Sarah Teather issued another legal threat some days ago. Legal threats seem to be becoming increasingly common in Brent politics. For several years, we got none that I recall. More recently, Bertha Joseph tried to persuade Boris Johnson that the Labour Party had put out something defamatory about her. As far as I know, She hasn't actually made any communication with the Labour Party about it, so I take it that it is just bluster on her part. Convicted fraudster, "Countess" Mariaska Romanov made all kinds of threats before her current residence in Brixton, but nothing came of them. Another convicted fraudster, and once associate of Bertha Joseph, also liked to dish out legal threats. Tory Troll gives an example here. Even this blog got a legal threat, from Atiq Malik, although that too seems to have faded away.
The danger of all this legal stuff is partly intimidatory. Legitimate freedom of speech could be restricted by self censorship. But it is also a distraction from the real political issues.
The stuff that Sarah Teather does that really worries me is in the public domain. I mean the effect of Liberal Democrat policies. Some of the Brent specific ones are summarised here. There are also lots of national ones: the hostility to tackling anti-social behaviour, the soft approach to drug crime, the soft approach on gun and knife crime, the promotion of pornography, means testing child benefit, cutting tax credits, whatever other "savage cuts" the Liberal Democrats support. All these matter far more than Nick Clegg exploiting the expenses system for the maximum or near maximum allowable amount, unedifying as that may be.
(In fairness, I should point out that Mr Clegg has now repaid some of his expenses claims, for example for international phone calls.)
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