Why I fear my own British Government and not China, Russia or The Taliban.

Picture taken from on top of the fire engine/stage show a police camera pointed directly at the speakers from the steps of St George’s Hall, Liverpool

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell

Last week, on Saturday 12th September at the ACC convention centre in Liverpool the ‘AOC’s electromagnetic dominance’ event took place. Thousands of protestors had marched through Liverpool city centre in disgust at such an event being held. The protest had been organised by the Liverpool Against the Arms Fair (LAAF) and featured speeches by Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Maxine Peake and representatives from the Palastinian and Yemeni communities — for obvious reasons.

It was a peaceful protest that culminated in some great speeches by people committed to peace and finding peaceful solutions to conflict. However, throughout the speeches at least one police officer had apparently been detailed to film the speakers, with a camera pointed at the fire engine being used as a makeshift stage throughout the proceedings. The camera was filming only those on the stage and surrounding it. The sinister nature of the surveillance was highlighted by the orange epaulettes of the police officer (clearly evidenced in the photo above) which denotes an ‘evidence gatherer’. Evidence of what exactly? The art of great speech making? The use of rhetoric in speech delivery…