I tried to work in some line about The Sun and the eclipse, but I have had a lot on today.
Those Sun hacks obviously broke the law. But it was just as obvious that they ought to be acquitted.
Likewise, any defiance of yet further tightening of what are already the most draconian laws against trade unions in the free world would, by definition, be illegal.
But it would still be right and just, and the ability of a jury to acquit someone who has broken an unjust law is a vital democratic safeguard.
As we have seen today.
Nice try but no dice. The Attorney General quite rightly gave guidance that journalists can only be acquitted if what they revealed was in "the public interest". There's nothing unjust about requiring unions to actually get the support of their members before calling a strike (and there was me thinking they were all for democracy).
ReplyDeleteParliament makes the law in this country. If the unions don't want to abide by it they'll be treated like common crooks, and so they should be.
They wouldn't be convicted by juries, and they would be unlikely to be prosecuted. I mean, by the CPS? Come on! The immediate past Director of that is going to be a Labour MP in a few weeks' time.
DeleteIn fact, the members of the Police Federation are unlikely even to arrest them, since that body is itself practically guaranteed to engage in technically illegal industrial action against the party for which probably no serving Police Officer still votes. Labour peerages at the ready.
The public sector would bring down a second Cameron Government within a year, and possibly within six months. It is determined, and already organised, to do so.
The teaching unions sacked Michael Gove, and he was the hardest of the lot, while the teachers have neither the resources at the disposal of the law enforcement industry, nor the attitude of it and of the workers in the big trade unions.
The Police Federation has already brought down one member of this Government. At the very least, it would hardly be likely to save the rest of them.
The police have come a long way since they were Maggie and Leon's private army, a law unto themselves with no numbers on their uniforms and total political cover no matter what they did.
DeleteThe Tories have mistreated them since so they have swapped sides. Tories who think they used to be neutral must be defining neutral to mean Tory as they tend to do.
You are right, sheer non co-operation in the public sector if Cameron stays in will get him out very quickly.