Jacqui Smith is a crook. She is a crook and she needs to be brought before justice to answer charges. Jacqui used to be the Home Secretary of this morally bankrupt Labour Government. When Jacqui Smith was Home Secretary she was one of the most Orwellian, draconian Home Secretarys in living memory. Jacqui Smith is also a hypocrite.

Jacqui Smith broke the law, now you can help make sure that she is prosecuted. The Sunlight Centre for Open Politics have launched a private prosecution against this odious woman, you can help by donating money here – they need £100,000, and already today have raised $20,000. I personally have donated £10, if we all give that or less then we’ll get Justice for Jacqui.

Spare a few bob and get Jacqui Smith before the beak.

Hello you. Welcome to the start of the security week – which, interestingly enough, coincides with the start of the conventional working week. How fortuitous!

Today we have a story that’s heavy on the acronyms, with IMS claiming that members companies signed up to ONVIF have an overall larger market share than those who are members of the PSIA. What’s all that about? Read the story and find out.

We’ve also got a story that features a quite unflattering photo of UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson, who has launched a website to tackle anti-social behaviour.

There’s success for IFSEC’s South African adventure; RemGuard, perhaps unsurprisingly, advocating the use of remote monitoring; a little bit of corporate fraud excitement; and a chance to use a Chinese flag to illustrate a story that uses the words ‘command centre’ and ‘operational’ in its headline. Macho.

Did you know that the next big security show that deserves your attention takes place in India? It’s called IFSEC India. But that’s not all! Not by a longish shot. There’s also Internal Security India, and Firex India. How useful!

Squonk: www.info4security.com, www.ifsec.co.uk

Britain’s new Home Secretary may have a cockney cheeky chappy ‘thing’ going on, but don’t be fooled – he’s just as authoritarian as his mad predecessor:

The introduction of identity cards is a simple means of helping you, and I, protect our unique identity from fraudsters. Identity fraud costs the UK economy £1.2bn on average each year and causes misery for tens of thousands who fall victim. At a cost of just £30, the identity card is a cheap way of helping fight back. So, despite the headlines that would have readers think otherwise, I’m not scrapping identity cards – I’m committed to delivering them more quickly to the people who will benefit most.

I know that some of you have real concerns about the government’s motives for introducing the card. When I announced this week that I would make identity cards wholly voluntary it was because I believe that there are real benefits that will make the card an attractive proposition for many people. I think the case for identity cards has been made, but understand that getting a card will be a big decision for some people. Easy or hard, I think it should be a voluntary decision, one that people choose to take, because they agree and welcome the benefits an identity card will provide.

He thinks the case for ID cards has been made, showing a now typical New Labour disdain for an electorate which thoroughly rejects them. He’s rebranded them a means of protecting oneself from ID fraud, yet doesn’t explain why a governmental National Identity Register is needed to do so, nor how prosecuting those on the register for not updating their details could ever be a helpful move. But of course Alan Johnson is lying when he says they’re wholly voluntary. If you’re a teenager just try to get a student loan (which they’re already poised to devalue) without one. When you renew your passport just watch the administrator’s face crease if you refuse them permission to add you to the ID register – card, or no card (and the card itself was never the issue per se). Henry Porter gets it right when he says:

The ID card is primarily a scheme that enables government to identify you, and that is made clear in a dubious little paper called Safeguarding Identity, produced by the Home Office last week, which describes how the ID card and the transformational government scheme mesh together in one glorious structure where data about the individual passes between departments. That is the prize and why they will use any argument and spend any amount to achieve it. Every case mounted in favour of ID cards has been convincingly knocked down. It will not protect us from terrorism, as Johnson concedes, and it won’t do anything to stop crime. Its effect on benefit fraud is limited.

There is something terribly Foucaultian about this. A government which desperately wants people to think it’s learned its lessons is creating a system of punishment, merely to permit you to be who you are. It’s one of the most authoritarian proposals I’ve ever heard of in the history of the United Kingdom. So because people are stupid and leave their credit card statements in the bin instead of shredding them, I should have my very identity controlled and determined by a state eager to use my data without my specific consent, throughout its framework? That should terrify and appall everyone. A government’s promise of more efficient data protection, but whose track record of data handling and database development is so incompetent, should also ring alarm bells everywhere. Johnson’s little document cited above is an insidious, bureaucracy-driven attempt to redefine the very meaning of identity in the twenty-first century (page 28), and he’s clearly bought into it. If so there is no way he’ll let ID cards remain ‘voluntary’, and we must all resist ‘Safeguarding Identity’ at all costs. Observe why:

3.32. The vision for the NIS [National Identity Service] is that it will become an essential part of everyday life; underpinning interactions and transactions between individuals, public services and businesses and supporting people to protect their identity. The NIS will do this primarily through further ‘identity services’: the processes and tools with which people can prove or check identity.

New Labour’s proscription for the future: all normal human interaction is to be moderated by the government. I don’t know about you, but that’s not what I understand a government is supposed to be for. This strategy is a target-driven nightmare, the consequences of which appear not to have been considered by a Home Office completely out of step with the real world.

My suspicions were all on the money. Home Secretary Alan Johnson defied new Speaker John Bercow and held a spin press conference to announce ID cards were continuing, but were now entirely voluntary. In doing so he didn’t just continue New Labour’s obsession with announcing policy in the press rather than the Commons where it belongs (so much for reform eh Gordo?), but *ahem* lied:

two batches of draft regulations to be approved by MPs tomorrow and next week are expected to include powers to make the passport a “designated document” under the national identity card scheme. This means that anyone applying for or renewing their passport from 2011 will have their details automatically added to the national identity databases.

The regulations also include powers to levy a fine of up to £1,000 on those who fail to tell the authorities of a change of address or amend other key personal details such as a change of name within three months.

Did that really imply compulsory addition to the register and the penalty for not keeping it up-to-date would be pushed through by statutory instrument?! The expenses scandal and the transitory demand for constitutional change have clearly taught this rotten government nothing. They’re prepared to spend tens of millions they don’t have on a scheme they don’t need, which the people don’t want, sidestepping the Commons to do so, and lying to the public. This government fails to comprehend who it’s answerable to and must be reminded.

The new Home Secretary Alan Johnson has made clear that ID cards will no longer be made compulsory for British citizens. The scheme has also been scrapped for pilots and other airline staff to avoid clashes with trade unions, which was due to be trialed in September.

It seems that the Government does not know where they stand on ID cards. Their confusion on the party line has now led to a very unpopular scheme becoming doomed. Johnson said that the cards were: “an important tool, for tackling terrorism, but it was never the whole toolbox.”

Alan Johnson

The Prime Minister’s new Home Secretary seems to have different ideas to him about his beloved scheme that Brown refuses to let go of. The new idea to make it a voluntary scheme has surely left it without a hope.

The best option for Brown now would be to scrap the scheme and use the billions of pounds that they would save to help the economy. Its a shame that they never listen.

Apparently new Home Secretary Alan Johnson is an ‘instinctive’ supporter of ID cards. Strange then to give the impression he’s walking away from them:

A compulsory identity card trial for pilots and 30,000 other airport workers due to start in September has been abandoned by the new home secretary, Alan Johnson.

But he intends to accelerate other elements of the scheme including plans to issue £30 voluntary ID cards to young adults across north-west England. Johnson is also looking at making ID cards free for over-75s.

Longer-term plans to make ID cards compulsory for critical workers at rail stations have also been dropped.

British citizens would not be forced to carry ID cards, insisted the home secretary. Johnson said: “Holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens – just as it is now to obtain a passport.

Hmm. He pulls the compulsory scheme from airside & rail workers, yet continues with young people and the national rollout? Ok so if there really is to be no compulsion will he confirm people won’t need one for a student loan? Will you not now be forced onto the National Identity Register merely by renewing your passport?

No compulsion my ass, this is classic New Labour spin. So maybe he does harbour leadership ambitions after all.

Are you listening, Alan Johnson?

I bear in mind that countries, such as France and Germany, and other western European countries have ID card systems in place. This is due to different historical and cultural developments from our own. Our heritage is different. In one of his English letters Voltaire said that the civil wars of Rome ended in slavery, and those of the English in liberty. He wrote that the English were jealous of their liberty. So they are. The commitment, by and large, of the British people to European constitutional principles and ideals does not require us to adopt an ID card system.

In my view a national identity card system is not necessary in our country. No further money should be spent on it. The idea should be abandoned.

Lord Steyn is right and he points out the appropriate historical comparison to boot. There is quite simply no need for them and the new Home Secretary (who can’t afford them now after all) must announce now that the project is defunct. I’m confused why it’s still in limbo – some novel New Labour spin in preparation maybe? Waiting for a bad news day to sneak it under the radar?

by Peter Taberner

Leader of the House  said that the government is still on track over ID cards, the postal services bill and the child poverty bill.

Harriet Harman was speaking during business questions yesterday.

Ms Harman was reacting to jibes from shadow house leader Alan Duncan that debates on four statutory instruments on ID cards were shelved last week, as a report in the Sunday Times had highlighted.

With 16 sitting days remaining before the recess Mr Duncan asked about the ‘mysterious whereabouts’ of the postal services bill remarking that the Business Secretary and the Prime Minister has staked their reputations on it.

“On ID cards, there is no change in Government policy. The hon. Gentleman knows that the Home Secretary keeps the matter under review at all times,” Ms Harman replied.

“If there is any change in policy, the House will be kept updated.

“The hon. Gentleman will know that we have introduced biometric ID cards for foreign nationals, and I hope he supports that, as it is not only important for security, but speeds up the sorting out of identity questions so that access to visas, for example, is made easier for people who are genuinely who they say they are.

“He also knows that we are introducing this approach for air-side in airports, and that there will be no compulsory ID cards for everybody else without a vote in this House.

“The hon. Gentleman asked about the Postal Services Bill. It is not announced for next week’s business or that of the week after.

“He will see that we had to make a space for three days for the Parliamentary Standards Bill.

“I think it is important, with a crisis of public confidence in the House, to bring forward this measure and address it quickly.

“At the same time, to ensure proper scrutiny of the measure while bringing it in expeditiously, we need to give adequate time for it to be debated on the Floor of the House.

“That is why debate of the Parliamentary Standards Bill will be across three days.

“The Child Poverty Bill is not in the business that I have announced, but I hope that it will be brought in before the summer recess”

Ms Harman also remarked that the recession is the government’s number one priority and that they will intervene where necessary and asked for prior notice for any serious business bills that effect people’s lives, like the postal bill.

Her remarks moved the veteran Labour MP for Bolsover Dennis Skinner to speak up in typical style.

“May we assume that the listening and consultation applies to Labour Members as well as to the Opposition?” he asked.

“Does it explain the absence of the Postal Services Bill, which has not arrived in the House?

“Is that because Ministers have found the strength, having listened to scores, indeed hundreds, of Labour MPs, to ensure that the part-privatisation of Royal Mail does not go ahead?

“If that is the order of the day, well done!”

Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is embarassed. Say it with me – ‘awwwwww’:

Reflecting on this period, Smith said: “Having to fight your way out through TV cameras when you go out of your house in the morning, having press photographers outside your house for weeks on end is a real intrusion. It’s horrible”.

She added: “I could have coped with it on my own but my oldest son was doing, has just finished in fact, his GCSEs … and I just felt that it was not fair on all of them.”

Poor her. This is someone who thought that it was ok to tread on the constitution and allow the Metropolitan Police to investigate an opposition MP on political grounds. This is someone who thought that it was necessary to tag the entire population with an ID card and fine them for not updating them. This is someone who thought it was a clever idea to tap every single text, email and web access made by every single person in the country. This is someone who thought it was alright to send a gay asylum seeker back to Iran as long as he was ‘discreet’. And she has the nerve to say she was embarassed at press intrusion after her parliamentary expenses were made public? Disgusting. We’re well rid of her.

by Tony Grew

A member of the House of Lords has said he is delighted that the 40th anniversary of the murder of 11 Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics will be remembered at the Games in London in 2012.

Lord Janner told the House:

“The Jewish Committee for the London Games is delighted that Mayor Boris Johnson has pledged to mark this tragedy at the 2012 Games, and the committee is very grateful that the noble Lord (Lord Coe) has agreed to this being done.”

The athletes were taken hostage at the Olympic village in Munich in 1972 and later murdered by Black September, a militant group with ties to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah Palestinian terrorist group.

Lord Janner was speaking during a debate on the 2012 Olympics initiated by Lord Coe, chair of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG).

Lord Coe told peers that January was the halfway point from winning the bid to the Olympic opening ceremony.

“We are on track to deliver a compact Games with swift and safe transport and we are building new permanent structures only where there is a long-term and sustainable legacy,” he said.

“All our venues in the Olympic park are on, or even ahead of, schedule and being delivered within the public sector budget set by the Government three years ago.

“Let me give noble Lords an insight into the scale of these operations.

“They include: athlete services, accommodation, catering and transport for 10,500 Olympians, 4,000 Paralympians and 15,000 officials and coaches; venue operations such as security and waste removal at 40 venues;

“Spectator services and ticketing for 9 million people who will come to watch the Games; press and broadcast operations, ranging from results services to internet platforms for the 20,000 accredited journalists; workforce services to recruit, train and clothe thousands of staff and up to 70,000 volunteers;

“A Cultural Olympiad and education programme enabling thousands of community organisations, schools and local authority colleges to be inspired by and engaged in the Games; and our creative teams are working hard to choreograph ceremonies that reflect the best of the United Kingdom.”

Lord Jopling asked why Lord Coe had not mentioned security problems at the Games.

“Is it not a fact that the vicious people around the world who plan terrorist attacks must regard the London Olympics as one of the prime future potential targets?” he asked.

“Why has he not said anything about those preparations?”

Lord Coe said security is discussed regularly by the Olympic board and there is an Olympic Security Directorate under the direction of the Home Secretary.

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale said there are ongoing arguments among the national bodies about two sports: shooting and the equestrian events.

“There is serious concern among those bodies about the venues chosen for those events,” he said.

“Shooting at Woolwich and the equestrian events at Greenwich may provide fantastic televisual locations but both have serious safety issues and little or no perceivable construction or sporting legacies—something stressed in our bid.

“Shooting around its national home at Bisley and equestrian events at, for example, Badminton, would have left far better legacies and provided better facilities for competitors and spectators, arguably at lesser cost.”

Making her maiden speech, Baroness Campbell of Loughborough, the chair of UK Sport, praised Lord Coe.

“I am sure that his outstanding leadership from those early days in Singapore will continue to deliver a very successful Games in London in three years’ time,” she said.

“When we achieved our finest results for 100 years in Beijing—fourth in the Olympics and second in the Paralympics Games—it was heralded as a great success.

“The Olympics and Paralympics arena is a theatre of dreams.

“It is a place where ordinary people battle against all sorts of odds and, through hard work and perseverance, achieve their dreams.

“It is their journey, not the medal, which inspires us all. UK Sport is building a world-class system that will give us great pride as we see our athletes achieve in 2012.

“I hope that beyond 2012 we begin to appreciate that our elite sportsmen and women are not just about national pride but about setting an example for every young person in this country to achieve their personal best, whatever their circumstances and however difficult their journey.”

Lord St John of Bletso was concened with legacy.

“London 2012 will certainly provide 16 days of outstanding sport, yet the Olympics will be judged in London as an unqualified success only if the event leaves a clear and measurable legacy for this great city,” he said.

“Part of the legacy will clearly be the physical infrastructure, but an important element of it should be created in the hearts and minds of Londoners who are exposed to the benefits of sport and healthy living.”

Health was also an issue raised by Baroness Gould of Potternewton.

“As chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV, my concern is that there is adequate sexual health provision,” she told the House.

“Evidence from the Sydney Games shows us to expect a big increase in demand for sexual health services with a corresponding increase in sexually related diseases, mainly among casual workers, making it important that prevention and health promotion services are in place now.

“There is clear evidence from other Games of a correlation between major sporting events and an increase in human trafficking.

“Britain is a Mecca for the low-risk, high-profit industry of human trafficking which centres upon London.

“The Olympics is expected to have a major impact on the sex industry across London and the south-east, if not further afield.”

‘Unelected toffs in wigs, be they in the Courts or in the House of Lords, have been the defenders of civil liberties in many cases, during the current government,’ according to the Director of Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, who was the guest speaker at a lunch given today by the UK Section of the Association of European Journalists at the London office of the European Parliament. Because of the so-called War on Terror,  disturbing new powers have been granted to both the government and the police. For example, Section 44 of the Terrorism Act relating to stop and search requires no necessary grounds for suspicion at all. Tony Blair famously said that he would give the police whatever powers they needed. Shami opined that an ‘authoritarain arms race’ began in Britain when Michael Howard and Tony Blair became responsible for the Home Affairs brief in their respective parties — well before 9/11.

Liberty is currently celebrating 75 years of existence, having previously been known as the National Council of Civil Liberties (NCCL), in which, interestingly, several now prominent New Labour figures were previously involved. It’s always a spectacle to see them squirm when they try to defend the proposed introduction of ID cards in Britain, about which Liberty has been running a campaign. Shami Chakrabarti — who was a barister before working for six years for the Home Office — has no such ambitions to be sucked into politics with all its compromises. ‘I’d sooner be a rock-star before I’d be Home Secretary,’ she declared. She paid tribute to the work that Liberal Democrats have done in defending human rights (though she opposes the European arrest warrant, which the party has championed) and she sharply criticised Conservative plans to scrap the Human Rights Act, suspecting that their main objection to this important buttress to civil liberties is its essentially European origin.

Link: http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk and http://www.aej-uk.org

Hi there buddies! This is one of those tremendously exciting editions where I pretend that I’m in the office when actually (shh) I’ve got Friday off. Let’s do it!

This week SMT Online editor Brian Sims put the fear of gosh into incoming Home Secretary Alan Johnson in his SMT Online Editor’s View. Careful how you go, Alan!

And Securitas has gone and extended its Approved Contractor Status to cover Northern Ireland. How do you like them apples?

The BSIA has also been talking about Northern Ireland. Here is something about their guide to licensing there. Timely – and stylish!

The Millennium Stadium. Hewn over centuries from the living rock itself. A magical, mystical place. And now it has some new CCTV gear.

You know that CCTV End User Survey we’re running? I think, personally, that if you’re a CCTV end user, you should get involved with it. Not just because you could win £200 of Marks and Spencer vouchers – also because it’s the right thing to do. And you, in particular, are a really decent person.

Have an excellent weekend. Here is some video footage of kittens belonging to a long-time supporter and colleague.

www.info4security.com, www.ifsec.co.uk

by Yepoka Yeebo

A British man convicted of smuggling four tonnes of cannabis into the US claims courts were misled into extraditing him.

Giles Carlyle-Clarke, who served three years in an American prison for his involvement in the £60m deal, says US authorities lied about being unable to find him.

Mr Carlyle-Clark previously suggested his extradition was linked to a deal to relocate British prisoners from Guantanamo Bay.

Conservative MP for North Dorset, Robert Walker, raised his constituent’s objections in the House of Commons on Thursday, demanding an apology.

“Although Mr. Carlyle-Clarke pleaded guilty to the original crimes and has served his sentence in prison, it still remains the case that the procedures surrounding his deportation could not be described as representative of justice,” said Mr Walter.

“Those procedures were an affront to my constituent’s human rights, and I believe that he is owed an apology by both Governments for an extradition that he believes was obtained by deception.”

Mr Walter said that US authorities had claimed they did not know where Mr Carlyle-Clark was until the end of the 1990s.

“New evidence before the Minister proved that the American authorities had in fact known his identity since 1988, and that they had known of his whereabouts since 1989,” said Mr Walter.

“In fact, he had served a sworn affidavit on the American authorities in 1989 in which he gave the address in Dorset in my constituency where he had continued to live.

“United States authorities knew all along who Giles Carlyle-Clarke was.

“They knew that he was the registered owner of the yacht involved in the offences; they had photographs of him dating from 1988 and a sworn affidavit that he had lodged in an associated case in 1989.

“All that evidence was available to the Home Secretary before his extradition. However, the Home Secretary chose to rely on the assistant district attorney’s statement that the authorities did not know who Mr. Carlyle-Clarke was until 1995, although they still took until 1999 to seek his extradition.

“I am not a lawyer, but I can tell when a citizen has been unfairly dealt with by Ministers and the courts.

“Those procedures were an affront to my constituent’s human rights, and I believe that he is owed an apology by both Governments for an extradition that he believes was obtained by deception.”

Phil Woolas, Minister for Borders and Immigration said he could not comment on the implication that the UK Government were either misled or complicit in misleading in Mr Carlyle-Clarke’s case.

“Another judicial review application was dismissed… with the Court ruling that the claimant had got nowhere near establishing a case of a request made in bad faith.

“An application to the European Court of Human Rights was turned down, and hence the extradition took place the following month. I believe that the issues of fairness and proportionality were dealt with in the High Court case.”

The Shadow Home Secretary initiated a debate on teenage knife crime yesterday.

Chris Grayling began by welcoming Alan Johnson to his new role as Home Secretary.

“It is five years since I last did battle with the right hon. Gentleman over top-up fees, and it is a pleasure to shadow him again,” he said.

“I wondered whether he might prove to be the shortest-lived Home Secretary in the history of this country, but following last night’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party it appears that he might have to wait a little longer before he gets the opportunity to move into No. 10.

“Seriously, however, I look forward to debating the issues facing us all over the months ahead.”

Mr Grayling said he wanted the debate to focus on finding solutions to knife crime among young people.

“No doubt we will argue intensively over the failures of Government policy, but today’s debate is intended to be different,” he said.

“I understand from the Clerks that it is customary for an Opposition day motion to be critical of the Government and their policies, but this motion is not intended to do that.

“Rather, it is intended to stimulate a serious discussion about an issue that has been of concern to all of us—knife crime, particularly among our young people.”

He praised last week’s Home Affairs Select Committee report on the subject as “thoughtful,” but pointed out that not all teenagers are armed.

“There is no arms race going on among all children in the United Kingdom, nor are all seven-year-olds carrying knives for their elders,” he told MPs.

“There is an acute gang problem in some parts of the country, particularly in inner-city areas and most significantly in parts of London, but the vast majority of young people are decent, law-abiding citizens, getting on with their lives, taking their exams, working on a Saturday morning and having fun on a Saturday night. We must not allow a serious and important debate to create the sense that young people are a problem today.”

Mr Grayling said the reality of the situation is “stark.”

“The level of fatal stabbings is the highest on record.

“There has been a 34 per cent. increase in the number of people killed by sharp instruments such as knives in recent years.

“The number of people stabbed to death in England and Wales increased from 201 a decade ago to 270 in 2007-08, the highest figure on record. That is a serious problem. A serious knife crime—although not a homicide—is committed every hour.”

He quoted a 2008 MORI youth survey indicated that 31 per cent. of 11 to 16-year-olds in mainstream education and 61 per cent. of excluded young people had carried a weapon at some point during the preceding year.

“We have to tackle the root causes of worklessness, educational failure and family breakdown, and we have to foster a revolution in what we have dubbed our broken society,” he told MPs.

“But we also need to deliver the direct, on-the-ground support that can steer those young people caught up in the knife culture away from it.”

Alan Johnson thanked Mr Grayling for “his remarks and his welcome to me as Home Secretary.”

“I do indeed remember the last time we faced each other over the Dispatch Box,” he said, to which Labour MP Rob Marris shouted: “You won!”

“I like to think that the nation won,” Mr Johnson replied.

“The tragic cases of youngsters killed because of knife crime in London and elsewhere have shocked and saddened the nation,” he told the House.

“Reducing knife crime and crime among young people more widely is of paramount importance, not only because of the need to deal with the very small minority of young people who are persistent offenders and who cause considerable anxiety and harm to their victims, families and communities, but because addressing the issues that can lead to criminality among young people is essential for a fairer, safer society.”

Diane Abbott, MP for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, was one of several London MPs to speak in the debate.

“On the question of young people’s attitude to murder, is it not perhaps so much that they think that murder is acceptable but that they believe in their gangs and their communities that anything is acceptable when it comes to enforcing respect, to territorial defence of their gang or to demonstrating how much of a man they are?” she asked.

“It is such attitudes that we have to undermine.”

“From all my experience, I think that my hon. Friend is absolutely right,” Mr Johnson said.

“Incidentally, my press office had arranged for me to meet some police on Westminster’s Churchill Gardens estate yesterday and to walk around for my first on-camera shot as Home Secretary.

“By a real coincidence, that was where I was badly assaulted when I was 15.

“I came from the rough end of Notting Hill, and thought that this was a posh area of Pimlico, but the problem was a territorial thing because we were in an area that was not our territory.

“My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) is absolutely right to say that such attitudes are ingrained in people, but sometimes they can be reinforced by the things that they see and read.

“That is why I want to repeat that the Home Affairs Committee has done us a service by mentioning the fact that people feel that they have to go to that extra level to prove how hard and tough they are, and how much harder and tougher they are than the other gang.”

Mr Johnson said the youth crime action plan launched last summer of last year is providing more support to address the underlying causes of poor behaviour.

“It places a greater focus on prevention to tackle the low-level but serious problems such as truancy or exclusion that put young people at increased risk of becoming involved in crime or antisocial behaviour.”

He also praised family intervention projects, Operation Staysafe, which preventing vulnerable young people from being drawn into criminal activity and 5,300 Safer Schools partnerships “fostering better relationships between police and young people.”

“The advertising campaign, “It Doesn’t Have to Happen”, has been designed by young people, for young people, with that precise purpose,” he said.

“Aimed at 10 to 16-year-olds, the adverts portray unflinchingly the physical effects of knife wounds and have been viewed more than 13 million times. Of those youngsters surveyed, 73 per cent. said that they were less likely to carry a knife as a result of seeing the advert.”

The Home Secretary said that through the Be Safe programme, 1 million young people will be able to attend workshops over the next five years on the dangers of knives and other weapons.

Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, commended stop and search.

“My area is one in which the action programme has been introduced because of the problems that we have had with knife crime, resulting in a number of deaths, ending, unfortunately, with Ben Kinsella’s murder last summer,” she said.

“Youngsters were afraid to go out on the street because they thought other people were carrying knives, so they carried them themselves. The introduction of random stop and search among all young people was extremely helpful in putting a cap on the carrying of knives.”

Karen Buck, MP for Regents Park and Kensington North drew attention to research that confirmed the apparent correlation between certain types of violent crime and inequality.

“It is not just a question of deprivation equalling violence; the sharp impact of inequalities in society unfortunately also has an influence on how some people behave,” she said.

Andrew Love, MP for Edmonton said he was concerned about gang activity in his constituency.

“We wanted to set up a youth facility in a school that crossed a geographical boundary, but many young people in my community—both those who did belong to gangs and those who did not—were not prepared to cross it,” he said.

“We have to understand more about gang dynamics if we are to make an impact on this problem.”

Justine Greening, MP for Putney, praised Operation Blunt 2 in London.

“In the past year, more than 2 million people have been stopped, 10,000 arrests have been made—a rate of one every 51 minutes—and 25,500 knives have been seized,” she said.

“There has been a 30 per cent. fall in serious stabbings, and 90 per cent. of those caught in possession of a knife have been charged.”

Later in the debate Diane Abbott spoke at length about how Hackney teenagers become gang members.

“It is important in such a debate first to stress that the majority of our young people are not caught up in knife crime, gun crime or gang culture,” she told the House.

“It is easy to get carried away and criminalise young people as a class, inner-city young people as a class and, even, young people of a certain skin shade as a class.

“I might shock the House to say that one might walk through Hackney and see a group of gangling boys lurking under their hoods and think that they are plotting murder and mayhem, but they might just as well be on their way to play basketball.

“They will be quite pleased that people are frightened of them, but they will be trotting behind their mother to church on a Sunday.

“The media encourage us to jump to conclusions about young people, but we should not, so I want to put on record that, although we have our issues in Hackney, the majority of our young people are not in that criminal sub-culture.

“I do not know of many young inner-city men who when shopping up the west end have not been descended on by store detectives, or who have not walked down a street and had women clutch their bags closer to their bodies because they have just assumed that such men are criminals.

“We have to beware of criminalising our young people in that way.

“None the less, as a Member for an inner-city area and as a parent, I know that knife crime and the related issues of guns and gangs are very frightening to parents and communities, not least because one can say goodbye to one’s child as they go off in the morning to school, college or their first job, and by the evening receive a phone call saying that they have been caught up in an incident—sometimes quite innocently.

“That is a frightening thing for parents in an inner-city area to live with, because when the gun, gang and knife cultures erupt, they often touch and harm young people who are simply going about their business.

“Where does the young man, swaggering around an estate with a knife up his sleeve, thinking that he can demand respect with the point of a blade or a gun, come from?

“I do not believe that he is the result of listening to music or watching video games. I do not believe that the culture produces criminal behaviour; I believe that the criminal sub-culture produces the music and the games.

“Where do such young men come from?

“They come from families, many thousands of them on estates that I represent in Hackney, where young boys are growing up not just in female-headed households—I would be the last person to say that a single parent cannot be a good parent—but in households where they have never seen men getting up and going out to work, and meeting their responsibilities as men; nor have their friends seen that.

“When they go to school, most of their teachers are women. As they grow up, their notion of manhood is a vacuum.

“I was fortunate; my family are working-class Jamaicans, but every day that God sent, my father went out to work, and on a Friday he brought home his wage packet. That was my notion, and my brother’s notion, of what being a man was all about.

“There are too many young children on estates in Hackney who do not have a notion of manhood. They do not see people—men or women—going out to work and meeting their responsibilities.

“As they grow up, their minds are filled with a notion of manhood that is informed partly by popular culture, yes, but partly also by the guys they see on the street with the big cars and the gold chains.

“They do not know that those guys will have a very short “working” life. They do not know about the downside.

“All that they see is the swagger, the big car, the gold chains, and the notion that that guy is the one whom all the girls are after.

“Into those boys’ imagination comes a notion of manhood that I do not recognise, that people in the House do not recognise, and that my father would not have recognised.

“That is the notion of manhood to which those boys aspire.”

So the Law Lords have declared that the government’s policy of control orders breaches the Human Rights Act. This should surprise noone. By their very nature control orders are inhuman (and will be the subject of an imminent blog post from me, via Amnesty International), but the Lords found they breached the European Convention on Human Rights because they deprive those subject to them from the due process of law. Astonishingly new Home Secretary Alan Johnson argued that due process could justifiably be avoided:

The Home Office argued that it was sometimes possible to have a fair hearing without any disclosure depending on the circumstances of the case. Security-vetted special advocates are supposed to represent the interests of those placed on control orders in each case.

The terms of the control orders imposed on individual suspects by the home secretary include curfews at their home address of up to 16 hours, a ban on travelling abroad, all visitors to be approved by the Home Office, monitoring of all phone calls and a ban on internet and mobile phone use.

Johnson himself said:

“All control orders will remain in force for the time being and we will continue to seek to uphold them in the courts. In the meantime we will consider this judgment and our options carefully.”

He said control orders were introduced to limit the risk posed by suspected terrorists who could neither be prosecuted nor deported. “The government relies on sensitive intelligence material to support the imposition of a control order, which the courts have accepted would damage the public interest to disclose in open court.

“We take our obligations to human rights seriously and as such we have put strong measures in place to try to ensure that our reliance on sensitive material does not prejudice the right of individuals subject to control orders to a fair trial.”

So no change from the reshuffled government then. They actually believe it’s possible to have a fair trial with evidence against the plaintiff kept secret from them?

In the ruling, Lord Philips said: “A trial procedure can never be considered fair if a party to it is kept in ignorance of the case against him.”

This, New Labour, is why we hate you. Control orders have to go. House arrest – actual Big Brother levels of control – is condemned in Burma; it’s unthinkable for it to be continuing here against anyone, and it’s monstrous for Johnson to say the government takes its obligations to human rights seriously.

Due to reasons beyond my control, today’s missive will be brief and to the point – like some kind of undergarment. I hope that doesn’t sound too scary.

So first up we’ve got SMT Online supremo Brian Sims with his Editor’s View. He waves a fond farewell to former UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Kind of.

Then there’s the BSIA’s advice for Northern Ireland businesses: prepare yourselves for licensing. They’ve published a helpful guide. Lovely!

In addition we have an NVT Hybrid Video application guide; a deal for Bold and Crimewatch at IFSEC 2009; and an IndigoVision appointment for a man with a very excellent name: Ivo Drent.

Don’t forget to take part in our CCTV End User Survey. You could win £200 of Marks and Spencer vouchers. That’s just great!

Si: www.info4security.com, www.ifsec.co.uk

Alan Johnson has been appointed as the new Home secretary. He replaces Jacqui Smith as Gordon Brown tries desperately  to hang on to power.

Brown has bowed to Alistair Darling wishes , who made it clear he had no desire to move from number 11 and keeps him as Chancellor.

Alan Sugar is also being tipped for a job in government .

“We are in an emergency situation, said International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander on BBC radio 4 this morning.”

Si intensificano le speculazioni che vedrebbero Shaun Woodward in attesa di un’importante promozione in occasione del reimpasto di Gabinetto post elettorale.
Si vocifera che il Segretario di Stato per l’Irlanda del Nord, possa essere il successore di Jacqui Smith all’Home Secretary. La Smith è uno dei più alti profili coinvolti nello scandalo dei rimborsi spese ai politici.
Camilla, moglie di Woodward, è figlia dell’ex deputato conservatore Tim Sainsbury, della ricca famiglia Sainsbury.

Woodward to get ‘big promotion’ (BBC News Northern Ireland)
Speculation is intensifying that NI Secretary of State Shaun Woodward could be moved to another post in an expected Cabinet reshuffle.
BBC political correspondent John Pienaar said Mr Woodward is in line for “a big promotion.”
He has been linked to the job of Home Secretary which will be vacated when Jacqui Smith steps down.
Mr Woodward was a Conservative MP between 1997 and 1999 when he defected to Labour.
Since 2001, he has held the safe Labour seat of St Helens.
He moved up the ministerial ranks, joining the Cabinet for the first time two years ago.
Gordon Brown is to shake up his cabinet after Thursday’s European and English local elections.
Jacqui Smith has been one of the highest profile MPs embroiled in the ongoing row over expenses.
Ms Smith, who wants to remain an MP, was criticised for listing her sister’s London house as her main home – and her husband’s claim for an adult movie.
Shaun Woodward’s wife, Camilla, is the daughter of the former Conservative MP Tim Sainsbury of the wealthy Sainsbury family.

The London Times describes the fallout and likely collapse of the horrid Gordon Brown reign from the vast corruption scandal detailed largely by the Telegraph. Frankly this is not much different from the U.S. Congresscritters’ abuse (with a few notable exceptions) from influence peddling by lobbyists and special interests who claim a right to FUTURE taxpayer receipts- like our grandchildrens’!

Hazel Blears dealt a potentially fatal blow to Gordon Brown’s political authority today when she announced her departure from Cabinet on the eve of crucial local and European elections. It was the fourth ministerial resignation in 24 hours and the second at Cabinet level after the news yesterday that Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is also to stand down. It also came as Mr Brown’s critics in the Labour Party canvassed support for a round-robin letter calling on the Prime Minister to resign. Selected Labour MPs today received an e-mail asking whether they would sign a letter of no confidence in Mr Brown on Friday morning. Mr Brown’s opponents believe that they could secure the support of 70 or 80 MPs for the move. Under Labour Party rules, it takes 70 MPs to trigger a leadership contest.

The General Motors headquarters is seen with the moon in the background in Detroit, Sunday, May 31, 2009. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

UPDATE: Wednesday morning, 14 hours after this piece was posted online, a General Motors spokesman informed the Washington Examiner that GM was canceling all of its contracts with outside lobbying firms. The company will maintain its in-house lobbying shop however.

General Motors will continue its multimillion-dollar lobbying operation in Washington, even after the federal government takes ownership of it. The automaker may even maintain its high-dollar lobbying contracts with some of the wealthiest and most influential K Street firms. “We believe we have an obligation to remain engaged at the federal and state levels,” General Motors stated in an e-mail after President Barack Obama announced his plan for the federal takeover of the carmaker, “and to have our voice heard in the policymaking process.” GM spent $13.1 on lobbying in 2008. In the first quarter of this year, while surviving on federal bailout money, the company’s lobbying tab was $2.8 million. What’s left to grift from the beleaguered taxpayer?? Keeping the options open for more cash?

Jacqui Smith hasn’t even left her department yet, but Lib Dem Home Affairs Spokesman Chris Huhne has already addressed whoever replaces her:

“The next Home Secretary must ensure that the worst excesses of recent years are not just curbed but rolled back.

“A good start would be to scrap ID cards, take innocent people off the DNA database and not spy on our phone calls and emails.”

As a starting point it wouldn’t be bad, and it really has to be the barest minimum to expect from whoever follows her. The question currently remains – will her successor be under Gordon Brown or Alan Johnson? If Johnson does he now appreciate the need for a rollback from the Blair/Brown lunge towards a police state, that it’s not just because it’s wrong, but because it’s to his electoral advantage?

This is now a farce , cabinet ministers are falling on their swords at an alarming rate as Hazel Blears  announced she’s off.

Soon there will be only one left, Gordon Brown himself.

In an interview with Sky News broadcast just a few moments ago Jackie Smith appeared to suggest we need to all vote conservative. Questioned closely by Sky New’s Adam Boulton she tried to retract what she really did appear to say, We need a Conservative government.

“Spin on the hoof “, not really very good at it is she.

What do you think Gordon s next move is? General Election? Let us know your views.

Jacqui Smith is the first winner of our jumping before you are pushed award. Realising, albeit two months after the rest of us did, that her woeful attempt at being Home Secretary had run its course, she has very graciously decided to save Gordon the trouble of sacking her next week, by quiting this week.

She could have actually left with some dignity had she quit when it was right to do so instead of on the eve of her sacking.

Gordon is having a truly torrid week and it is set to get even worse with the elections on Thursday.