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Trains, trains trains and an Early Day Motion

30th April, cold and grey

Dodgy ads:

If you don't know who Iggy Pop is, why would looking at that raddled old hippie geezer, inexplicably half-naked, make you think about car insurance?

If you do know who Iggy Pop is, why on earth would you want to buy car insurance from him?

That is Iggy Pop, isn't it?

Treacherous automatic barriers at Victoria:

It ate my ticket to Manchester, honestly it did.
The man opens the machine, and cannot find my ticket in its bowels
But it did! It did! Or the person ahead of me took my ticket along with his. Look, look, here's my receipt, here's my seat reservation voucher
The man, kindly to a fault, rushes me to the inquiry office
Mais non, says the young frenchwoman at the desk (only in English). One cannot reissue without a signed form from the ticket barrier teamleader.
we rush back and find the teamleader
Mais non, we still cannot reissue, as this ticket was bought from a travel agency.
She takes all the surviving parts of my ticket, and my proof of purchase, and rushes off somewhere else anyway
Will she ever return? Her colleague eyes me uneasily from behind the glass, as I pace and pace, looking at my phone every ten seconds. I'm going to have to pay full fare. I'm going to miss my appointment. . .

This story has a (relatively) happy ending. Owing to my seldom-used-these-days power to run up Underground escalators, I actually caught my train from Euston.

The story outlined below won't have a happy ending unless a convincing number of MPs are persuaded to show that they care. Do you care about the use of secret evidence in UK courts? Or will you wait until you're made to care, by a knock at midnight from the secret police?, Do you think it's about time we called a halt to the frightening erosion of the rule of law in this country? Check this link, read the motion, contact your MP: http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=38455&SESSION=899

EDM 1308
SECRET EVIDENCE
21.04.2009
Abbott, Diane
That this House believes the use of secret evidence in UK courts is fundamentally wrong; notes that secret evidence is evidence held by the Home Office against an individual that neither the individual, nor their legal representation, may see; further notes that in recent cases secret evidence has been used to detain individuals in prison for up to three years without charge or trial; further notes that these individuals may also be put under a control order or severe bail conditions, greatly limiting their movements and ability to lead a healthy life; believes that the use of secret evidence by the state against individuals runs entirely contrary to Habeas Corpus; recognises the European Court of Human Rights' ruling that detaining individuals on the basis of secret evidence is unlawful because detainees had not been able to effectively challenge the allegations against them; and calls on the Government to begin an immediate independent review into the use of evidence that is not ever heard by the defendant or their lawyer but which is used to justify indefinite detention, severe bail conditions or control orders.

Not sure who your MP is? Check it out on theyworkforyou.com