Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds

02 July 2008

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It’s draconian, expensive and ineffective, says David Davis. All the evidence shows that the Prime Minister is eroding our civil liberties pointlessly

Next, CCTV. Mr Brown made fewer claims, which is not surprising since Home Office reports say that 80 per cent of CCTV footage is unusable. Instead, he issued a party briefing entitled ‘Challenge the Tories on CCTV’, calling on Labour minions to spread the lie that I am ‘in opposition to CCTV cameras’. In the document Tony McNulty, the Home Office minister of state for security, says, ‘CCTV is a powerful crime-fighting tool... CCTV makes our streets safer.’ He clearly has not read the Home Office’s 2005 evaluation report, which found that CCTV ‘had little overall effect on crime levels’ — cutting crime in only 7 per cent of deployments. CCTV ‘played no part in reducing fear of crime’ and ‘public support for CCTV decreased after implementation by as much as 20 per cent’. I am not opposed to CCTV. But I have consistently called for more effective deployment, coupled with stronger sanctions for abuse of innocent people’s privacy.

Then there is surveillance. At this point, Mr Brown has run out of bogus statistics. The fact is there are 1,000 bugging operations in Britain every day. Councils bug local residents, but there is still a ban on using intercept evidence to prosecute terrorists. Neighbourhood spies follow our children home from school, and investigate a range of trivial misdemeanours. Is that really how we want our soaring council tax rates spent? Wouldn’t precious local resources be better spent on putting more police on the street, given the doubling of violent crime and rising anti-social behaviour?

Finally, there is the attack on free speech. On the one hand, we have seen the arrest or prosecution of peaceful protesters — like Walter Wolfgang or the anti-war protesters reciting the names of Iraq war dead outside the cenotaph in Whitehall. On the other, Abu Hamza and the Danish cartoon protesters are left to preach hatred and incite violence on our streets — driving the growing radicalisation of young British Muslims that is now thrown back as a justification for 42 days.

Mr Brown’s security strategy is the worst of all worlds — draconian, expensive and ineffective. This contortion of British security and liberty is the result of pervasive ministerial amateurism, driven by a desperate thirst for headlines. Policy-making for the news cycle cannot be properly assessed, checked and tested. That is why I am fighting this by-election. We need a national debate on the erosion of British liberty in the name of security — based on a thorough, rigorous and critical assessment of all the evidence, not a stream of simplistic soundbites.

Details of David Davis’s campaign can be found at www.daviddavisforfreedom.com.

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john problem

July 3rd, 2008 9:09am Report this comment

One never imagined that, if Hitler and company. had invaded this treasured isle, he would have found Britons ready and able to help his Gestapo in their daily round. Until now, It's frightening how, seemingly, any council worker will turn into an Obersturmbahnfuhrer overnight if so asked by our government.

Niall

July 3rd, 2008 11:50am Report this comment

All valid points Mr. Davis but they would have been better received from a Shadow Home Secretary rather than the Eddie the Eagle of backbenchers.

Ray

July 3rd, 2008 12:58pm Report this comment

DD perfectly sums up this Government's whole crime-fighting strategy: criminalise the law-abiding majority whilst leaving the criminal minority free to do their nefarious deeds in peace.

Kevyn Bodman

July 3rd, 2008 6:05pm Report this comment

All valid points Mr. Davis and they are better highlighted by your stand in this by-election than they would have been otherwise.

Dwight Vandryver

July 4th, 2008 2:03am Report this comment

One is reminded of the BBC's Question Time programme immediately after the 7/7 bombings when a woman in the audience shouted at the panel: "How will you protect my babies?!". How indeed, and the government in power was expected to react positively. Failure to do so would have certainly attracted negative media coverage. Knife crime is the present scourge and dangerous and drunk driving came before that. Then there are the daily health scares ranging from mobile phones and alcohol to nuclear waste and passive smoking, with a good dose of carbohydrates and saturated fats thrown in along the way. Life is a risk, but the public do not acknowledge the fact. Instead, they look to the Nanny State to save them from such dangers, although statistically the risks involved are infinitesimally small compared to jumping in the car or walking down stairs. People may dislike the idea of the surveillance society. They may disapprove of ID cards and detention without charge. But when the argument is put that if only one innocent life could be saved by these measures, most people would agree to them. In today's society, civil liberty is as outmoded as nuclear disarmament. Paranoia over personal safety is the "in" thing.

Alun Reynolds

July 4th, 2008 11:58am Report this comment

Well said Mr Davis. Naill I agree to a degree, but think that what David has achieved by doing what he has done is to make the question more stark. Sort of made it stand out from the parliamentary noise.

My worry though is that the leftist media (particlarly the BBC) are deliberately starving this debate of oxygen.

They don't want the Government undermined as they subscribe to the leftist totalitarian agenda.

But whatever happens David Davis has restored my belief that someone in the policital arena really cares about the people, not their job. For that I am grateful, whether or not anything changes.

Pauline

July 4th, 2008 2:25pm Report this comment

The continued erosion of civil liberties and the cancerous corrosion of democracy are surely safe in this governments hands. Immutably committed to preserving its core values of centralisation and ever tighter control, it ridicules any possibility of there being another way: With a complacent and compliant society why should they even give lip service to, say, the ridiculous notion of freedom with responsibility. As for that David Davis they knew just how to deal with him. If they had got away with ignoring their promise to grant a referendum on the constitution of the EU why on earth would they put up a candidate to oppose that whippersnapper? So not only centralising and controlling but consistent with it! Do you know I think we've got the government we deserve.