back to article Wacky Jacqui Smith says whole country crusading against CCTV

Home Secretary Wacky Jacqui Smith has conceded that there is zero support for CCTV cameras in UK communities. In a shock letter to the Guardian, she claims massed phalanxes of irate burghers are poised to join a Tory march on Whitehall to overthrow the hated devices. Apparently... Jacqui herself still seems massively …

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  1. Martin Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    And the police didn't even check the tapes

    There usually aren't any tapes - in fact the cameras are often not even being monitored.

    You get a nice government grant to install the things but operating them comes out of the councils budget every year. If you are a local council given the choice of cutting; nursery schools, your fact finding trips to the Bahamas or CCTV monitoring contracts - which goes first?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    If CCTV is so unpopular...

    ...why is it still operational? If the citizens of the UK are vastly opposed to CCTV systems, why haven't they gone about dismantling them? A few thousand citizens wielding baseball bats and ski masks is all it would take. Sure, some of them are too high to reach with baseball bats but I'm sure you could think of a way to break em. I know if they started implementing CCTV systems like this here in the US that's what I would be doing.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    yeah, yeah

    She's probably quite correct, not lying that is, (as we all know thanks to Mr. Bliar, politicians are not allowed to lie..technically speaking..) she probably does not know of any community that is against CCTV, but then she almost certainly willingly has her head in the sand. She only wants to hear what she want's to hear, a selective filtering process designed to support her objectives.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    Tories vs. CCTV?

    My oh my, it seems the world has turned upside down in the last 10 years. Wasn't it Thatcher who started the CCTV craze to begin with? It seems like so many idiots have swelled NuLabour's ranks that the Tories now seem to be more to the left than the current NuLabour administration!

    But the funniest thing is that it is now the Tories themselves who support reducing CCTV in the UK, given that it was *them* who installed them in the first place.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @AC Chav's

    Apostrophes are used to indicate possession or missing letters.

    Chav is not an abreviated form of another word. And there is no possession here either. Possession would be indicated by possible substition of the preposition "of". And in this context the word of can not be used.

    So the correct form would be: "is still full of teenage chavs getting drunk".

    One does not apply apostrophes to indicate plurals. For example, it is tigers, not tiger's.

  6. Claire Rand

    walk a mile...

    the day shes prepared to walk through central London, or any other major city or large town, at night, alone and I mean alone. protected only by CCTV, no extra plod on standby etc. then and only then can she claim that CCTV makes town centres safer.

    given street crime seems more or less unchanged its not doing a huge amount of good is it?

    apart from possibly directing traffic wardens (and I doubt they even do that with it properly) and fro crowd observation at events does it actually _do_ anything?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    @ac - caught the scum on CCTV

    So that FOI you filed got you the footage to make things right?

  8. Paul Gomme

    Facebook groups

    I’d like to thank everyone who has signed up to the Facebook group so far. I have seen a couple of less-than-supportive comments from people, so I’d just like to mention a couple of things:

    This group is for an expression of public feeling regarding the curtailment of civil liberties by the current UK government, and one minister in particular.

    Time and time again, writing to your MP simply doesn’t achieve results; it merely results a polite letter thanking for your time (and if you’re lucky, a couple of prints of existing departmental webpages restating their position).

    Calling on people to march and protest in person is all very well, but it negates to mention:

    1) People may not have the time to join a formal organised protest, due to family commitments, work, etc

    2) People are actually scared of protesting in public, because of EXACT REMOVAL OF THOSE LIBERTIES that this group has been established to discuss.

    The “Comments” pages of The Register are not the place to get into a discussion about how to protest about a situation you don’t like. Please have a look at the Facebook group, read it and if you wish to be part of the debate, either positively or negatively, then please contribute.

    http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=46271966027

  9. ElFatbob

    @AC: Tories vs CCTV

    'But the funniest thing is that it is now the Tories themselves who support reducing CCTV in the UK, given that it was *them* who installed them in the first place.'

    There is an irony to this, no doubt.

    But when a government commisioned report - set up to evaluate CCTV 10 years on - concludes that it doesn't cut crime, doesn't reduce the fear of crime and only marginally increases detection / conviction AND the government still insists on going down this road, you have to ask questions.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @ Martin

    Sadly in this area the choices would be retain the fact finding trips to china and the CCTV and not bother funding schools, then go "OH NOEZ TEH BABEEZ R KOMITTIN TEH KRIMEZ" (yes my council is run by morons who probably idolise jacqui

    yeah the council suck, Angus Alliance - Tories in disguise, lets order a royalist flag with taxpayers money despite their being hundreds of letters (rural area) written to the council and the payers telling them they want the Saltire retained and their stupid "Angus Flag" cancelled

    ugh bloody morons

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    CCTV and Jackie Smith

    First, I have no problem with CCTV but a problem with the operators - I work in a local council and on one work drinking do; I was told in detail what my collegues got up to that days, I put a complaint in but didn't go for a harsh lesson to their supervisor (he got in a bit of shit about it - the operator that is not the supervisor).

    The problem is if people know they are watched they will just make sure they don't get caught on camera especially if it can be used as evidence in court - so what happens is someone will mug the little old lady on the small road rather than on the high street!

    Second, as MPs get their mortgage payments made on their second "Work based" home - does this mean the government own this house? I mean why should the MP get it?? I've never found a answer to this question. Any one know an answer to this?

    Anon because I don't want to get in shit about this.

    Black copter as I know I'm being watched, I just don't want to worry about it.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Tories vs. CCTV?

    "My oh my, it seems the world has turned upside down in the last 10 years. Wasn't it Thatcher who started the CCTV craze to begin with?"

    No, actually 99.99% of CCTV camera came in beginning with Blunket, ironic that a blind person should insist that everyone be closely monitored.

    "It seems like so many idiots have swelled NuLabour's ranks that the Tories now seem to be more to the left than the current NuLabour administration!"

    I'm pretty sure the widespread hatred of prison UK are Labour and Conservative voters and genuinely hate what Britain has become. If you are a NuLabour turfer, you must understand that this is a vote loser (you're portraying this as 'this is bad so blame it on opposition party'), so why get instead do a U turn and stop this surveillance state?

    It's bad, but why pretend it's the other guys fault when you could stop doing this?

  13. Dave

    Of Course They're Not Marching...

    People are too busy rushing up to Wacky Jacqui telling her they can't wait for ID cards, they don't have time to march on Parliament.

  14. Magani
    Coat

    @AC Apostrophe Fail

    "You pedantic fucker!

    Had he written Chavs' then your penance would be well placed, although he doesn't strictly need the apostrophe to pluralise a colloquialism, it is accepted, had he tried to pluralise an acronym, it would also be wrong.

    STOP THIS NEEDLESS ABUSE."

    =====================================================

    What a load of rancid dingo's kidneys (or dingos' if you want the rancid kidneys from more than one dingo).

    While the original post of "Full of teenage chav's what?" may have been pedantic, it was also correct. Chav's indicates the possessive and it needs something to possess!.

    Don't they teach the correct use of apostrophes in the schools of Her Maj's Sceptred Isles any more?

    Mine's the one with Fowler's Modern English Usage in the pocket.

  15. Anthony Mark

    I'm particularly concerned...

    ...that I have not yet seen an El Reg story regarding the Second-Home Secretary's expense claims...

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Funny you should say that.

    "Sure, some of them are too high to reach with baseball bats but I'm sure you could think of a way to break em. I know if they started implementing CCTV systems like this here in the US that's what I would be doing."

    They have put CCTV in crime ridden areas in the US They get broken with in a day. people throw rocks at them. Some have even gone so far as to clip the wires at the base of the pole .

  17. Steve Roper
    Thumb Up

    Re: Funny you should say that

    It's not just the US that won't put up with CCTV...

    Some enterprising vandals in my city (Adelaide, Australia) attacked the CCTV cameras around my local shopping centre carpark (which is a popular meeting place for those wishing to obtain samples of a certain proscribed herb), by spraying their lens covers with black spray-paint. Since the lens covers already look black the damage is effectively invisible - unless you look closely with the light at the right angle, and see that the surface is blobby matt, not shiny like a clean lens cover is. That was 8 months ago as of this writing. So far, the cameras haven't been fixed, and all anyone would see at the other end is a black screen - which, if they were to try to trace the fault, could be caused by any kind of electrical or software problem besides the spray-paint!

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @RotaCyclic

    So you're in favour of spelling reform, as well as correct grammar?

    BTW, anyone got an apostrophe algorithm to hand?

  19. Karl

    @wayne tavitt

    You owe me a new monitor and a fresh coffee.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    CCTV cameras have been enormously succesful

    for local authorities monitoring bus lanes and box junctions to tax the motorists.

    They don't work against crime 'cos most crimes are committed on the spur of the moment and the crim is concentrating more on his/her victim than what is stuck 20ft up in the air on a pole.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Chavs.

    Never mind old Pie-Face's recommendations: If you want to get rid of chavs just play classical music at them. They will disperse like a fart in a wind-tunnel.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    She needs to go...

    http://ge2009.co.uk/preciousliberty.jpg

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