Oh come on now, Major was funny. He was the Austin Powers of British PMs.
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And yet, the 14m votes his Conservatives got in 1992 were the most any party has ever got in an election, oddly.
You make a couple of fair points, but I just don’t see his response as a brush off. The best way for governments not to be held accountable for violating the rights of their citizens and breaking the law is not to do it. There is nothing so innocent as innocence. But attacking (or mildly but clearly smearing/implying negative capacity and intention) the messenger is not a new trick when governments are faced with accountability.
And ‘polite request’ is not exactly what happened when the Guardian destroyed those computers.
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How sweet an ad hominem and a false equivalence fallacy in the same post. There are actually quite strong constitutional protections in the UK for freedom of speech (qv article 10 of the ECHR), but that doesn’t mean that newspapers can ignore other people’s rights. That’s why tabloid newspapers hacking phones is wrong, and that’s why the Guardian messing about with other people’s personal details would also be wrong.
Austin Powers always wins, and his movies make bank like mad. I don’t see a contradiction there.
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Don’t disagree on the HDD destroying - which spoke more of panic in the security services to me than anything else. But we can surely agree that saying that a select committee can look at an issues is among the milder responses that a Prime Minister could have made - he could very easily have put the police in a position where they had to investigate, for example…
Presumably phone books are also wrong then? They contain personal details for hundreds of thousands or even millions of people!
If evidence of government wrongdoing contains personal information should journalistic outlets ignore the evidence of government wrongdoing for the sake of not handling the personal information? Do you really think that’s reasonable?
Or is it more reasonable, perhaps, to allow journalistic outlets to handle such evidence as long as they maintain a record of handling the personal information discreetly and responsibly?
Is there any reason whatsoever to believe that the Guardian was really indiscriminately publicizing the personal details of UK spies?
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ECHR being the European Convention on Human Rights: that document the Tories so despise, they’re threatening to renounce it every other month… Because it clearly does not come from recent UK tradition. Besides, article 10 is incredibly weak and could be applied as-is in places like Syria without changing much of anything; it was explicitly formulated not to step on anyone’s toes, and any expansive interpretation by European Courts (whose coercive powers are still fairly vague in real terms, assuming a government determined to defy them – are France and Germany going to invade, if we suppress the occasional human right?) is just that, an interpretation. Meanwhile: libel laws, gag orders, and oh please destroy your computers without a shred of due process, will you old chap?
Oh, and bringing up phone hacking here is just a creative strawman: regardless of whether prosecution was right or wrong in that case, that situation saw a news company harassing private citizens, whereas here we have several National Governments being held to account on widespread abuse of their powers. I’m sure you can see the difference.
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Bwahahahahaaaaa.
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David Cameron vows vengeance on the Guardian for Snowden leaks
Sounds like terroristic threats to me. Does Obama and his twitchy drone-finger know about these threats?
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So you’re saying the Chinese are supplying our electricity and our telephones and our great firewall? Perhaps we should nationalise the Guardian, then privatise it, then outsource the labour to the Chinese: then we’d get some positive news about the government and their lack of corruption and incompetence (particularly in matters of economics).
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Cameron makes a compelling case against himself.
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Cameron may be calling for the Guardian to be investigated, but we should be calling for the Guardian to investigate Cameron.
(And no, not for personal scandals; the Daily Mail may care whether he’s got a mistress, but the real issues are public policy, who’s got influence over his party, and what nonsense they’re going to try next.)
I wish David Cameron would just crawl into a hole and die. Fat tory fuck.
A police officer is not doing his job at home, so no, we don’t need the home addresses of all police officers, However, all public servants, they are public servants after all (or is that just “words” to you?), unless there is a seriously compelling public-interest reason not to, should be utterly transparent in the activities they perform as part of that service.
With all the abuse of the public and terrible, plutocrat-protecting policy be dictating from “on-high” these days, its a wonder that you believe any of the claims that come from the mouth of David Cameron.
There is less than no need for the governments of the UK and US to be performing blanket surveillance on the people they represent. It is a horrible policy that will lead to omnipotent government and impotent people, which is a direct inversion of democratic rule. Our supposedly democratic governments are showing more every day how they have no respect for the people they serve, and that they see themselves as above us and more important than us. This contradiction cannot stand for long. Either democracy will go or these “leaders” will go. Which do you prefer to go?
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It amazes me that you actually defend the blatant lies and manipulation coming from the mouth of this pampered, snobbish little prince. David Cameron lies constantly, and does so in the service of his class and his power. His tirade against The Guardian is not to be believed by anyone with half a brain. They admitted guilt when they destroyed that computer? That statement alone shows how truly disingenuous he is. And yet you choose to believe his other statements? After all the NSA and GCHQ reporting, can you honestly say the Guardian did something wrong in publishing this info? This reporting is the most important journalistic work in decades. That Cameron will attack it is obvious. That what he says in his attack should be heeded in any way is not.
The idea that the UK’s spies are in danger is laughable. They ALWAYS say this when government secrets and spying get publicized. ALWAYS. And frankly, the idea that the UK faces some sort of existential threat at all is laughable. I presume you live in the UK or the US. In either case, you live in the safest time in the safest place in all of world history. And yet you roll over and piss yourself when Cameron makes claims of dire (DIRE!) threats to national security when the abuses of his government come to light. Take a xanax and chill. Its people like you that are all too willing to allow the subjugation of the rest of us so that you can feel “safe”. Newsflash: you will NEVER feel safe. Its constitutionally impossible for you to feel safe. Enjoy living in fear. The rest of us want to live free of government spying and control.
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I bet Jonathan Aitken (Eton, Christ Church, HMP Elmley) also thought that…
Major was actually a very good PM. His policies were largely effective and he remains the leader with the highest voting majority in Parliamentary history [Blairs landslide victory was won with far fewer votes].
Major had the crushing misfortune of being seen as devoid of personality - where he was merely humble and thoughtful - and being surrounded by the sleaziest bunch of shitweasels ever to grace the benches.
Cameron, by stark contrast, is a clueless overentitled incompetent surrounded by far worse clueless overentitled incompetents.
I say this as an ardent lifelong Leftie.
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I do believe you just wrote the next Conservative Election Manifesto.
Railways Act 1993. Black Wednesday. I rest my case.
