Evil Surfer

Voluntary encouragement to get trained and tested is likely to result in more cycling and more people undergoing training.Perhaps the best solution is for the cycling community to start policing itself. As cyclists, we are in the ideal position to tell other cyclists that it is unacceptable to cycle on pavements and jump red lights. LEONARDS-ON-SEA, EAST SUSSEXSir: We here in Australia are continually being told that, if we become a republic, we will not have the protection of the Crown against politicians seeking to remove power from the people. Why, may one ask, has the Crown not acted in the United Kingdom against such removal of people power?DECLAN FOLEYBERWICK, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA Cycling should be as normal as breathing Sir: Peter Forster has the diagnosis right, but the solution wrong (Letters, 29 June) regarding cycling misdemeanours.If the majority of people are to use cycles as transport, cycling must – like walking and breathing – be perceived as a normal activity. As Henry Porter points out measures which at first sight appear to be justified and innocuous are then abused.HUMPHREY HUDSONTUNBRIDGE WELLS, KENTSir: In view of the Steve Jago case and demonstrations prohibited by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act within 1 kilometre of Parliament, is it still legal to walk through Parliament Square and past Downing Street thinking, or mouthing silently to oneself, subversive, anti-government, anti-Blair and anti-Iraq war thoughts ?TIM FRANCIS,ST. But the first warning signs appeared in 1997 when Tony Blair began to use the justification that he was acting on behalf or representing “the rights of the people”.Anyone with even a limited knowledge of of the French and Russian revolutions or many modern dictatorships would be well aware that justifying government or state actions in the name of “the people” is a sure indication that the liberty of the subject is under threat. An indiscriminate attack on just about all the Government has done in this field since 1997 generates heat rather than light.STEPHEN G LINSTEADSOLIHULL, WEST MIDLANDSSir: I congratulate The Independent for publishing Henry Porter’s first-class article on Britain’s disappearing civil rights and liberties.The low-key, insidious attack on the right to the freedom of speech and movement, the whittling away of the right to demonstrate, the extensive powers quietly given to civil servants and the police are well-documented.

If France and Germany can avoid these potential conflicts with the Convention, why can’t the UK?Detention without trial represents a fundamental threat to civil liberties Some other restrictions do not. It is a matter of concern that the United Kingdom (unlike other signatories) has yet to find a means of restricting the movements of terrorist suspects without falling foul of the Convention. It is a matter of grave concern that this issue is being used by some British politicians to damn not just the Convention and the judiciary but also the European project in general, instead of seeking a sensible and considered way through the problem. And can one seriously argue that the introduction of identity cards is in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights when just about every other signatory has such a provision? As for the case of Walter Wolfgang, this was undoubtedly a case of OTT, but as you make clear, his detention under the Terrorism Act was brief.There are undoubtedly some serious threats to civil liberty in this country.

But given its geographical coverage, the measure is scarcely an assault on the right of demonstration throughout the United Kingdom. Trespass on military property has carried criminal penalties under the Official Secrets Acts long before this administration. Ignorance, drunkenness and shallow patriotism are by no means the preserve of today’s football fans.K TURNERKIDDERMINSTER, , WORCESTERSHIRE Alerted to Blair’s restrictive laws Sir: My thanks to Henry Porter for “Blair laid bare” (29 June). Over recent years, friends and I have expressed the growing feeling that the terrorist attacks on 11 September and elsewhere, both real and imagined, have been used as leverage to pass ever more controlling and restricting laws on us.We are not politically active and have enough to do trying to earn a living and bring up our family, which counts towards the inertia I am sure the Government relies on and puts us in the situation of the frog in water being brought slowly to the boil.I remember the Falklands conflict being initiated by a dictator focusing on an external “threat” as a diversion from attacks on liberty at home and see parallels here.I was hugely relieved when Tony Blair was elected after the Tories’ shambles, but am increasingly worried by his attitude and that of successive Home Secretaries towards individuals’ rights and against the judiciary’s “liberal” approach.LEE HORWICHLONDON W5Sir: Your coverage of the Government’s alleged assaults on civil liberties (29 June) does a disservice to those of us who are anxious to defend the essential as opposed to the less crucial liberties of the subject.The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act is arguably a disproportionate response to the perceived threat to the safety and dignity of Parliament. G Atkinson might care to reflect on the fact that the modern-day “drunks wrapping themselves in the flag of St George” would have been embraced as comrades by the tens of thousands of jingoistic lads, metaphorically wrapped in the flag and brim-full of drink, queueing up to enlist ninety years ago. It is time to overcome these prejudices, for it is our children who suffer.LORAINE VON MOLTKELONDON SW19Sir: Whatever has G Atkinson (letter, 30 June) been reading or viewing for the past week if he finds, with reference to the Battle of the Somme “the lack of commemoration and awareness of the loss very disheartening”? And as for the extremely curious view that “the nation of England prepares for a football match on the actual anniversary of the first day of the Somme”, what is his proposed alternative? A 24-hour silence?I find this growing romanticising of the First World War and its soldiers, by people who could not have been there, nauseating.

I am shocked, saddened for this poor boy, and deeply troubled. As a mother of four small children, I am frightened about what this says about the England that my children are growing up in. Isn’t it about time that England starts to look forward and not dwell on the past? It is 2006 not 1946. Yet a teenager is not even allowed to show his allegiance to his favourite team by sporting one of their T-shirts, because it is Germany.As I write this letter, the recently widowed mother of this boy sits in Kingston hospital, praying that her son does not suffer any lasting damage from this attack. Why? Because he wore a Germany football T-shirt.
What sort of civilisation do we live in? He didn’t provoke a fight It wasn’t at midnight with drunkards filling the street It wasn’t even England v Germany. A 17-year-old boy, excited about the quarter-final football results, walking across the Richmond Green to meet up with friends at 8pm is, completely unprovoked, punched in the face and knocked unconscious. Friday evening, summer in the air, the Wimbledon championships in full swing, and the quarter-finals of the Football World Cup are being played in Germany England is scheduled to play in the quarter-finals tomorrow And Germany won today against Argentina We are all enjoying the competitions

Yet nationalism rears its ugly head in Richmond.