drax guilty : what's next

The Drax defendants were found guilty. They will be sentenced in September, but the judge has said they will not face imprisonment.

Courts, like the police, are an executive arm of the powers being opposed, so of course we didn't get justice from them. Certainly we get the occasional happy anomaly, and that's almost always when the decision comes from a jury, ie people who are not part of the legal system.

Like politicians, the legal system has to nod towards fairness but we all know where the power lies. If you think your word means as much to a politician as that of a FTSE100 director you're deluded.

By the same token, a court is inevitably going to be heavily biased toward the state of which it is a part. People on trial for attacking that state, or the preferences of those who run it, are not going to get a fair hearing.

About ten years ago there was a short wave of 'accountable actions' in the peace and anti-GM movements. People felt as if ensuring they were caught and then presenting a bold and just defence of their actions to a court was worthwhile.

The flaw was in presuming that the world is listening to what gets said in courts, or that courts are in some way fair arbiters.

It led to a lot of needless convictions. Thank fuck for the anti-GM people who ensured they didn't get collared and went out night after night trashing the crops.

None of this is in any way a criticism of the Drax defendants, for whom I have nothing but praise. They did not do the action to prove anything to a court, they did it as genuine direct action, to stop something that needed stopping. And they did it knowing they would pull a spotlight on to Drax, coal and climate change.

It inevitably led to a court case, but in being unafraid of the state's response they were acting with bravery. That in itself was a statement on the seriousness of the issue, and an inspiring stance to others.

They fought their case as best they could, put effort into a defence they should've (and reasonably expected they would have) been allowed to run.

We should be dismayed by the verdict, but not surprised. It's what we should expect from courts. Yes, we should minimise their impact on us, and present the best defence we can to that end. But the focus should be - as it surely was with the Drax protesters - to save the bulk of our energy on action and our arguments for those who give a shit.

There's the Climate Camp in London from 27 August-2 September, and a global day of climate action on 24 October. Make it count.

the drax 29 await their verdict

As I reported at the time, in June last year 29 people boarded a coal train heading to Drax power station and started shovelling coal on to the tracks. Their case finally came to court this week.

Even though people who shut down Kingsnorth power station were acquitted when they said they did it to stop the damage caused by carbon emissions, the judge in the Drax case ruled that he would not allow a defence of necessity.

Legal precedent is only set when a judgement is made and then upheld on appeal. No surprise that the state didn't appeal the Kingsnorth acquittal. The Drax case is the next big test of the legality of stopping carbon emissions, and so you have to wonder whether there aren't instructions behind the scenes to encourage a guilty verdict.

Despite the necessity defence being disallowed and so the defendants not being able to call the impressive array of climate experts they'd lined up, they still got their perspective across to the jury.

More, in their closing statement they made it plain that the judge has no right to instruct a guilty verdict, that a jury is free to give whatever verdict their conscience dictates, and reiterated their motivation.

I want you to think back to that situation of there being a person on the tracks ahead of that train going on its way to Drax. Members of the Jury, it may sound like a strange thing to say but in truth there is a person on the branch line to Drax.

The prosecution have not challenged the facts we presented to you on oath about the consequences of burning coal at Drax. 180 human lives lost every year, species lost forever. There is a direct, unequivocal, proven link between the emissions of carbon dioxide at this power station and the appalling consequences of climate change.

That many of those consequences impact on the poor of other nations or people in Hull we don't know and should not in any way negate the reality of this suffering. We got on that train to stop those emissions, because all other methods in our democracy were failing.

Just because we don't know the name of the person on the tracks or where they live or the exact time and day of their dying, does not in our view mean they are less worthy of protection.

The jury is considering its verdict, and is expected to give it later today.

boy scout wankers

In the Tom Bell Hut at the Scouting movement's buildings at Hebden Hey in West Yorkshire, there is a carving of the scout fleur-de-lys logo. The artist has signed it 'Donald Potter 1932'.



The explanatory plaque at its base has been moved to a somewhat ill-fitting place in the centre, in order to make way for a more recent explanatory one. The explanation on the latter reads

This carving was hung in the rover den of the 2nd (Heath Grammar School) Halifax Scout Hut for 50 years, until the group closed in 1984, when it was presented to this hostel along with the assets of the Group.

That original plaque reveals something altogether more saucy;

THIS ROVER HUT
was presented to
THE 2nd (HGS) HALIFAX GROUP
in grateful memory of the Mother & Aunt of the donor
BOTH OF WHOM WERE INTENSELY SYMPATHETIC
TOWARDS YOUNG MEN & BOYS

Oh come on, stop smirking. That's just our modern smutty minds corrupting innocent and noble sentiment, right?

I mean, 'intensely sympathetic to young men and boys' doesn't necessarily mean any carnal activity to alleviate any other urges, does it?

Don't be so sure.

This section was deleted by the publishers from the original edition of Lord Baden-Powell's Scouting For Boys in 1908, but was reinstated in the 2004 reprint

You all know what it is to have at times a pleasant feeling in your private parts, and there comes an inclination to work it up with your hand or otherwise.

Well, lots of fellows, from not knowing any better, please themselves in this way until it often becomes a sort of habit with them which they cannot get out of.

The practice is called self abuse and the result is that the boy after time becomes weak and nervous and shy.

He gets headaches and probably palpitation of the heart, and if he still carries it on too far he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot.

A very large number of the lunatics on our asylums have made themselves ill by indulging in this vice although at one time they were sensible cheery boys like you.

The use of your private parts is not to play with when you are a boy but to enable you to get children when you are grown-up and married.

But if you misuse them while young, you will not be able to use them when you are a man.

Remember too that several awful diseases come from indulgence - one especially that rots away the inside of men's mouths, their noses and eyes.

watching them watching us

My new article about the intimidation of people who expose police wrongdoing seems rather timely.

The Guardian have just released footage showing how members of FITwatch (who monitor police filming of protests) were singled out, assaulted and then arrested at the Kingsnorth climate camp. They were remanded in prison for four days. Then - surprise - all charges were dropped.

Watch the Guardian film and judge for yourself.

nothing to see

The footage of police fatally assaulting Ian Tomlinson and assaulting people en masse at the G20 has prompted a lot of concern about police attitudes. But the first thing the police did when the Tomlinson footage went online was visit the publisher's offices and demand it be taken down.

Two documentary films showing police repression have been met with similar - far stronger - attempts to stop them being seen. In doing that, the police make clear that if justice challenges their authority then they regard it as an enemy.

I've just published a new article on U-Know about those films and the police campaigns against them, called Nothing To See.

government to bury coal

When there was a cabinet reshuffle that put Geoff 'Buff' Hoon in Transport and Ed Miliband in Climate Change and Energy, a friend said this meant the Heathrow third runway would go ahead (Hoon is the government's flak magnet), but that Kingsnorth would be scrapped (Miliband really means it, within the limits of the roles he has).

I thought this was a bit simplistic and cartoony, yet it appears to be bang on.

Having already said that there will be no new coal plants operating without full-scale carbon capture from 2025, Miliband plans to go one further.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is proposing to extend his plans to force companies to fit carbon capture and storage technology (CCS) onto new coal plants – as revealed by the Guardian – to cover a dozen existing coal plants.

The consultation published by his Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) conceded that if this happened "we could expect them to close".

As the climate doesn't differentiate between emissions from new coal plants and those from old ones, making emissions restrictions apply to all coal stations is entirely sensible. However, the cost of retro-fitting will be huge and many plants - especially those a long way from anywhere that can store CO2 - would close down.

They really would shut them rather than cough up. Already a bunch of coal stations are to close in 2015, not because they're clapped out but because new regulations on sulphur emissions come into force then and it's too expensive to retro-fit the gear to comply.

The new announcement from Miliband, if it goes through (and it's still an if) would probably mean the closure of Drax and others.

Also, the government has decided to delay the decision on who gets to run the pilot plant with CCS for another 18 months. As they still want it to be up and running by 2014 there almost certainly wouldn't be time to built a new plant, it would have to be a bolt-on to an old station.

Not only would that mean we get practical experience in retro-fitting and make it more viable, it also means no Kingsnorth.

Miliband told the Guardian that the short space of time for E.ON to build a new plant was "one of the factors" which would influence the decision but declined to comment further.

Paul Golby, E.ON's chief executive, has admitted the firm would not build Kingsnorth if it did not win the competition.

no cameras please, we're police officers

Police have long believed that any activity they don't like should be treated as illegal. It doesn't have to be confrontational or rowdy, just not to their liking.

Recent changes in the law about taking photos of police have muddied the waters a bit, so let's be clear about what the law is. The Association of Chief Police Officers makes clear that taking photographs in public is not illegal.

Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent. Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order. This applies equally to members of the media seeking to record images, who do not need a permit to photograph or film in public places

Ah, but you can 'suspect terrorist intent' of someone taking a photo of a police car churning up the grass in your local park.

Whilst the police are deploying ever more officers to photograph and film people doing nothing illegal in order to be stored on databases of ne'er-do-wells, they are also increasing their aversion to lenses being pointed at them.

At the G20 protests on April 1st police ordered press photographers to clear the area under Section 14 of the Public Order Act. This gives police the powers to limit public assemblies that

may result in serious public disorder, serious damage to property or serious disruption to the life of the community

They were essentially saying that the photographers were not observers but were part of the demonstration. They knew it was bollocks, but nobody wants to be arrested and it got the lenses out of the way whilst officers used dogs on the crowd.

It didn't begin at the G20. Resenting the increasing harassment they're subjected to, last year photographers petitioned the Prime Minister. Responding to it in January, 10 Downing Street sought not to reassure but assert the need to restrict unofficial people bearing witness.

the law applies to photographers as it does to anybody else in a public place. So there may be situations in which the taking of photographs may cause or lead to public order situations, inflame an already tense situation, or raise security considerations.

Later that month, a photographer at the demonstration against the BBC's decision not to broadcast an appeal for Gaza was confronted by a member of the Forward Intelligence Team

The police officer said “let me have a look at that picture.” I said, “No”. The police officer then said, “You’re not allowed to take photos of police officers”. I then said, “Don’t be ridiculous of course I can take pictures of police officers”. The police officer then tried to take my camera from me.

After a bit of time I think the police officer realised he was in the wrong trying to forcibly take my equipment from me. He then got very close to me, way into my personal space, and said again “you shouldn’t have taken that photo you were intimidating me”. I think that if Marc [Vallee] had not been there taking these photos the situation could have ended very differently.

The copper needn't have waited too long. Less than three weeks later the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 came into force. Amongst other things, it extended the laws against gathering information on the armed forces to include the police. This measure was tagged on at the end of the debate on the House of Commons so nobody could argue.

Under section 76, it is now an offence to obtain information about a police officer ‘which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism’, punishable by up to ten years in jail.

A Liberal Democrat peer proposed an amendment to change the wording from 'likely to be useful' to 'with the intention that it is useful'. They withdrew it after being told that the Explanatory Notes to the new law say the new offence will only be committed where the information in question is

such as to raise a reasonable suspicion that it was intended to be used to assist in the preparation or commission of an act of terrorism, and must be of a kind that was likely to provide practical assistant to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

That provides for some relief, until you realise what constitutes terrorism. The definition is to do (or threaten to do) certain kinds of action

designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public... for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

What kinds of action? As well as the stuff we’d think of such as serious violence against people, we have

serious damage to property

Serious damage to property for a political cause? This easily covers the more spectacular bits of direct action even if they could not harm anyone. The definition is so broad that the Terrorism Act has been invoked to search people attending the Climate Camp at Heathrow and protesters outside – oh rich irony – DSEi, Europe’s largest arms fair.

It’s easy to see how someone taking pictures of police could be assisting someone doing that sort of thing. It looks like FITwatch are squarely in the frame.

The new law can be readily applied to a photograph taken by someone on a demonstration that includes an identifiable police building or vehicle, and arguably any officer. Certainly, it’s enough for them to cite it to arrest someone to clear them out of the way even if charges aren’t brought.

As George Monbiot notes

No Act has been passed over the last 20 years with the aim of preventing anti-social behaviour, disorderly conduct, trespass, harrassment and terrorism which has not also been deployed to criminalise a peaceful public engagement in politics.

No officer can seriously have thought anyone at Heathrow was a terrorist. They were just using the powers as an extension of the I Don't Like Your Face Act to deal with people that higher powers had decided should be obstructed and intimidated.

As they've proven at every opportunity, adding to the arsenal of available powers can only add to the confidence and range of harassment.

do have a cow

Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher breaks her arm. David Blunkett has his ribs broken by a cow.

In a week when Nick Griffin had eggs thrown at him, it's certainly an escalation for someone to chuck a cow at Blunkett. But the Griffin thing's not part of the true pattern. I'm seeing a cows/politicians/broken bones commonality here.

These things come in threes, so what's next? I think it'll be Peter Mandelson trampled to death by rabid buffalo. Hopefully.

guinness is indifferent for you

Last yuletide I did a piece about second-day drinking tactics, saying

grasp the fact that you’re not going to eat properly any time soon, so it’s essential to have something that feels like nutriment. To this end, neck a pint of stout.

People will tell you that women on labour wards used to be given stout after childbirth to replace lost iron. The fact is that it’d take gallons of the stuff to get your RDA, but that’s not the point. To you in your mentally pliable state – and, in all likelihood, to those women – it feels true, and that's what counts.

But hang on a minute. I'm basing my assertion that it'd take gallons on what a mate (admittedly a seasoned Irish lifetime career drinker) told me once in the pub. To paraphrase Jermaine Jackson, let's get rigorous. Time to do a bit of number crunching.

How much iron do you need?

The government says

adult men need 8.7mg of iron a day. For women the figure is 14.8mg

A 2003 government report into toxicity (around 100mg of iron can be lethal apparently) says

Estimated average daily iron requirements in the UK are 8.7 and 6.7 mg for males aged 11-18 and 19+ years, respectively. For women in the 11-50 years age group the estimated average daily iron requirement is 11.4 mg, whilst that for postmenopausal (50+ years) women is 6.7 mg.

The American government's page breaks it down into age groups, but it basically says adult men need 8mg a day, pre-menopausal women need 18mg.

A little variation there, then, but we get the general idea. Now we move on to the source.

How much iron is there in stout?

An Irish health insurance company says there is 0.3mg in a pint of Guinness. That's about the same as a bite of wholemeal toast or a solitary dried fig.

A pregnancy nutrition site confirms the figure (well, near enough at 0.28mg a pint), saying there is

0.05mg of iron in 100mls of stout, compared with 0.9mg in 100mls of red wine

Of course, you don't drink equal volume of stout and wine. We need to compare by units of alcohol or drink for drink. But even then, red wine's the clear winner.

By the iron figures they give it works out as:

Stout - 0.28mg/pint or 0.12mg/unit
Red wine - 1.58mg/glass (175ml), or 0.75mg/unit

So whichever way you cut it, red wine provides substantially more iron than stout - 18 times as much per millilitre, or more than six times as much per unit of alcohol. No surprise, then, that red wine is the only booze to make it on to the UK government's dietary iron for dummies page.

How much do you need for your daily iron?

If there's 0.28mg in a pint and if we play with the present government iron numbers (8.7mg for men and 14.8mg for women), to get your recommended daily allowance of iron you'd need to drink:

Men - 31 pints of stout a day
Pre-menopausal women - 53 pints of stout a day

If you slurp the other stuff its;

Men - 967 ml of red wine a day
Pre-menopausal women - 1645 ml of red wine a day

There's another consideration that's been the room-contained pachyderm here, though.

How much iron can alcohol safely provide?

The (unrealistic to expect even if they are actually right about what's good for us) recommended maximum alcohol consumption is 3-4 units of alcohol per day for men and 2-3 for women.

Stout can safely provide a maximum of:
5.5% of a man's iron
2.4% of a woman's iron

Red wine can safely provide a maximum of:
34.5% of a man's iron
15.2% of a woman's iron

euro elections: epilogue

Newly released footage reveals how the British public figured out who to vote for.



(I fear I may never blog in another format ever again).