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I read this...

Blair says sorry to Cameron over terror plans:

Tory leader's anger as the phone tap initiative he outlined in private is adopted by Brown.

...and thought, hang on, where have I heard that before? Oh yes, I know, a more or less constant stream of Lib Dem press releases and ministerial statements on the various terrorism measures that have gone through parliament over the last few years.

Here's one going back to October 2003, specifically about the use of phone tap evidence:

IF USED CORRECTLY PHONE-TAPS CAN LEAD TO MORE TERROR CONVICTIONS - KEETCH
14 October 2003

Responding to reports that MI6 and GCHQ are mounting a last-ditch defence against Whitehall proposals to end the traditional British ban on phone-tap evidence being used in court, Paul Keetch MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Defence Secretary, said:

"If used correctly, phone-tap evidence could lead to more convictions of terrorists and organised criminals.

"Many suspected terrorists are not brought to trial because of insufficient public evidence. Equally, suspects who are wrongly accused should be able to test the intelligence which brought them to court.

"In the campaign against terrorism, intelligence is one of the only weapons we have. Prosecutors should be able to use it to full effect."

I'm pretty sure I've heard our folk talk about questioning after charge too, which I see David David claims as his idea in the same article, but I can't be bothered to prove it. If the Tory leader is reduced to claiming credit for something the Lib Dems have been pressing for for at least three and a half years now, I don't see that his Home Office shadow crony is any more credible.

Dave, if you're going to complain about plagiarism, you ought to check out that you didn't nick the idea in the first place.

Dan Paskins takes me to task for moaning about Labour's tactics against me when they put out that "scurrilous" leaflet while others, including he says the Lib Dems, are doing just as negative things in their leaflets. I should treat it, he says, as an opportunity to debate those issues if I feel so strongly about them and accept that, in such a debate, I might win over some people, or at least their respect for making the case rather than whining.

He provides an example that, in our East Oxford wide tabloid, we ran an article asking whether Andrew Smith, Oxford East's constituency's New Labour MP, was the biggest hypocrite in town for his duplicitous stance on post office closures. He says that as an issue, that too was beyond the remit of the City Council and therefore, by one of my "rules" of discourse not something that should be mentioned in the context of those elections.

Set aside for the moment a leaflet I saw for Hinksey Park ward with a priceless (literally!) picture of Andrew, the Labour council candidate and A N Other hugging a pillar box pledging to keep Grandpont Post Office open. Even if they hadn't made it a campaign issue of their own, economic well-being is, according to their own government, part of the remit of any local authority. The other four districts in Oxfordshire have pledged to fight the closures and to support communities that are affected if they fail in that fight. Already considerable time and effort had gone in, not, it has to be said, much on the part of the city council, as much as by the various bodies that help social enterprises in the county, to keeping Iffley Village Shop and Post Office going after previous owners decided to stop running it. But clearly the campaign issue for Grandpont and Mr Smith's own actions in supporting the closures in parliament are at odds. They made it a campaign issue even if it wasn't. The person in the photos objecting to the closures voted in favour of them when he had the chance. That seems materially different from my case.

Then there's the question as to whether one should simply debate what is thrown at you to debate, or object to it. Well, I don't for one minute believe that putting out a leaflet on the last weekend of the campaign, distorting my views by selective quoting, is an invitation to a debate. After all, I know some Labour lackey had collected the quotes some weeks previously - I saw them trawling through my drug posts in the week commencing 7th April - if they wanted a debate, there would have been time. It was also notable that they did not put out the said leaflet in the part of the ward that might have been expected to be most interested in such a debate, in the halls of residence (though they didn't put anything round the halls of residence to be fair, in their apparent attempt to disenfranchise a quarter of their electorate by not engaging with them).  Yes, let's have such a debate. It is all too rare in this country to be able to have a reasoned debate about drugs policy. And stunts like this leaflet prove why.

Dan thinks my position is significantly different from that of my party. It is not. The party concluded that the current system of criminal enforcement was often if not always ineffectual and counter productive, failing to minimize harm and continuing to put users and others into the realms of the brutal organized crime networks supplying these substances. The main difference really between my position and the party position is the action I would take to remedy that - legalize, regulate and tax - whereas the party still feels that legalizing would not be an option even if it wanted to promote that as policy because of international obligations. As their leaflet nearly managed to get right, whilst not strictly legalizing, policy is that people whose only crime is possession of small amounts of any drugs for personal use will not be impriisoned, usually leading them to further addiction and contact with drugs.  Honest reporting of my opinion would of course also have said that I believe legalize, regulate and tax is the way to stop drugs getting into the hands of children, for example, which was obviously not even explained to former councillor Standingford when asking for her opinion who went off on one about protecting and educating children about drugs.

No, let's face it, I have a moral right in law to object to my work (this blog) being chopped up into sentences and rearranged out of context to create a derivative work whose sole intention, the evidence suggests, was to bring into question my character or reputation. I will argue that doing so (creating a derivative work against copyright rules) amounts to making a false statement of fact about an opponent (the same cannot be said of claiming, correctly, that Andrew Smith is "supporting post offices" in Labour leaflets, but voting for their closures in Hansard, or indeed in Dan's case that a vote for the Labour Party is support for the party that has recently taken us into several illegal wars). I say again, it is this sort of stunt that puts people off indulging in meaningful progressive debate about what is a significant issue in our world, even if not one that I have any power to do anything about whether elected to the city council or not.

I say supporters of prohibition are accessories to the gangland and drug related deaths that happen at home and abroad as a result of the criminal underworld in which the drugs trade operates with justification. Such moral turpitude on the part of those that would shirk that debate or use the difference of opinion for a little electoral gain is shameful, frankly. It's uncomfortable I'm sure, but call a spade a spade - Labour traded those deaths, past and future, for a few extra votes.

To the Most Revd Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham:

You upset me last year when you took on the government over their very just idea that some of the people who actually pay a majority of the cost of your schools (non-Catholic tax payers) should have the right to have their children go to those schools but I kept schtum.

Now you're banging on about wanting an exemption to laws designed to eradicate discrimination against gay people. Need I quote from your Catechism, section 2358, that "every sign of unjust discrimination should be avoided".

Indeed, adoption is an ironic one. After all, if you have an heterosexual couple who offer to adopt because they are unable to conceive for themselves, they too are unable to fulfill naturally the great commission of marriage, to share in "the creative power and fatherhood of God". So you are happy to discriminate against one form of "imperfection" (as you teach it) whilst rewarding another. Does that not sound "unjust" to you? Incidentally, are you allowed to discriminate on the grounds of religious belief or is it only gay people you are targetting? If you do not, how can you be sure that people not in full communion with Rome do not hold beliefs with which you would not agree also?

The historical reputation of the Catholic church in putting people in positions of care and influence over children is not, shall we say, something to be envied. Maybe we are better out of the adoption game altogether anyway.