Upper class twits battle police

[Derek McMillan]

Now they know what it is like.

As I write this Channel 4 news is reporting Countryside Alliance members being beaten by police, invading the House of Commons and threatening to break the law if they disagree with it.

You can imagine how they would respond if the working classes behaved in such a manner and the kind of punishments which they would hand down - the hunting fraternity includes many magistrates of course.

These are the people who constantly complain about hunt saboteurs....

They claim to be defending jobs. These are the people who smiled when the miners were thrown out of work and beaten by the boys in blue. For once they get a taste of their own medicine.

It's a funny old world.

(I am not an animal rights activist of any kind...well I just fed the cat but that hardly counts)

[David Richardson]

Reminds me of a conversation my dad had at a meeting of rather conservative academics during the Miners' Strike. They were going on about 'respecting the rule of law', so he asked them if any of them had ever exceeded the speed limit, after all, that's a law too.

There was a certain amount of huffing and puffing … but basically it was collapse of stout party.

On a sadder and more serious note, you could read David McKie's piece in today's Guardian comment.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,...1305359,00.html

[John Simkin]

I see that that the authorities plan to improve the security of the House of Commons by forcing the guards from wearing tights. Far less humorous is the threat of banning protest marches close to the House of Commons.

I noticed that Blair did not vote in favour of banning fox-hunting last night. He used to be against it. He was also in favour of a democratically elected House of Lords but he appears to have changed his mind on that as well. Rumour has it that Blair will delay the legislation for two years. That will make it nine years after it was promised. The plan of course is to delay it until after the next election. I hear he is also delaying socialist legislation for the same reason.