Stalin had lost his pipe, and ordered his police chief to investigate the matter, so goes one old anti-Stalin joke. After some time, however, the Soviet leader discovered it under the sofa, and called him back. On being told of its discovery, the chief remarked, “This is impossible! Three people have already confessed to this crime!” This joke – though not particularly funny – illustrates two points of relevance here: (1) the police of the USSR were politicized, and (2) that even in private, people under Stalin feared to criticize him directly.
 
A creeping McCarthyism – that has made any discussion of such subjects as immigration not only taboo but potentially very damaging to any political career – is showing the first signs of turning Stalinesque. The British public, it is probably true to say, has always been suspicious of that “American” notion of free speech without any restrictions. And as we dislike hate speech, calls for mass murder, etc., this appears to make sense. The general public is probably also largely unconcerned that British National Party (BNP) members are fired from their employment simply because of their membership of this legal party.
 
This attitude is wrong; as history show us, political persecutions can be easily – and indefinitely – extended. And so it has crept slowly into Britain’s mainstream politics. Labour MP Margaret Hodge, Conservative MP Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, and Trevor Phillips have all been attacked as somehow being in league with the BNP, though they obviously were not. The public does not speak its mind on sensitive issues because having turned a blind eye to the firing of BNP members, the vilification of Labour and Conservative MPs, etc., it now realizes that to do so entails risk. But here is what results when a nation is cowed into looking the other way:
 
Conservative Party leader David Cameron has accused the British government of being “Stalinesque,” after Tory shadow minister Damian Green was arrested at his home in Kent by, reportedly no less than nine, anti-terrorist police. Green is accused of, “aiding and abetting misconduct in public office;” because he was the recipient of several leaked, and incriminating government documents, the exposure of which, as Cameron remarked, “was manifestly in the public interest.” The documents in question are:
 
* A memo from November 2007, implicating that Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in the cover-up of some 5,000 illegal immigrants licensed as security guards.
* A 2008 blacklist of Labour MPs plotting to vote against the increase without trial to 42 days for terror suspects.
* A 2008 Border and Immigration memo revealing that an illegal immigrant was employed in the House of Commons, and using a fake identity pass.
* A 2008 letter from Smith, revealing that Ministers feared recession will mean an increase in violent crime, as well as hostility to immigrants.
 
The timing of the arrest is suspicious. Parliament had just left for a five day holiday, and so the Speaker of the house could not be questioned. As the search of Green’s office had to be authorized by the Serjeant at Arms, who is directly answerable to the Speaker, the importance of this is clear. Moreover, it was also Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Ian Blair’s last day in office – having previously been ousted by the Conservative mayor of London Boris Johnson. Blair was disliked by the overwhelming majority of the British public, but was known as “Labour’s favorite copper,” because he had taken it upon himself to enforce political correctness rather than the law.
 
It is disconcerting to read in The Telegraph then, that the arrest of Green, “[…] will embarrass the opposition [i.e., Conservative Party]. He is now likely to face pressure to resign from the Tory front bench.” If so, then we should expect more of these outrages against democracy.