The One That Thinks Their Toy Should Be Taken Away. . .

Buried away in the dark recesses of Pravda online is this:

Police stopped and searched three times as many people under anti-terrorism powers in 2007/8 compared to the year before, Home Office figures reveal.

Hmmm, OK. But that doesn't really tell us much does it? One person could have been stopped in the previous year, and three this year would mean, well, I don't have to spell it out, I'm sure you can do the maths.

Some 124,687 stops and searches were conducted in England and Wales under anti-terror laws.

Right, so that means the equivalent of the whole city of Gloucester was stopped and searched. Bloody hell. It's a dangerous place out there, that's a lot of people looking like terrorists, isn't it?

Almost 90% of searches took place in London, the statistics reveal.

Well, now there's a surprise. Given the almost hysterical reaction from the PCSOs in Westminster on OH's little walk last November, I'm surprised it wasn't 99.9% of people. Still, they must have had good reason. I bet they stopped some terrorists.

Didn't they?

73 - 0.058% - ended in arrests for terror offences.

You see, it was. . . WHAT? Seventy pissing three? Out of almost 125,000 people? Christ on a fucking bike with a bell, basket and playing card stuck in the spokes. 73? Are they taking the piss?

Following anti-terrorism searches, some 1,198 people were arrested for other reasons.

Right. So in a total of 124,687 stops, 1271 people, that's 1.01%, had been sufficiently criminal or stupid to get nicked. Let's face it, you can get nicked for anything these days. And they only managed to scuff a gnat's chuff over 1% of the people they stopped?

This isn't anti-terror policing, this is making a bloody nusiance of yourself. A charter for people to be a pain in the bloody arse.

What isn't clear from this report is how many of the 73 arrested under anti-terror legislation* were charged, and then how many were convicted. I'd love to know. Has 12 months of invasive, heavy-handed nosiness lead to anyone appearing in court?

Bloody hell. Surely, surely, there's better things to do with your time than this? Or is it just that the wrong people are being stopped? I mean, we're told they're everywhere. Bloody Diss is alive with them.

This is not a mechanism for national security, it is a mechanism to let people know that they're being watched, and had better behave themselves, or else.

What a crock of shit, and then they've the nerve to put up posters saying things like 'This nuclear power station will not be bombed because someone called us when they spotted someone on their flight back from Malaga looking at it out of the window next to their seat.'

Give me bloody strength. . .

*and why do the media and politicians persist in calling it anti-terror legislation? You're hardly likely to have pro-terror legislation are you? Another example of pandering to the hard of thinking.