Tony Bliar defeated over "terror" bill

[Dr Lobster*]

must say this has come as a bit of a suprise to me; with the sun supporting the 90 day detention i suspected the apparent support from the great unwashed would have nailed another victory for the labour government.

i find this trend of giving the police extra powers alarming: it's obvious that the police nor cps have the intellect or common sense to use the powers they already have effectively (you've only got to cast your mind back to the 80-odd year old labour heckler that was arrested under anti-terrorism offences earlier this year)

but what do you think about all this? do you support locking people up for 90 days without charge?

[cat]

I was driving to work earlier at when, at about 06.20 an unmarked police car with a stick-on blue light came screaming up behind me on a suburban 30-limit street. It has a large, hatched area in the middle of the road and there is plenty of room for three cars to drive alongside oneanother. I no longer pull over to allow the police to pass, and only will for fire and ambulances if it is safe to do so. So I carried on at 30 whilst he drew ever closer at about 60/70mph. Seeing that I wasn't going to yield to his advance he swerved right out onto the right-hand side of the road (technically three lanes' distance) and passed me at about the same speed, honking his horn like a boy racer on acid. He was followed minutes later by a couple of marked vehicles which did roughly the same.

Now I was under no legal obligation to pull over to allow them to pass. All I had really done was piss the half-wit boy-racers-with-power off. However the key word in that is "power". Under these new terror laws they would have the *power* to spin the facts and show that I was willfully inhibiting the police in the line of duty, which could quite easily set me foul of the legislation. I'd then be hauled off to an undisclosed location without charge for up to three months.

"Complete rubbish" you might say, but the fact that fuel tanker protestors were threatened with being arrested under the terrorism act, and as you say, Herr Lobster, the old boy at the party conference was arrested for the same. Almost anything could be perceived as being "an act of terroism" and with the average police cuntstable (sic) having the IQ of 52* almost anyone could be arrested for anything the police choose.

I could be for having the audacity to write the above.

*source: Bugger all survey, March 2005

And I bet that if the police were delayed in getting to you when you'd been attacked/run over a child/been in a train crash/etc because some smart-arse pulled the same trick you'd be the first to say what a disgrace it was.

Presumably you are ignorant to the fact that the police always, always, always attend incidents that ambulances and fire engines go to? So, if your parents are shot tomorrow it's not only the ambulance that goes to tries to save their lives, it's the police who go to stop the attacker taking any others.

So clever of you to do something like that.

There are plenty more ways for you to voice your dislike of the police force than actively preventing them from attending an emergency situation.

And you are under a legal obligation to not get in the way of the authorities' behaviour. It's called obstruction of justice. I hope next time they do you for it.

[cat]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Thanks for that. Cos of course all those situations require police presence immediately don't they.

Face it: there are no situations that would ever require a patrol car to break the limit in order to reach the location more quickly. Bank robbery: an armed unit's going to be slightly more use than a bog-standard bobby. Bag been snatched: whoever's done it is long gone. Burglary: same. RTA: forensic evidence will still be there 5 minutes later.

And you are under a legal obligation to not get in the way of the authorities' behaviour. It's called obstruction of justice.

And I am under NO obligation to put myself out for the whim of the police. I am advised if it is safe to do so to allow their safe passage, however there is no legislation governing me to stop.

I hope next time they do you for it.

Hang on - I thought you just said they were in a major hurry.

Wow. You're really thick. Let's do this again.

Right, so when a person phones 999 and says ''there's someone outside threatening to kill me, he's got a gun'', you would maintain that ''there are no situations that would ever require a patrol car to break the limit in order to reach the location more quickly''? Again, if the gun was pointed at you, I doubt you'd be so strident and myopic in your opinions.

Obstruction of justice - basically, if you get in the way, they are perfectly entitled to arrest and subsequently charge you with it. Would you have moved over for a police car if it was a single-lane country road? If not, I'm sure they would have arrested you.

Attending emergency situations are not ''whims of the police'' they are duties, and what the police are there to do. You are absolutely under obligation to not get in the way of prevention of crimes. Your plea to a judge that ''well, I don't think the police are very important'' wouldn't really stand up; you've no idea what incident the police are attending.

Basically, what you've done is make yourself look a bit of a tit now, and you're going to try to defend yourself with an even more desperate argument.

Like I said, you're really thick. And yes, I am name calling, and no, that does not weaken my argument.

[Sput]

I think Mark's original point was that while the police cars could easily have gotten by his car without him doing anything as the road was wide enough, he perceived them to be on a power trip manifested as their insistence that he get out of the way and they use his position there.

That would more or less nullify any of these emergency delay problems aside from police stubborness.

Or not, maybe. I'll hide again.

[Salty]

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Thanks for that. Cos of course all those situations require police presence immediately don't they.

Face it: there are no situations that would ever require a patrol car to break the limit in order to reach the location more quickly. Bank robbery: an armed unit's going to be slightly more use than a bog-standard bobby. Bag been snatched: whoever's done it is long gone. Burglary: same. RTA: forensic evidence will still be there 5 minutes later.

And you are under a legal obligation to not get in the way of the authorities' behaviour. It's called obstruction of justice.

And I am under NO obligation to put myself out for the whim of the police. I am advised if it is safe to do so to allow their safe passage, however there is no legislation governing me to stop.

I hope next time they do you for it.

Hang on - I thought you just said they were in a major hurry.

Wow. You're really thick. Let's do this again.

Right, so when a person phones 999 and says ''there's someone outside threatening to kill me, he's got a gun'', you would maintain that ''there are no situations that would ever require a patrol car to break the limit in order to reach the location more quickly''? Again, if the gun was pointed at you, I doubt you'd be so strident and myopic in your opinions.

Obstruction of justice - basically, if you get in the way, they are perfectly entitled to arrest and subsequently charge you with it. Would you have moved over for a police car if it was a single-lane country road? If not, I'm sure they would have arrested you.

Attending emergency situations are not ''whims of the police'' they are duties, and what the police are there to do. You are absolutely under obligation to not get in the way of prevention of crimes. Your plea to a judge that ''well, I don't think the police are very important'' wouldn't really stand up; you've no idea what incident the police are attending.

Basically, what you've done is make yourself look a bit of a tit now, and you're going to try to defend yourself with an even more desperate argument.

Like I said, you're really thick. And yes, I am name calling, and no, that does not weaken my argument.

If there was enough space for three cars - then he isn't obliged to move. It isn’t a legal requirement to pull over to let them past, yet if you obstruct them they can “do you” for obstruction of justice – ONLY if they have evidence and ONLY if you are obstructing them from getting to a major incident. If they find the time to arrest you then the incident can’t be that big, can it?

God help you when someone posts about not moving out the way for a sky news van – then there will be a major incident.

[tillyoshea]

Presumably you are ignorant to the fact that the police always, always, always attend incidents that ambulances and fire engines go to?

So when my blue-light heart attack patients arrive, where are the police? Presumably not at the patient's empty house, and certainly nowhere near the hospital. In fact, there are relatively few incidents requiring ambulances that police also attend. Or this could, as you suggest, just be me being ignorant, if they've invented invisible officers now. Or it could be that you don't know what you're talking about. Tough decision.

[cwathen]

Right, so when a person phones 999 and says ''there's someone outside threatening to kill me, he's got a gun'', you would maintain that ''there are no situations that would ever require a patrol car to break the limit in order to reach the location more quickly''? Again, if the gun was pointed at you, I doubt you'd be so strident and myopic in your opinions.

I'm not sure that there is no situation ever when a patrol car would be justified in driving the way some of them do when those blue lights go on, but quite what you think a panda car with 2 unarmed officers in it is going to do if someone is threatening you with a gun I'm not sure. Similarly, quite what you think a panda car with 2 officers with only basic first aid training is going to do if you're involved in a serious RTA I'm not sure either.

You do also have to consider that sometimes marked cars shoot through congested city centre roads with the lights on just so they can avoid having to wait on their way to HMV to arrest some thieving chav - hardly a genuine blue light emergency is it? But I've seen it happen.

I believe if you read the original post you'd also see that the point was not that the car was attempting to pass, it's that he was expecting to pass in the same roadspace when there was plenty of room to safely overtake.

A particular niggle of mine however is not police cars zooming past with blue lights on, it's police cars zooming past WITHOUT them on. The police are only allowed to break speed limits and normal road conduct if they are on a shout and running their blue lights. If they are just driving around they are expected to be impeccable drivers, bound to the same rules as any other motorists. Yet if I had a pound for every time a marked police car has shot past me on a dual carriageway at close to the speed of sound without being on an emergency call just because they can get away with it, I'd be a very rich man. It particularly pisses me off when the same police car would doubtless pull me over, fine me £60 and endorse my licence with 3 points for some trivial misnomer like doing at 80 on a motorway or 35 in a 30.