We often joke, in a Daily Mail satirical way, every time a new law or rule of social etiquette comes in that in any way infringes on our freedom, that it is “like living in Nazi Germany.” Indeed, usually, the incident in question is something far more benign.
But living through London 2012, suddenly all the joking has turned very sour. We are faced with an attack on the liberties that are at the heart of modern Britain – our very right to freedom of expression is under attack.
As part of hosting The Games our government is required to bow down to the IOC and introduce custom legislation to allow them to protect the brands of their sponsors. That is why, as the Guardian points out, it is a criminal offense for Victoria Pendleton to mention any non-sponsor brands during The Games.
But it gets much worse. Do you think that it might be a good opportunity to raise awareness for your charity’s campaigning issues? Tough look, police, or even private individuals working for The Games will be able to enter your private property, including your home, and remove any offending material.
If this is the cost of hosting the Olympics, on top of the £24,000,000,000 we’ve already spent, I’m not buying.
UPDATE: I penned this a few weeks ago. Since then, this morning it emerged the military will be providing even more troops (an extra 3,500), on top of the 13,500 that apparently they’ve already promised! Talk about a police state.
The surface to air missiles the army have started installing on people’s roofs is also rather alarming.
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Tags: freedom of speech, london 2012, olympics, the games
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2012 at 3:45 pm and is filed under Religion & Politics, Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.