Russell and Carol - hayle and hearty

More troubles for the IPCC

The News International #notw story has probably been done to death - though I remain concerned that the big issues are being lost in the 'hacking' of phones (which of course wasn't hacking at all).

Seems to me that the real issue is privacy and ownership of data and we're reaching a tipping point where hopefully we might get some proper rights for once!

In the meantime - I loved Hugh Grant's comments in the Guardian which to me hit the nail firmly on the head

Two more interesting letters today from:

So, the News of the World phone hacking saga drags on.... and then reading about Andy Gray being a sexist pillock you come across:

Having been castigated for failing to uphold the right to peaceful protest at the G20 demonstrations, it seems the Met has learnt nothing, except that if you arrest people and take them to the police station there's a lot of paperwork and solicitors, whereas if you simply kettle people in a small area on a bridge you don't have to bother with any due process of law, provision of basic facilities, paperwork or bothersome solicitors and legal rights.

But then presumably the kettled protesters were particularly virulent and violent - the authors of this letter are

Rhodes professor of imperial history, Kings College London
Reader in international relations, University of Cambridge
Professor of history and public policy, University of Cambridge

How's that? Not violent protesters?  Surely the Met didn't make a mistake? Surely they ensured full compliance with the law

Letters: No explanation was offered for what amounted to mass internment, in very dangerous circumstances, of a crowd of demonstrators

He just wanted to go home from work - you'd think the police would have been happy to help him with that.

Instead they (at least) obstructed him, failed to help him, assaulted him and then lied about him and the people who helped him, and then he was autopsied by a pathologist not on the list, not qualified to be on Home Office list and under investigation, but that's ok with the CPS apparently. 

Another judgement against the police