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A Week in Politics: Con-Dems dream up a Kafka nightmare

The PADDY McGUFFIN column

THEY’RE talking about things of which they don’t have the slightest understanding, anyway. It’s only because of their stupidity that they’re able to be so sure of themselves.” Franz Kafka, The Trial.

And thus we have, in a nutshell from the trembling pen of a consumptive Czech clerk, a fair approximation of the last two decades in British politics.

Kafka’s nightmare vision of the callous and ruthless nature of faceless bureaucracy is starting to look like a vision of a utopian future the way things have been going recently.

The nameless protagonist of Kafka’s opus finds himself accused, charged, tried and convicted of a crime he has no knowledge of. Given the events of this week that will be par for the course for anyone falling foul of the authorities in this country.

A ruling by the court of appeal on Thursday means that the trial of two alleged terror suspects will go ahead in large part in secret.

We will be able to see the jury swearing in, part of counsel’s opening argument and the verdict. And that’s it.

Well, Gawd bless you yer Honour, allow me to doff my cap in gratitude and genuflect in your general direction!

Now, call me a hopeless old romantic and traditionalist if you must but I seem to recall there’s a small issue regarding EVIDENCE.

And, with the well-documented propensity for her majesty’s constabulary to round up the nearest ethnic minority they can get their hands on, you could go through a whole trial without anyone being aware that they’ve nicked the wrong person. 

Which is of course the point.

To show how bad things are, this was seen as a partial defeat for the government.

They’d wanted total blanket secrecy and the denial of the right of the accused to have their own legal representation.

Tory eminence grise Chris “hang ’em and flog ’em” Grayling claimed that the draconian powers would only be used as a measure of last resort. 

The Bill only came in this year so it would appear that particular last resort was reached remarkably promptly.

Anyone who believes this affront to justice will be deployed sparingly may also be interested to know that there is no word for gullible in the Oxford dictionary and Tony Blair really is a pretty straight guy.

The Tories of course have long held to the claim to be the party of law and order. Not justice, you will note. Which is why within about five minutes of worming their way into power they tore up the Magna Carta and scrapped habeas corpus.

You can see the logic of this from their perspective. If they were ordered to “produce the body” it would take them months to work out which one they were talking about.

The secret courts Bill has, we are informed, been introduced to prevent dangerous extremists getting away with their crimes due to the sensitivity of the evidence. 

In actuality it was of course introduced to ensure that the dangerous extremists in power get away with their crimes without having to expose their guilt.

And speaking of dangerous extremists, the sub-playground row between Education Secretary Michael Gove and Home Secretary Theresa May continues to rumble on with both of them on the naughty step giving each other Chinese burns.

The row is purportedly over how best to tackle the radicalisation of young Muslims and has spilled over from the “Trojan horse” report suggesting extremists are infiltrating schools in Birmingham and elsewhere and spreading religious intolerance.

There is of course a wealth of evidence to show that dangerous individuals are forcing their views on the nation’s young. Michael Gove for a start.

Putting Gove in charge of education is like appointing an environment minister who doesn’t believe in science. Oh…

Continuing the theme of life imitating art, we’re currently about two steps away from a live re-enactment of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, no doubt with Francis Maude pouring on the petrol while Gove cackles wildly and tosses copies of To Kill A Mocking Bird onto the pyre.

Now why would Gove be so bothered about a book being on the school curriculum in which a black man is charged with an offence he did not commit and convicted by a racist court on the flimsiest of evidence?

But then, that’s probably just me being paranoid…

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