A Sick Individual

Luke Akehurst.

I'm a bit late in the game in the blogosphere to latch onto the comments of this sick motherfucker, but to some up, this guy is a Labour councillor who said this:

"Maybe instead of Labour fielding a candidate in Haltemprice & Howden we should find a Martin Bell type candidate - preferably a recently retired senior police officer, or a survivor or relative of a victim of a terrorist attack, to run under the following 5 word candidate description: "Independent - for detaining terrorism suspects".

I'm fed up with us playing softball with the Tories while they posture and pontificate on this issue. If they want to play liberal they should pay the full political price for it and be eviscerated at the polls for being soft on national security. We should have their stance on this issue on every single poster and leaflet at the next General Election and then see how Davis and his mates feel about a referendum on this issue."

Luke, you utterly disgusting piece of fucking enema. It takes one sick mentality to think it's okay to exploit the emotions of a traumatised human being for political gain in a by-election campaign. That takes a major emotional and mental deficiency on your part. Please, for you, your family's and (possibly) your friends' sake, hand yourself into the asylum, now, before something bad happens.

To be honest I can't fisk this prick anymore than has been done all around the blogosphere, whether that be DK's blasting of the man as "an authoritarian cock of the very first water" who "would embrace abolition of habeas corpus and further erosion of our freedoms, just to spite the Tories," or the Libertarian Party's own denuncation of Luke as having "a tenuous grasp on what it means to be human", or perhaps most notably Rachel from North London's biting reply on Luke's own comment section - who is, by the way, a 7/7 survivor:

"As a 'victim of a terrorist attack', I spit at your repellent idea.

And if I was standing on a political platform I'd be standing right behind Davis.

I've met him, I back him, even though he is a Tory.

He stands up for freedom against fearmongering.

That's my own personal opinion, because, guess what, getting blown up on the way to work on 7.7 didn't affect my ability to think rationally, have opinions and care about freedom and democracy. If anything, it made me even keener on preserving the freedoms that lunatics seem keen to destroy.

As to the other passengers on my train, and their families, they have their own opinions about politics, much as the passengers on any train do.Al Qaida do explosions, not mass personality transplants."

The funniest - and most tragic - thing is Luke still won't shut up. He's just a fucking idiot. Following the outpouring of outrage at his original suggestion, he just doesn't stop, telling Rachel she has not reached "the right conclusions", and describing Magna Carta as "blah". That's right, blah. In fact, he makes so many stupid comments, trying to pick one is like browsing ripe strawberry fields. I'll take this one:

"Personally I think it’s “vile” that this man didn’t do his duty as Shadow Home Secretary, which on issues of counter-terrorism is to ensure they remain above party politics by supporting the Government."

That's right. The duty of the Shadow Home Secretary - i.e. the opposition - is to support - i.e. agree with - the counterterrorism policies of the government. No, Luke, it's actually his job to do the opposite, especially if the policies are shit. And you know what, cold heart Luke - they are! Dangerously illiberal, unnecessary, and unpopular too, no matter what you try and say. 69% allegedly support your position, but then, I don't really think the real question has been put to the public by the MSM and the government, the real question being:

"Would you be willing to remove your Ancient Right of habeas corpus, entailing the imprisonment of potentially innocent British citizens without cause, trial, charge, information or contact with the outside world for up to six weeks, to reduce further the roughly one in a gazillion chance you have of being blown up by a terrorist?"

Put like that, the public support would well diminish, as in fact it has already when the question has been framed differently, you know, with words such as "innocent" involved.

But delve a little more into the world of Luke Akehurst, and it becomes clear he is not interested in answering real questions with real answers. He doesn't see facts and the necessary corresponding reactions. There is no rationality to his worldview. There is no sense of proportionality or reason. His politics are purely reactionary, in its lowest dog-whistle form.

Take this delightful post on 42 days delivered before the vote and the David Davis furore:

"The 42-day detention issue is one of those where I'm in such a different paradigm to opponents of the Government's position that I actually don't even know where to start debating with them.

I just don't get why any one would want to constrain the security forces' ability to lock up and question people suspected of terrorist offences for long enough to help stop mass casualty incidents."

Well let's go from the beginning you total knob.

A) There is no precedent of ever needing 42 days. Ever. Period. It's ridiculously excessive.

B) Suspects are often innocent. Locking up innocent people without charge, justified cause, or fair trial for weeks on end is, to quote Churchill "the foundation of all totalitarian governments ... and in the highest degree odious." That's why Habeas Corpus is such a fundamental Liberty - it protects us against the tyranny of the State. But I suppose you seem to be down with totalitarianism, so maybe you can shrug that one off.

"The worst thing that can happen is that someone spends 42 days in Paddington Green and then gets let out, apologised to, and no doubt compensated. Unpleasant for the individual but not life-threatening.

The worst thing that can happen if the police don't get enough time to investigate properly and stop a terrorist incident is in the "best" case a mass-conventional casualty event like 7/7 that kills many people and maims and psychologically traumatises many more, in the worst case its far, far worse stuff involving dirty bombs or biological or chemical weapons that could cause an unimaginable human catastrophe."

That's incredibly misleading. The worst thing that can happen for a detainee is to be innocent and then have to undergo the psychological and physical trauma of spending 42 days alone, without having any idea why, while getting interrogated by security agents. He'll only get compensated if he's released "without charge", and as others have pointed out this power is open to wild abuse - said detainee can be charged with anything the police can cook up (3000 new laws in the past 11 years; a lot of choice), and even if the charge is later dismissed, the detainee would still not have been released without charge. Following that, is he more or less likely to become radicalised? Doesn't take a mathematician, Luke. That would cause blowback on an individual scale, but could still well threaten lives - which is apparently your worry.

Meanwhile, the worst thing that can happen for us - in the form of the various types of terrorist attacks you described - are statistically very unlikely - not to happen but to happen to you personally - while the scenario I have just described for an innocent detainee is highly likely. The amount of freedom, and basic human dignity, being traded for perceived security is ridiculously disproportionate.

"Having rather a great desire to live, and not to be shredded by a nail bomb or infected with small pox or polluted with radiation on my daily commute into central London, I am rather relaxed about the police having just six weeks to chat to folks thinking of doing this to me and other Londoners with a view to stopping them doing it."

That's the difference between us Luke. Well actually, there's millions. But this one in particular is that you're quite happy to let the State trample all over your rights and Ancient Liberties, enshrined within our liberal democracy, to feed your desire to "live" - i.e. be secure. Well I want to live too, and I want to be secure, but I'm not paranoid enough to want to sign away my rights to a free trial and sabotage the foundations of the Rule of Law just do diminish the teensy chance I have of being killed by a terrorist. I want to live, and be safe, but I also want to stay free.

I agree. You are in a different paradigm to me. Your paradigm is the one of paranoid, amoral, authoritarian control-freakery. Like all who sneer at civil liberties and say "blah" to Magna Carta, you fail to appreciate what it would be like if you didn't have the rights that that great document enshrines. And for a Labour councillor, father, and general public servant, that makes you crudely fucking ignorant.

But enough from me - perhaps the best fisking of this total arsehole, for which I give my particular recommendation, comes, once again, from Harry Haddock. I swear to God I don't even know this guy. We've never spoken or met, and I have no ulterior motive in continually plugging him. He's just really fucking funny, and really fucking good. Read all of it, and laugh your ass off.

Finally to top it off, Luke has proved his own point - having already said that he "doesn't even know where to begin debating" us opponents of the 42 day detention limit - which if the BBC's report of rapturous support on their website for David Davis' principled stand is anything to go by, is increasing - he responded with a comment on the Libertarian Party blog saying:

"oh fuck off, you lot."

That's it. What a pathetic, intellectually challenged wimp. But it gets one little bit funnier, in his reply to Harry Haddock's piece:

"Come round to my place and say that to my face. The address is on the web."

That must be how they resolve disputes in the Labour party: come on guys, foight foight foight! The Sun'll get the pictures! Seriously, how is this wanker a councillor? He threatens people who blog against his political views. What a total fudd! Screw politics now, this boy is actually a total fuckwit! And sorry to repeat myself, but he's a fucking councillor! Sorry, I'll stop now.

Anyway, who's up for getting his address, going round there, and just ... I don't know, point and laugh for a while?