many will consider that a Labour Government IS a national emergency) This particular measure is not only controversial, but is another erosion of the Rights given to all British subjects by Magna Carta and certain subsequent Acts of Settlement. Once more we are faced with proof positive of the extremist authoritarian bent of Brown’s cabal of “essential workers”. The Government cannot even plead pressure of legislation – they have worked unceasingly thoughout their dismal reign to truncate the time available for debate and are even now proposing to let School out early for Christmas. Proper debate of this Stalinist measure should override an extended holiday for the chosen few at taxpayers’ expense.
I would have thought that this illiberal measure could be at odds with human rights legislation so extolled by the Left. any thoughts on that, anyone?
the Proceeds of Crime Act has had little effect and very in very few cases has any significant sum been recovered. As far as I can tell, it’s widest impact has been to make it necessary to produce two forms of ID for all citizens who wish to open a bank account or take on the services of an accountant. I think this was the point: ID and making ID cards more acceptable. The rest was just parliamentary fluff, trying to look tough on drug dealers.
This latest assault on us comes with the tagline ‘But we won’t use it for anything we shouldn’t’.
I will never believe that ever again, from any government. If you legislate powers, they will almost certanly be used in the full range of circumstances which the legislation wittingly or unwittingly permits. The local councils employ lawyers to to explore this very possibility. They will use it to enter your home, collect fines for leaving your rubbish out on the wrong day, enforce payment of council tax (which they have failed to calculate correctly), they will use it to circumnavigate any appeals process for money outstanding, they will probably even use it to collect library fines!
Together with RIPA, The Terrorism Act, The Fixated Threat Assessment Centre, (look that one up for Minority Report overtones), The Family Courts, The police state is in full flow!
Excellent post. The POCA netted £106m last year, and I suspect the government’s unfounded increase of the target to £250m for 2010 is responsible for the widening of these intrusive powers. There are not enough serious criminals being caught to render £250m, so the net is widened to include Housing Benefit fraud and Council Tax fraud.
Expect to see some young working couple with their bank accounts frozen and their ISAs seized because one of them ‘forgot’ to tell the council to cancel their 25% single occupancy CT discount when they moved in together.
Expect to see the Father of the Bride cancelling his daughter’s dream wedding because HMRC have caught him bringing a van load of méthode back from France and have seized his retirement home, vehicles and cash assets on the basis that he’s a professional booze smuggler.
The £250m ‘target’ will be shared out to councils and HMRC and they will react in exactly the same way as the police did in relation to their government targets; they’ll leave the real, hard-to-catch, crims alone and concentrate on the easy prey of the law abiding middle class.
Perhaps I was naive, but I used to think that our government was wrong-headed and idiotic, but at least well-meaning.
I can’t see how that can possibly be seen to be the case anymore
Julia and GOM, every once in a while I read how MPs manage to clock off late on Wednesday / early on Thursday in most weeks, seeing as Parliament does not have a full schedule of debates. Stories such as this show that Parliament should indeed be sitting for longer periods because this kind of plan from Johnson clearly merits serious open debate.
Tony, it’s got to the point where I’m convinced that Labour actually want their legislation to be abused, seeing as it keeps the supporters in local government happy and gives them another revenue stream.
Radders, I had no idea that there was a target in place for the amount of money that they grab. One can only hope that they are forced into a humiliating u-turn in legal test cases regarding any ‘over-exuberance’ on the part of council workers.
Charles, sadly your optimism has not been rewarded.
Hang on, hang on. Ignoring the big time, and in the most general of terms, who are the irresponsible and/or feckless who don’t pay fines, maintenance, council tax, and so on. And which group, again in very general terms, is most likely to include small-time criminals? And, of them, who has assets worth more than £1,000?
See what I mean?
Not sure that I’m right or even where this takes us but…………
Any chance you could change the font colour? For some reason, more and more blogs use this light grey for the typeface – frankly, for those over 55 or so, it is illegible. I have my glasses on, but have to put ny head up to the screen to read this.
I’m sure it is a very good post – but as I can’t read it, I can’t tell.
By the way, big article on a POCA raid in London in the Daily Mail yesterday. Safe deposit place, lots of innocent people had good stolen by the police, and now have to prove they didn’t come by them illegally. Jewish family whose parents fled Hitler, sewed diamonds into their kids’ clothes to get them out, and kept them in case they had to flee again – well, maybe they should have done, as the police now have their jewels, and the family have no means of proving how they came by them.
Welcome to the British Democratic Republic
Talwin, now THAT would be a photo opportunity – council worker turns up at MP’s front door with a search warrant and enters their home without permission because they didn’t pay council tax. Priceless!
Jeremy, apologies, will look into the font problem. I’m not surprised that such a raid would go spectacularly wrong when they’re dealing with relatively small sums of money. The justifications for such raids could turn extremely spurious very quickly.
BUT….they haven’t even finished dealing with the drug dealers in my neighbourhood? Why are these idiots still allowed to parade their obviously ill-gotten wealth without anyone doing anything about it.
When & only when they have cleared out these pests from our neighbourhood they can start on me!
(Better still – legalise drugs – we all KNOW that prohibition brings far more ills than it removes).
The DDA seems to push for a 40% difference in contrast between foreground text and background colour, or at least, that’s the way most web design shops interpret it’s many strictures. I’m just finishing a site that swaps between stylesheets to render things in different colours for people with different visual problems…
But back on subject. Remember how speed cameras were first about speed, then the councils/local police got to keep the money levied in fines and then suddenly there were cameras watching cameras as they chased non-Council Tax revenue streams? This asset seizure scam is just so plainly going to end up the same way.
Not to mention: “Investigation bodies will receive a share of money recovered as additional funding to incentivise further work in recovering the proceeds of crime.”
That couldn’t possibly lead to any “unintended consequences” could it?
POCA in action. State rob innocent citizens en masse
From the time of the Rest in Peace Act, we were in trouble.
@Elby The Beserk – Wow, that is some story. I hadn’t read anything in that detail before.
So the state breaks the ‘Right to private ownership’.
They have used POCA to do this for a long time. Copper stops kid on the street, suspects him of stealing a bicycle he is riding. Confiscates the bike and tells him that he must prove he owns it. How do you ‘prove’ you own a bike if you bought it secondhand from a guy in the paper? Every bike I owned as a kid was bought this way-it’s hardly criminal activity.
So the state now owns your property unless you can prove how you came by it. Sound familiar? Sugest looking under the heading ‘Communism’.
I don’t think it’s accidental at all. I think their motives are consciously malevolent.
Also – CPS have targets and bonuses for confiscations!
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6897641.ece