Eat my poll
Saturday, November 05, 2005

We all know that work is the hateful, soul-sucking dross that we do during the quality hours of our lives. Bosses and supervisors are - without exception - people you wouldn't save from drowning in any other context, let alone waste your breath on. Managers are the people you befriended in your first week at university and then spent the next three years hiding from.

So pity poor Charlie Clarke saddled with a boss intent on making Clarkie an even bigger figure of fun than he is now.

New Labour, in the Safety Elephant's name, have sent out, via email, just about the most idiotic questionnaire I've ever seen, seeking views on his proposed internment legislation.

Do you think that our laws should be updated to cope with the current security threat? Yes - No - Not sure

Do you think police should have the time and opportunity to complete their investigations into suspected terrorists? Yes - No - Not sure

Do you think the government should make sure there are new safeguards to protect innocent people? Yes - No - Not sure

Would you like to be kept up-to-date on the progress of this legislation and other issues? Yes - No - Not sure

They forgot one:

Nasty men want to make you go boom. Are you frightened? Yes - No - Not sure

The state of New Labour's coffers must be parlous indeed if they don't have the funds to put a proper YouGov or MORI poll in the field. Or maybe they were worried a scientific poll with intelligent questions and everything wouldn't give them the answer they wanted. That the debate over the terrorism legislation should boil down to these amateur hour gambits shows a sweaty desperation unexpected even from this shower. Being on New Labour's email list really is a gift that keeps on giving and I urge you to sign up.

I was gratified to learn that you don't have to fill in all the questions to submit them (they really do have the cream of web designers on board) and you can answer them as many times as you like. The email box doesn't validate the emails either.

I mean, a bunch of like-minded people with ten minutes to spare on a Saturday morning could really make this questionnaire look like a desperately transparent, quickly-cobbled-together-on-Friday-at-half-four, piece of cobblers. If it wasn't one already. I can't wait to hear Clarkie say, "well, our own survey says..."

The debate on terror is a serious one and it needs adult contributions and a commitment to fair play and respect from all involved. Stunts like this do nothing but anger those able to see the fix, deceive those who aren't, and seek to lend a credibility to Clarke and his legislation which they have neither earned nor deserve. Yet another sign of the contempt in which the public is held by New Labour.

For shame.

More here, here and here.


5 Comments:

On November 05, 2005 12:36 PM, Anonymous Pete said...

It's not so much the idiocy, which is pretty obvious, as the transparent dishonesty of the exercise. What is this, limbo politics? Sort of "How low can you go?"

What I find more worrying is how people (and I mean serious people, not the knee-jerkers) are already talking about 14 days detention without charge as somehow acceptable. All seeming to forget that we are really talking about locking up innocent people here, and instead making the cheerful assumption that only bad, guilty people will be arrested - a belief that flies in the face of what's actually happened with these laws and how they have been used on the ground.

Meanwhile we continue to be drip-fed rumours from 'my mate who used to be in the Met heard from a friend' about this or that terrorist outrage that was thwarted in the nick of time, yet somehow never led to any arrests or trials.

You know, when I was a lad (not all that long ago), the police could hold suspects only after charging them with an offence, and then only up to twenty -four hours (and even this was in eesence a practical concession), after which they had to be brought to a court to be remanded in custody or bailed. The Tories (those staunch defenders of British liberty) pushed that up to four days. Now it can be two weeks, and the Dear Leader is pushing for three months? Where does it end?  


On November 05, 2005 4:41 PM, Blogger Friendly Fire said...

You know what made me puke today.... I sat down with my mug of sweet tea to watch Football Focus......... and Bliar was on it......

Things must be so bad at the BBC or Downing Street, whichever?  


On November 05, 2005 9:54 PM, Blogger Turbulent Cleric said...

I have rarely felt so insulted as I did on receiving the above questionnarire from the Labour Party.

We are run by a gang of knaves and crooks.  


On November 05, 2005 11:57 PM, Blogger Backword Dave said...

It doesn't validate email addresses? Oh pig, I assumed they were thinking of spamming anyone who filled in the questionnaire (BTW, isn't opting out of mail a legal right, and supposed to be the default, not "write to us if you object to spam"), so I gave addresses like tony@no-10.gov.uk and the Labour Party's own. I used their postcode too.  


On November 06, 2005 12:36 PM, Blogger Justin said...

Pete:

What I find more worrying is how people (and I mean serious people, not the knee-jerkers) are already talking about 14 days detention without charge as somehow acceptable.

This hadn't even occurred to me. That fact that it is acceptable validates the boiling frog theory of the public's attitude towards civil liberties.  


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