Further to yesterday's post about police visiting someone for tweeting rigorously annotated references to UKIP's policies and, despite having no power to do so, asking for them to be deleted, it seems a good time to remember another political police visit.
In 2008 a group of climate protesters stopped a coal train on its way to the largest single point of carbon emissions in the UK, Drax power station in North Yorkshire. After their arrest, most had their homes raided by police. Officers confiscated material that would indicate the protester's political views.
Despite their remit to take anything political, in an illuminating video shot by one of the protesters' parents we see police take 30 bags of War on Want promotional material, anti-G8 DVDs and copies of the New Statesman but leave a letter from an MP because it's 'not political'.
The footage has extra resonance as we now know the Drax 29 case was a police-engineered miscarriage of justice and earlier this year all 29 people had their convictions quashed.
A morning in court with the Heathrow defenders
8 years ago
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