Two men have been cleared of racial harrasment over a private joke about black jelly babies in a trial costing the taxpayer a quarter of a million pounds.

The two men had been joking about black jelly babies with a colleague with whom they regularly had banter of a racial nature.

They denied the charges when arrested but the Crown Prosecution Service decided to prosecute anyway at huge expense to the taxpayer and for what?  Ridiculous.

Nick Griffin – the leader of the BNP – is a tosser.  Can’t stand the bloke.  He’s a blatant racist and white supremecist.  However …

He’s standing trial for using words likely to stir up racial hatred.  The words he used were obviously intended to stir up racial hatred, that’s what he does and that’s what the BNP is about.  However, there is such a thing as freedom of speech.  If he holds the views he does and wants to voice those opinions to people who choose to go and listen to what he says then he should have a right to do that.  What he said may have been offensive to asians and muslims and other ethnic groups but – this is an important thing to remember – they don’t have to listen to what he says!

He says that Islam is wicked.  That’s his opinion, he’s entitled to it.  I think some parts of Islam – stoning women to death, genital mutilation, honour killings, halal for instance – are medievil and barbaric.  Should I be arrested and charged for saying this?

He said that Islam is sweeping the world and if you read the Koran you’ll see that’s what they want.  This is actually a simple statement of fact – one of the obligations you have as a muslim is to convert the world to Islam.  Is telling the truth a crime?

He talks about asians committing rape.  They do.  White people commit rape as well – he didn’t say “only asians rape women”.  Again, it’s not a crime to state a fact.

He also says that some places have become a multi-racial hellhole.  Quite right!  There are places not far from here where it isn’t safe for a white person to go and I speak from personal experience having been escorted off a housing estate by a gang of asians for my own safety a few years ago.  It shouldn’t happen and when it does you shouldn’t get into trouble for telling people about it.

Finally, he says that asians don’t mug or rape other asians and that they do it to white people instead.  Not entirely accurate but broadly correct – as far as I’m aware, the majority of crimes committed by asians is against white and black people.

I’m not defending the BNP or Griffin but I do think we have to protect our right to freedom of speech.  If any asians or other ethnic minorities were present at the BNP meeting in which Griffin said what he did then that’s their fault.  They knew what would be said, they knew who he was and they knew what he said would offend him.  They weren’t forced to listen to his speech and they shouldn’t have any right to complain about it.

The Information Commissioner has warned that the UK is now the world’s most spied on nation in the world and this is before the compulsary ID card and Identity Database come into force.

The national co-ordinator of No2ID, Phil Booth, says:

NO2ID welcomes this long-overdue opening of the public debate, but fears that it is almost too late. People may be waking up to the surveillance state just as the final building blocks are being put in place.

ID cards and state-assigned ID numbers locked to your biometrics will be the capstone and key for the surveillance state.

Ministers talk as if government ‘management’ of personal identity were a good thing. State identity control is more like it. The government’s plans—the details of which it is clearly still desperate to keep secret —indicate a massive increase in data-sharing for official convenience and other hazily-defined purposes; effectively an end to privacy as we know it.

It’s not often I agree with everything a campaign group says but in the case of NØ2ID I can’t find anything to argue with.  This government is not just taking our liberty, they’re takin a liberty.  We don’t want to be monitored and tracked every minute and every hour of our lives yet the British government forges ahead with their database state.

I will not have an ID card or submit to the Identity Register until I am given the ultimatum: sign up or go to prison.  If I didn’t have a wife and 4 kids I would go to prison rather than submit myself to this undemocratic, illiberal scheme but I have a family and responsibilities.  Even if I am forced to have a card I will not use it unless I have no alternative and I reaffirm the following pledge which I took in June last year:

When the occasion suits me, and when the opportunity arises, I will endeavour to carry my ID card in my pants. Whenever I am required to provide my ID card to an agent of the state, or to an agent of a private organisation cooperating with the state, I will without prejudice or delay reach into my pants, withdraw my card, and present it to the agent.

In recognition of the humanity of these anti freedom agents I will not deliberately make my card look skanky, deface my card with pants related artefacts or otherwise treat my card in any manner different from someone who carries their card on any other part of their body. I will simply carry it in my pants as is my right.