There may not be an obvious link between the main stories in the news this week but there is one nonetheless. Perhaps the most significant is the Jury's open verdict in the De Menezes inquest. It is obvious from their findings that the jury were very disquieted by the evidence that they heard and, in particular, the contradictions between the police evidence and the ordinary members of the public who saw an innocent man shot dead in front of them. What is most shocking about the overall Police attitude to this whole matter is their complete failure to recognise how disturbed the public are that a person was gunned down in this way. They can see it from their own perspective but seemingly do not understand that the public do not want to live in a society where the police can do this sort of thing and then expect no one to be critical of them.

No doubt the government saw this verdict coming however and they were no doubt delighted when the Coroner (in fact a former High Court Judge and previously long term prosecutor - see the hopeless 80's Official Secrets Act trial of a lot of young RAF airman who made a series of dubious confessions) prevented them considering a verdict of unlawful killing. This is the same government who have made concerted efforts to remove juries from the Inquest process and stop the public examination of the evidence.

What it demonstrates however is that when the public are exposed to real evidence and allowed to examine it carefully they come to conclusions that the government simpy don't like. So isn't it much easier to stop them knowing the truth at all or manipulating it in a media that happily play along. It is a sad fact that they seem to encourage and rely upon a general public ignorance and unwillingness to examine anything beyond the latest headline. In all the worst possible ways this government seems to have taken "1984" as their bible:

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future."

How is it, therefore, that the government gets away with it? How is it that they can avoid having to explain the obvious logic of the director general of the Council of Mortgage Lenders:

“Current policy objectives are conflicting and incoherent. The government needs to decide on its key priority. The tug of war with lenders being pulled in every direction at once needs to end."?

How is that they can get away with merely stating that everyone is doing the same as us? In the same vein, they even manage to brush off the criticisms from Germany without ever trying to address the criticisms that are made.

This evening the Civil Service have apologised for releasing the statistics on knife crime without the approval of the National Statistician and others. Why is it the civil service who are apolgising? It was not them who trotted out the statistics to make some political point yesterday. It was the politicians and in particular the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary, although they have both made themselves scarce again as soon as criticisms are voiced.

All these issues demonstrate how the public are treated with contempt and kept in ignorance as far as is possible. Last week when the Police were trawling through the office of an MP in an attempt to cut off criticism Civil War analogies were all the rage. Here is another one particularly relevant to our current situation:

"the tyranny of princes could never be grievous but by the tameness and stupidity of the people"