on the labour party gang raping justice like so many leicester city footballers...

following yesterdays sinister advances on Lady Liberty, it seems that Tony is wasting no time getting his stringy little cock out and raping the shit out of this ever-more troubled mistress. while the britain slowly shakes itself awake after labour's coma-inducingly sanitised rally, the folk in charge are already drawing up a whole bunch of powers to fit Blair's lock-up first, ask-questions-later "justice" policy.

First there's this.

Instant Asbos: much greater use of injunction-style "interim asbos" granted to the police without evidence or witnesses having to be heard or the defendant informed. Bans and restrictions remain in place until a full court hearing.

now i don't want to sound like i'm criticising our esteemed police force (hell anyone that can find enough space to fit 7 bullets in the back of a Brazilian's head is deserving of some credit), but unless every bobby is dixon of dock green i think this is probably open to a little abuse.

Extending £80 and £40 fixed penalty fines handed out by police officers for rowdy behaviour to 10 to 15 year olds [...] those who do not pay or go to court will face fines of £120 and £80.

So essentially when some unlucky 14 year old with a vodka and red bull under his belt mouths off to a PC with more ASBOs than comebacks, he's likely to get himself slapped with an sodding huge fine (and fair enough some will say). but here's the real kicker, the police are free to fine anyone they see fit if said person should suggest perhaps that they were unfairly treated there is the threat that their fine can almost double if they should have the audacity to legally defend themselves. dirty harry policing at its very worst... well do you, punk, do you feel lucky?

Extending existing powers implemented in January 2004 to close down crack dens by giving police wider powers to evict drug dealers first and insist they can only challenge the police action in the courts later.

Again, defending people from evil drug pushers... yadda yadda yadda... isn't catherine zeta jones good in that movie traffic etc. but really? this shoot first ask questions later policy is just not cricket. it amounts to a culture in which police incompetence, bullying, racism and brutality (all of which we know they are entirely capable of in spades) is given free reign to cause far more damage than ever before, safe in the knowledge that ruined lives, damaged reputations, and dead brazilians can be swept under a their big police carpet.

and the traditional ID-card/CCTV defence that if you haven't done anything bad then you don't have anything to worry about is simply fucking absurd (for example, try telling that to david mery). it essentially relies on the constructed fantasy that there are Good People (who need defending) and Bad People (who do bad things to the Good People) and that because these Bad People are, well, Bad they don't deserve really deserve any rights. but when tony blair talks about 'deciding who comes first', in the real world there is no Burglar Bill figure who we're pipping at the post. we are racing ourselves. which means that while we may come first, we also invariably have to lose. it is our rights that are being taken away.

Blair's rhetoric is fucking bollocks. justice is not dickensian (its much older than that). and if all the above is Tony's vision of contemporary justice, then he's been getting a hard on from one too many judge dredd comics.

and while he and George W continue to doodle war plans on the back of the decleration of independance, we will all suffer.