Britain Sucks
POSTED BY: Wulfenstar
UPDATED: Sunday, July 5, 2026 16:21
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London Musicians Must Give Police Swathes Of Personal Information To Perform Live
Eight page form will detail names, aliases, private addresses, phone numbers of all musicians and ethnic background of the likely audience
Musicians and performers in London will soon be required by law to complete and hand over to police an eight page form detailing all their personal information and the ethnic background of their audience if they want to perform.
The information will be collected by venue owners and managers throughout the city, who will have to adhere to the process should they wish to promote live music.
Failure to comply with the information demanded on Form 696 could mean the loss of a licence or even a fine and imprisonment, reports the London Independent.
Police quietly introduced the legislation in 2006, and have recently defended it, saying they need the details in order to ensure safety and "identify troublemakers".
Groups of musicians and promoters have slammed the move, suggesting that it will harm the live music scene and encourages venues to effectively spy on patrons. Others have described the bureaucratic process as a form of racial discrimination. There are also fears that the legislation will be applied throughout the country if it is accepted in the capital.
The Musicians' Union is consulting lawyers over the invasion of privacy, while another group, UK Music is seeking a judicial review.
As with most recent legislative erosions of civil liberties, form 696 is a phenomenon of the culture of fear our governments have consistently fashioned and promoted over the past decade. In a post 9/11 / post 7/7 world, everyone is treated as a suspect until proven otherwise, especially if you have brown skin and a foreign sounding name.
Musicians and performers are no exception.
Take the case of The Clash tribute band member Mike Devine who was arrested at his office in Bristol and taken away for questioning after he sent an SMS text message containing lyrics from the song Tommy Gun to his lead singer who had forgotten the words.
The message read:
"How about this for Tommy Gun? OK - SO LET'S AGREE ABOUT THE PRICE AND MAKE IT ONE JET AIRLINER AND TEN PRISONERS"
A terrorism analyst told reporters that the interception provided proof that Britain's spy teams at GCHQ were actively monitoring all vocal and textual mobile phone traffic.
That was 2004, now in 2008 the British Government has openly announced that it wants to make that very practice lawful.
In a similar incident, Harraj Mann was reported to the British airport police for listening to a Clash record in a taxi on the way to the airport. The weasel driver was so frightened by some of the lyrics that he took them as a rallying call for a terrorist attack.
Of course it is unlikely that the police or the government will raise an eyebrow to the mindless gibberish passing for lyrical content in the majority of musical performers' work.
Ask yourself, who is more likely to be classed as the "troublemaker"? Will it be the performers who sing endlessly about money, bling and easy girls or will it be those who wish to address real issues and make their audiences think about more than the pursuit of expensive baubles and trinkets?
Sign a petition to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown to get the Metropolitan Police to scrap the use of Form 696.
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Scrapthe696/
Facebook Group - Stand Up To Form 696
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=42439007135
www.infowars.net/articles/december2008/021208Musicians.htm
UK Conservative Jewish Minister Damian Green Arrested by Counter Terrorism Police for Leaking Docs Proved Tony Blair Secretly Allowed Amnesty for 1,000s of Illegal Aliens and Hired Them for Top Secret Govt Jobs
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1227702353416&pagename=JPost%2FJPA
rticle%2FShowFull
www.infowars.com/?p=6224
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Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Foreign Gurka soldiers hired as killer British cops:
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/02/police-gurkha-nepal-crime-offi
cer
Hello,
All accounts I've heard of Gurkhas is that they are highly disciplined, effective troops. Do you have some reason to believe that these people can't be trained to serve in a police capacity?
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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I take it you've never tried to train ex-army pukes for security work... 
Gurkas are excellent troops, but their reflexes and training are all *wrong* for police work, especially in england where it's function is somewhat more community based (as I am given to understand) than in the US.
And the better trained, and more experienced they are, the harder it is to retrain them, plus you'll be dealing with certain ingrained values and attitudes that absolutely complicate the process.
On our aptitude uptake interview, military experience is a -20
(police experience is -50)
So no, it's not a good idea.
-F
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Hello,
Frem, I'll have to disagree with you.
I think you'll find that your average Gurkha is actually quite able to absorb new instruction and carry it out.
In any event, disqualifying a candidate because they served in the military is mistifying to me.
Any time you take a class of people, any class of people other than criminals, really, and say, "No, they can't/shouldn't do that kind of work" then you'll have my opposition. How about we see what these Nepalese military vets actually do before we bounce 'em based on preconceptions, eh?
--Anthony
Edited to add: I spent about 4 years in security work, and never had more trouble with the vets than I had with the civvies.
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Oh we don't bounce em, but they do have to prove they can adapt to the work.
We've had far too many problems with pumped up "rocketjock" types who do fine in a military role, causing serious problems with the clients or their personnel, and the ex-police guys are more of a hassle cause they seem to have a hard time with the concept of the residents of a residential complex being the protectees and not perps.
It's none of your business WHY one of the residents needs something from his glovebox at 3am, if you saw him come out of his unit, unlock his car, and rummage in the glovebox, ya wave hello and keep going - you do NOT get in his face, his personal space and play twenty questions with him, leastways you don't if you work for me.
I fired his ass last night, so I am a bit touchy on the subject right now since my intuition told me not to hire him in the first place, but he was qualified for the job, soooo....
-Frem
PS - "other than criminals"... umm, you do know that I *include* police, as a general rule, under that particular assessment, especially after yesterday, since not having the old city council members blocking it, we DID surprise drug test the local PD this morning, and more than half of them failed!
Dealing with that is gonna be anything but fun.
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You know,
For some reason, that reminds me of my time as a rover. You know what a rover is, Frem, but for everyone else, it's the guy who tours the facility. He also tends to be the one who relieves the people at the stationary posts when they need a break for lunch or whatnot.
Anyhow, I was doing my parking-lot patrol when a resident of the condo complex comes home. He finds that someone has parked in his spot, and he is HOT about it. I took note of his complaint, tagged the vehicle with a violation, and called the desk on the radio to check the license number. It wasn't recognized, so we requested a tow.
But the guy isn't happy with that. This happens to him all the time, he says. He's tired of it, he says. He's going to do something, he says.
So he goes into his trunk and gets out a can of spray paint. He makes like he wants to spray some graffitti onto the violator's car.
"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," I say to him.
"You gonna stop me," he asks angrily.
"No Sir," I say. "My job is to observe and report. I am specifically barred from interfering with you in any way. However, I will observe your actions and report them, which is bound to put you in a bad light when the police become involved."
He was hopping mad. And I mean, literally. I've rarely seen someone actually hopping mad before, but there he was. "You're taking their side," he yelled.
"I don't take sides, Sir," I explained to him. "I don't have anything against that gentleman who parked here, or you either. But he parked in the wrong spot, and so his car will be towed. And if you deface his car, well, things can happen from that, too. I take no personal interest in the matter, beyond recording my observations. I certainly see why you'd be mad, and might want to paint his car with that can... but in the long run, I don't think it'll be worth it."
I then sat there, my clipboard and pen ready, and waited impassively to see what would develop.
He put the can back in his trunk and waited for the tow truck.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Foreign Gurka soldiers hired as killer British cops:
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/02/police-gurkha-nepal-crime-offi
cer
Hello,
All accounts I've heard of Gurkhas is that they are highly disciplined, effective troops. Do you have some reason to believe that these people can't be trained to serve in a police capacity?
The purpose of importing foreign military troops is to oppress the sheeple, since there's a huge language/cultural barrier, plus they already hate your nation, or at least want to compete with it.
Same problem Iraqis and Afghanis have with US/UK troops who massacre them by the dozens in their own homes and wedding parties.
Don't you think it's odd that soldiers are NEVER required to speak the language of the nation they are invading?
Plus these gurkas add to the millions of illegal aliens invading UK right now, to create patsies for the next false-flag terror bombing to "justify" the next war in the middle east. Funny how the "dead Islamic terrorists on LSD" who allegedly massacred 200 sheeple in the Victim Disarament Zone in India last week had lived in London. Pay no attention to the Paki ISA/MI6/CIA commandos who did the real shooting. Enjoy your nuke war between Pak/India/Russia/China/US/UK.
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Hello,
Gurkhas are employed by the British government in their military. Rest assured that they have a working knowledge of English.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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"Don't you think it's odd that soldiers are NEVER required to speak the language of the nation they are invading?"
Hello,
I don't consider this odd. While I think we go to war far too often, if we did go to war, I wouldn't think it efficient to put all my troops through 6 months of language training before they could be mobilized against my enemies.
--Anthony
"Liberty must not be purchased at the cost of Humanity." --Captain Robert Henner
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Well done Anthony - see, that kinda professionalism is what I look for in my people, most of these "rocketjocks" would have wound up in a physical confrontation with the guy cause of ego issues, and that crap leads to voided contracts, hard feelings and liability lawsuits.
As you can imagine, none of these options are palatable to me, thus when we wind up with an applicant who has an obvious Cartman-Complex, out the door he goes, and 90% of those are ex cops or wannabes who didn't cut it at the academy, or ex military below E-6 in rank.
Thus, we scale a negative to the interview based on former experience with these problems, and if an applicant can show they're NOT like that, and meet all the other criteria, we'll give em a shot at a low risk position - I got one former E-3 out there I wouldn't give up for the world, and one kid who walked out on the police academy because he couldn't stand the corruption and hypocrisy, and he's all the more valuable as a supervisor cause he's got a knack for quick situation assessment.
Oh, and the local PD set their FOP rep on me two hours ago, who had the nerve to physically and legally threaten me in my office, which, factually is NOT considered a private venue as it's used for city business, and is thus "wired for sound" and has been since the weekend I engaged my own plans rather than the original ones.
I do expect trouble, and have discreetely contacted the Sheriffs dept and State Police over the matter - both of whom were hand-delivered a confidential copy of that recording.
Thankfully we don't have a local tac-team, and the idea of bothering me at home gives them the shivers thanks to Forquet, so if they try anything funny it'll be at the office or in my car.
-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it
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