Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Great Moments in British Democracy: Arresting MPs

What is going on in Great Britain, the once-proud bastion of political liberties?

The recent arrest of opposition MP Damian Green and the ransacking of his home, office, and files (all by counterterrorism police, no less) prompted this observation from Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats: “This is something you might expect from a tin-pot dictatorship, not in a modern democracy.”

See also sharp criticisms published papers as diverse in political opinion as the Telegraph and the Guardian. The uproar over the Green arrest has overshadowed the opening of Parliament, Queen's speech and all.

Anyway, there seems to be much more to the story than is currently being bandied about in media sources, so we'd best take everything with a grain of salt and some patience, but the heavy-handed tactics employed by the police should give us all pause.

From some randomly selected British blogs:

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