Blears wants to censor press
This is a step too far:
The government has set out new guidance calling on councils to monitor communities and do more to prevent local tensions.
Communities secretary Hazel Blears called on councils to keep track of who is living in their area and be aware of potential “hot spots”.
The guidance also says local authorities should be aware of what “triggers” local tensions and urges they work with the local press to ensure reporting “does not exacerbate tensions”.
It stressed the importance of working with a wide range of people to monitor trends, making better use of local intelligence where possible.
And it said that local officials should develop greater awareness of how international issues have the potential to threaten cohesion.
“The overwhelming majority of people in this country live successfully side by side but we cannot take this for granted,” Blears said.
“Challenges to cohesion do exist - this might be between different ethnic or faith groups or new migrants and longer-term residents - but things can be done to address problems at the earliest opportunity and stop things escalating.”
She announced £50m of funding to support local authorities in “responding to these specific challenges”. This would include focusing on integration and ending “automatic translation” services, putting “more emphasis on English language learning, a move away from the funding of single groups and strengthening of our shared values”.
We all know the “challenges to cohesion” - unfettered immigration has created massive “minority” groups who, thanks to the policies of New Liebour, are effectively a state within a state. They have their own state-funded groups, their own “community leaders” and any attempt to speak out against this divisive state of affairs is met with hysterical screams of “RACIST!”
I agree that funding for ethnic and religious pressure groups should be cut. In fact, it should be stopped completely - they only increase tensions and there’s no justification for state support for them. I also agree that more emphasis should be put on learning to speak English. If you don’t speak English you shouldn’t be here.
However, curbing freedom of the press is one step too far. England is fast turning into a police state and people sit back and let it happen. In other countries people would be taking to the streets to protest against this sort of thing but not in England - you can’t protest anyway, it’s illegal to protest outside Parliament and if you protest anywhere else the police will demand your personal details and photograph you.
Come the revolution, we’re going to need a very big wall.
Technorati Tags: Come the Revolution, Censorship, Police State, Hazel Blears
This entry was posted
by wonkotsane on Monday, May 12th, 2008 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Police State.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
However, curbing freedom of the press is one step too far. England is fast turning into a police state and people sit back and let it happen.
Amen.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:09 am