'Shocking' scale of UK government's files on critics revealed | Hacker News Reader

'Shocking' scale of UK government's files on critics revealed

theguardian.com

73 pointsc42016 comments

> In September, the Observer revealed how three early-childhood education experts discovered that the Department for Education tried to cancel invitations for them to speak at government-funded events because they were judged to have been critical of government policy.

"The thing is, you have spoken to the wrong expert. You've got to ask the right expert. And you've got to know what an expert's gonna advice you before he advises you."

Did they learn nothing from the USA? You don't do this in the government, you "partner" with the private sector to make a non-profit group, which then does the things government would rather not be seen to be doing directly.

definitely -- UK govvies appear to be leaning on an unequivocal legitimacy; i.e. you can't do anything about it even if you knew.

Trying to extend the civil service code to me because I was merely going to talk to an audience with a handful of civil servants is utterly wrong. I’m not a revolutionary Trotskyite.

He isn't, anyone who was would call themselves a Trotskyist rather than a Trotskyite, the latter is reserved for Daily Mail readers ... unless this is some kind of fiendish double-bluff, ....

He is Lithuanian/American and he is incredibly critical of the USSR and Stalin and also incredibly well versed in the history of the USSR in CEE. So I have no doubt he chose his words very carefully.

Remember, Western countries only have elections because the political ruling class can maintain power using other means. The instant the ruling class of Western countries is actually challenged they start banning political parties for being “extremist”. Very Democratic.

The government should move to China if this is what they like. Aren’t we meant to be a free and democratic society?

We don’t want to be. Look at the glee from the average person when it comes to tracking their every move, from ring doorbells to surveillance capitalism

Lets not confuse the average persons lack of technical knowledge with them wishing to have their privacy and rights violated

People are incredibly comfortable with everyone elses privacy and rights being violated

Labour love this type of shite too.

It does make me think that one of the problems with Britain is a lack of proper checks and balances: the notion of parliamentary sovereignty kind-of implies that judges can't really overrule problematic laws. While the US system isn't perfect, at least it limits the blast radius of any would-be autocrats.

A small group of judges appointed for life passing down laws isn't exactly a brilliant "check and balance" in my opinion, and UK has the House of Lords for that. Let's not forget that Boris Johnson was eventually disposed by his own party, unlike that blond tit on the other side of the pond.

The electoral system is the problem in both. The nuances are different, but by and large the causes are the same: alternating power between two parties where national issues and "the party" have become more important than "representing your constituency". A lot of the important issues fundamentally are national issues, so that's not really a surprise.

> Aren’t we meant to be a free and democratic society

Only when that's on the banner the country is told to cheer under.

When it's a royal wedding, when it's "F D" or "FID DEF" printed on coins, when it's the requirements that all schools have collective worship of "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character"[0]… then suddenly it's a whole lot more like a theocratic monarchy.

From the surveys I've seen, the UK electorate seems broadly OK with the monarchy part of that (not that they have any real say in it because that's not how monarchy works), and regards the Christian[1] parts as harmless quaint tradition of no real significance.

[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/31/schedule/20?vie...

[1] I first wrote "religious", but large parts of the UK seem to still be scared of anyone with the "wrong" religion, though which one counts as "wrong" varies wildly.

Eh whatever. Would a private company invite someone to give a talk if that person was constantly making personal attacks on the CEO, the employees and the products? Probably not.

The background to this dispute is that the British civil service, which is meant to be politically neutral, developed a bad habit of inviting people who hate the government to give talk to the civil service at which point those people predictably gave talks about how crap the government is i.e. the people supposed to execute the government's will were asking for advice and guidance from people who explicitly wish to undermine that same government. This was a thing a year or two ago I think and clearly checking into who they are inviting was a part of the fix.

The wider context is the ongoing culture war in which the civil service now more or less refuses to accept direct orders from ministers and is running things in the way they prefer; along with (some) minister's increasingly desperate attempts to regain control over them. It may be cosmetic but stopping the civil service from inviting a constant stream of professional activists to shit on their bosses is an understandable step if a rather ineffective one.

All the squeaking about "no platforming" is just noise from the left wing activists who now find it harder to influence and coordinate with the civil service. They are of course free to go give talks at the many forums that will happily welcome them whilst systematically rejecting their opponents.

Why would this be shocking?

It’s England

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