The Boiling Frog: Medway Council

Sunday, 22 August 2010

Medway Council

The endorsement by Medway Council of the conduct of these students has annoyed me to the extent that I've decided to write to them via their complaints procedure. The full text of my email is as follows:

Dear Sirs,

I am writing to you to express my concerns regarding Medway Council’s apparent endorsement of potentially illegal activity by some students from The Hundred of Hoo School based in Rochester.

Some students have formed an anti-smoking campaign group who call themselves ‘CiggyBusters’ which, as this article makes clear, involves running through the streets removing cigarettes from members of the public while filming them and the subsequent video has been put on the internet. The organizers, and the teacher, appeared to have confirmed that some members of the public were targeted at random.

As I’m sure you are acutely aware, removing items from people without consent constitutes a criminal act (in this case more than one). Therefore it should be of great concern to Medway Council, that one its employees: Tobacco Control Strategic Coordinator, Rachael Noxon, not only condones this behaviour, but is actively promoting it, as seen by her website and her Twitter feed.

In addition I’m sure you are aware, encouraging criminal activity is also a serious offence; it’s incitement. It contravenes sections 44, 45 & 46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (even if the criminal activity featured in the video on the internet is ‘simulated’)

As a non-smoker, I support the involvement of anyone involved in campaigns by means of methods such as; leaflets, T-shirts & posters etc, but the conduct of these students clearly oversteps the mark both morally and legally. It does not take a lot of imagine to appreciate the distress a vulnerable person may feel when approached by gang of young people shouting and taking items from them.

Another ‘campaign’ is planned for September, again with the full endorsement and encouragement of a Medway Council employee.

I trust you will investigate Rachael Noxon’s conduct in this case with the utmost urgency and I look forward to your prompt response.

Yours faithfully

Let's see how they like them apples.

One wonders how long it will be before smokers have to wear yellow stars. Certainly if I had produced a video showing people ripping veils off Muslim women, even if stage-managed, as a protest about Burqas, I would have a visit from Mr Plod very quickly.

It looks like however the students in question are trying to back-track rapidly as they frantically try to remove their names and videos from various websites (the wonders of Google cache). The hostile reaction seems to be scaring them. Good.

Update: I have an auto mail reply confirming they've received it. They have a target of 5 working days to respond.

3 comments:

Witterings from Witney22 August 2010 at 18:25
Best of luck - what price they ask whether you live in Medway otherwise they are unable to respond?
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TheBoilingFrog22 August 2010 at 19:08
That thought had crossed my mind as well WfW,I have a response to that up my sleeve should they ask. We'll see.
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James Trent26 August 2010 at 07:06
I see BigBrotherWatch have nominated Medway as "Britain's most overbearing authority". They have taken the crown from Labour led Sandwell Council which was said to be “the most bullying, hectoring and punitive of local authorities in the country”. Medway must be even worse.

It is interesting to note that a Tory council has taken this accolade from Labour within months of winning the election. No doubt a sign of things to come.

http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/home/2010/08/the-council-wont-let-you-sell-your-own-car.html

Links within that post to other articles about their bullying behaviour. They seem to be completely out of control and there is not a lot the citizens of Medway can do about it until the next election.
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EU quotes

"[There's no way Britain could accept that] the most vital economic forces of this country should be handed over to an authority that is utterly undemocratic and is responsible to nobody"
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"Parliament must...resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp."
(Lord Kilmuir, advice to Edward Heath, December 1960)

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(Edward Heath, Hansard, 17 November 1966)

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(George Ball Under-Secretary of State for JFK 1961)

"The single market was the theme of the Eighties; the single currency was the theme of the Nineties; we must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity".
(Romano Prodi, 13 April 1999)

"Let's imagine Europe is a football club and you join, but once you're in it you can't say let's play rugby". (French foreign minister Laurent Fabius)

"We perform the duties of freemen; we must have the privileges of freemen ..."
(Chartists 1836)

"The [Lisbon Treaty] is indeed a tidying -up exercise, it sweeps the rest of our sovereignty under the Brussels carpet".
(Lord Pearson)

"The Government’s guiding principle was...to swallow the lot and swallow it now."
(Sir Con O’Neill, the British diplomat who led the UK’s negotiations for EEC membership under Heath)

"I look forward to the day when the Westminster Parliament is just a council chamber in Europe."
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"The EU is the old Soviet Union dressed in Western clothes"
(President Gorbachev)

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(Mark Leonard co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think tank)

"We need to build a United States of Europe with the [EU] Commission as government".
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(Wikipedia)

“A coup d’état by a political class who did not believe in popular sovereignty”.
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"[Bailouts are] expressly forbidden in the treaties by the famous no-bailout clause. De facto, we have changed the treaty."
(French Europe minister Pierre Lelouche)

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"One must never forget that monetary union, which the two of us were the first to propose more than a decade ago, is ultimately a political project. It aims to give a new impulse to the historic movement toward union of the European states"
(Giscard d’Estaing, who drafted the EU Constitution 1997)

"The process of monetary union goes hand in hand, must go hand in hand, with political integration and ultimately political union. EMU [economic and monetary union] is, and always was meant to be, a stepping stone on the way to a united Europe"
(Wim Duisenberg, first president of the EU Central Bank)

"Once the interlude of [WWI] was over, [countries] all went back to the rules and customs of traditional parliamentary democracies. I felt out of my depth."
(Jean Monnet 'Father of Europe')

"We need to build a United States of Europe with the [EU] Commission as government."
(Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner 2014)

"We had imagined a political 'grand design', a new international order..."
(Jean Monnet 'Father of Europe')

"I like the English style of life. I feel more at home here in London"
(Tintin creator, Belgian born Herge)

"We are not forming coalitions between States, but union among people"
(Jean Monnet, 'Father of Europe')

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(Jean Monnet, 'Father of Europe')

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(Lady Thatcher, Statecraft)

"There is no question of Britain losing essential national sovereignty”
(Ted Heath)

Euro quotes

"Euro has done more to enforce budgetary discipline in rest of Europe than any number of exhortations from IMF or OECD".
(Nick Clegg, 2002)

"We're happy to give the Greeks anything, just not money".
(German MEP Markus Ferber 2010)

"The Euro has been a rock of stability... Joining the single currency would be a major step".
(Labour MEP, Richard Corbett, 2009)

"The single currency... marks stability and growth and is crucial to high levels of growth and employment".
(Tony Blair 1998)

"Britons will come round to the idea [joining the euro] once they’ve handled euro money".
(Adam Boulton Sunday Times, 2001)

"Staying out of the Euro will mean progressive economic isolation for Britain".
(Peter Mandelson, 2003)

"The European Union must take a decisive step towards a federal economic government, with common fiscal policies and a larger budget, if it is to save the euro".
(Andrew Duff Lib Dem MEP 2011)

"A European currency will lead to member nations transferring their sovereignty over financial and wage policy as well as monetary affairs".
(Hans Tietmeyer, head of the Bundesbank, 1991)

The single currency is the greatest abandonment of sovereignty since the foundation of the European Community: the decision is of an essentially political nature".
(Felipe Gonzalez, a Spanish former PM, 1998)

"The euro area now represents a pole of stability for those countries participating in it by protecting them from speculation and financial turmoil. It is strengthening the internal market and contributing to the maintenance of healthy fundamental figures, fostering sustainable growth".
(European Council conclusions, 2001)

"We must enter the euro with a clean sheet on all the criteria".
(Then Greek Finance Minister, Yannis Papantoniou, 1999)

"The reality of the euro has exposed the absurdity of many anti-European scares while increasing the public thirst for information. Public opinion is already changing…as people can see the success of the new currency on the mainland".
(Kenneth Clarke MP, 2002)

"The euro is a great success, and in today’s global economy, the pound is no longer an important currency. If we are not careful, we could become like Iceland in the next financial crisis".
(BT Group Chairman, Sir Michael Rake, 2009)

"I think the eurozone has turned the corner".
(Then French Economy Minister, Christine Lagarde, 29 January 2011)

"I believe that, within the next twelve months, we will have averted contagion and stabilised the eurozone".
(German Finance Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, 30 December 2011)

"We cannot be members of the single market without being part of the single currency, the euro...In life, fighting for a minority view is sometimes dangerous and painful. But when you know you are right, and when so much of our national prosperity depends on it, we should expect our political leaders to act".
(Virgin Group Chairman, Richard Branson, 2000)

"We are writing to make clear our concerns about the implications for business if the Government rules out membership of the euro for the lifetime of this Parliament. Such a decision would be damaging for British-based businesses, British employees and the British economy as a whole".
(WPP Group CEO, Sir Martin Sorrell, et al., 2003)

"A single currency, introduced at the appropriate time, will reduce costs for businesses that trade or invest across Europe...More investment in growing
businesses means more employment".
(Then BP Chairman, Lord David Simon, 1997)

"Joining the euro would increase our incomes and thus our standard of living...Now the countries of Europe have taken one more step towards making a truly unified market, using only one currency. If again we delay joining, we again risk falling further behind".
(Former Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, former CBI Director General, Lord Adair Turner, et al., 2002)

"Staying out of the euro will mean progressive economic isolation for Britain. It will mean fewer foreign businesses investing here, fewer good jobs being created and less trade being done with our European partners".
(Former Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, 2003)

"Britain should join the euro within the next few years in order to enhance British power and influence".
(Centre for European Reform Director, Charles Grant, 2001)

"Joining EMU would offer multiple benefits...The euro would be good for jobs".
(Then TUC Secretary General, John Monks, 2003)

"As time goes on, people will increasingly see that there is a price to be paid for remaining outside the euro".
(Former Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock, 2002)

"The euro may well come to be regarded in the coming years as part of the answer to saving the City from permanent decline. It was easy to dismiss the fledgling euro as a ‘toilet currency’ before we realised our own economic growth was built on sand".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"Obviously joining a currency that everybody in Europe - including soon all the new European Union members - are using, a currency that American and Japanese and overseas businesses understand, has to make sense".
(Then UK Europe Minister, Denis MacShane, 2003)

"The euro, despite gloomy predictions from anti-Europeans, has proved to be a success".
(Former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, 2002)

"In reality the economic integration between Britain and the Continent is so close, and we have confirmed this because we all belong to the common market, that it can't be good in the long run to stay out of such a cardinal element as the currency union".
(Then German Finance Minister, Hans Eichel, 2002)

"There are no real benefits and some real costs to the UK of monetary independence... it makes sense from a financial stability perspective for the UK to contract out monetary policy to the ECB".
(Citigroup Chief Economist, Willem Buiter, 2007)

"Taking part in EMU would improve policy and performance enough to eliminate many of the strains that sceptics predict would emerge without the safety valve of devaluation".
(BBC Trust Vice Chairman, Diane Coyle OBE, 1997)

"The euro is like a breastplate that will become more and more resistant. The stability of the currencies within its area is without question".
(Then EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner, Yves Thibault de Silguy, 1998)

"The strict rules attached to the euro could emerge as one of the best ways to persuade the markets that we will put Humpty Dumpty back together again, put the public finances in order".
(Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg, 2009)

"The question of entering the euro is worth a lot more to Britain than the wild anti-federalist fantasies peddled by those who think Britain should have nothing to do with Europe. Nobody of any consequence in Europe wants to create a federal super-state".
(Former Business Secretary, Lord Peter Mandelson, 2003)

The British Government Knew The Consequences In 1971

Foreign and Commonwealth Office 30/1048 - 1971

...the transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feeling of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes within the member states and effective Community regional economic and social policies will be essential.

Parliamentary sovereignty will be affected as we have seen. But the need for Parliament to play an increasing (if perhaps more specialised) role may develop. Firstly, although a European Parliament might in the longest term become an effective, directly elected democratic check upon the bureaucracy, this will not be for a long time, and certainly not in the decade to come. In the interval, to minimise the loss of democratic control it will be important that the British Parliamentarians should play an effective role both through the British membership in the European Parliament and through the processes of the British Parliament itself.

Test

Sunday, 22 August 2010

Medway Council

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