More From the Banana Republic

So, why aren't you out on the streets protesting?  Over the past couple of days we've had first the Tory Party chairman Grant 'Michael Green' Shapps threatening the BBC with cuts in the licence fee if it doesn't report news the way the Tories want it reported, followed today by self styled Prime Minister David 'Call me Dave' Cameron effectively threatening to gag the UK press (ie The Guardian) if it persists on reporting on Edward Snowden's NSA/GCHQ revelations.  This really is outrageous - the sort of thing you'd expect in a military dictatorship or the former Soviet bloc, rather than a supposed democracy - and surely represents another step on the road of the UK's descent into being a banana republic.  In Cameron's case, he is, as ever, playing the fatuous 'national security ' card.  Yes folks, apparently knowing that our security and intelligence services are engaged in the mass surveillance of the UK's population, regardless of whether they are suspected of anything or not, without any apparent parliamentary or judicial oversight, will threaten our national security and hamper the work of our intelligence services.  Well, obviously it will - now that we know for sure that the bastards are listening in on everything we do, we can begin to frustrate them.  Worse still, from their point of view, they might be forced to justify their illegal actions and explain how they are compatible with the notion of a free society where state institutions should be democratically accountable.

Learning that the US had been eavesdropping on its allies, including, allegedly, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's phone, is, it seems, another threat to our security.  Cameron's justification for the bugging of Merkel?  'There are people out there trying to blow up our families'.  You are aware that World War Two is over, aren't you Dave?  The Luftwaffe aren't awaiting Merkel's phone call to launch their fleet of Heinkel 111 bombers to blitz London.  Aside from The Guardian, does the UK press actually make a fuss about any of these things?  Of course not.  Instead, we have the likes of the Daily Mail decrying The Guardian for giving succour to Britain's enemies!   Part of the problem (aside from the fact that most of the UK's press is owned by mega-rich right wing bastards) is that the bulk of the print press can hardly criticise the security and intelligence services for illegal bugging and phone-tapping, as most of them have indulged in the same tactics themselves over the past few years.  And, as we've seen, the government is busy trying to crush what's left of our free press with crude threats and bullying.  Which brings us back to Grant Shapps, who says the BBC must be 'more transparent'.  Like Shapps himself, presumably.  As we've noted here before, Mr Shapps has a history as some kind of dodgy internet 'guru', masquerading under the name 'Michael Green', whose company seemed to be encouraging customers to scrape (or, as I lake to say, 'steal') other people's online content.  Perhaps, in the interests of transparency, the BBC should make a documentary about that....