Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses!

snowflake5 Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 11:16:48 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Hat-tip to Political Hack for flagging this



While David Davis has been campaigning against CCTV, Boris Johnson launched his crime manifesto for London: 

Among the specific measures in the manifesto are a plan to trial live CCTV cameras on buses

Apparently he doesn't think there is enough CCTV in London!

So there you have it - while Davis condemns CCTV as an assault on civil liberties, Boris seeks to expand it and put them in places they've never been before..... I wonder if Boris will go campaign for Davis? Tory civil wars - they're fun arn't they?  



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Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! | 10 comments (10 topical)

Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#1)

by otware on Thu Jun 19, 2008 at 11:55:47 PM GMT

I thought there already was CCTV on buses. There is where I live anyway...


Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#3)

by jdc on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 08:16:12 AM GMT

There is CCTV but it's recording cameras, not live.

Speaking as a Londoner, the sooner the better, really. Good on Boris for not caving in to David Davis and his pro-crime agenda.


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Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#2)

by NorthernMonkey on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 12:10:47 AM GMT

I wish they'd have asked him about this on Question Time!


Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#4)

by AngryVoter on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 08:50:03 AM GMT

Was just gunna say, I've got CCTV on my busses, infact most of them do these days. Unlike 97% of other security cameras they're actually useful and clearly identify people.


Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#6)

by jkitleft on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 02:10:52 PM GMT

CCTV cameras are more useful than you think. More prostitutes in Ipswich, and gays and blacks in Soho, Brixton and Brick Lane would've been murdered without CCTV. When CCTV was pilotd in Airdie, crime was slashed by over a fifth in 2 years. Injurdy Prevention found that less people were entering hospital for being attacked, as police were able to intervene faster.


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Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#7)

by snowflake5 on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 02:12:16 PM GMT

I agree that CCTV is useful on buses! And I agree that it should be extended to buses that don't have them. And  I am glad to see a Conservative like you finally acknowledging the usefulness of CCTV rather than ranting against it in Davis fashion.

My point was that Davis is clearly spouting policies that other conservatives don't support.  Which is a dilema for Cameron. When he says, "David Davis has my full support" and "Boris Johnson has my full support" does he mean that he is simultaneously for and against CCTV?
Can you be against CCTV in Haltemprice and Howden and for it in London and vote Conservative in both places? Whatever happened to the concept of a single agreed manifesto that all Conservatives can unite under? And suppose Cameron decides to go ahead and back CCTV in his next manifesto (unsurprisingly as Cameron himself helped to pioneer them as a special advisor to Michael Howard) - will Davis throw his toys out of the pram and stand as an independent?

I think this makes David Davis' position more and more farcical. I don't know why Cameron doesn't assert his authority and withdraw the whip.


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Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#8)

by AngryVoter on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 04:43:15 PM GMT

Where the picture is clear and useful then yes. I accept CCTV as a good idea, buses are one because you can clearly identify any attacker, theif or other robber.

 Stores I also agree with because of the lack of distance between the camera and the shoplifter. You can identify someone from the footage.

Car parks, town centres, city scapes and some areas however they're worse than useless, all they do is record fuzzy outlines of people moving around comitting whatever crime it is and are thus useless. [Hence why only 3% of crimes have actually been solved with CCTV footage]

Hence why I find it a random and unecessary job generation scheme and are thus against them there.


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Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#10)

by snowflake5 on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 06:36:53 PM GMT

But Davis isn't protesting against CCTV because the images are fuzzy! He is protesting because he says it hurts Civil Liberties - or rather "British liberties" as he puts it.  Though as Al points out in comment 9, if the image is fuzzy and you can't be identified, how is this infringing on your liberty/privacy?

Methinks Davis jumped on the whole Civil Liberties bandwagon because he thought it would give him a popular base from which to challenge both David Cameron and the government. Only he hadn't thought through how the contradictions in his arguments and record would play out. 


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Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#5)

by rathga on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 09:34:36 AM GMT

Indeed - there already is CCTV on buses!

And to be clear, from what I read David Davis is not against CCTV entirely - his point is that the vast majority of CCTV is of too poor quality to provide solid evidence and hence the majority of cameras only serve to infringe on liberty without having sufficient benefits to the fight against crime.   Either scrap these useless cameras or insist upon standards and appropriate usage.


Re: Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! (#9)

by Al on Fri Jun 20, 2008 at 04:54:44 PM GMT

So if we had better CCTV cameras he'd happily sign away these so-called civil liberties?! His position on CCTV makes no sense, if they're not good enough quality images it's hardly much of an infringement on my civil liberties to be recorded as a moving grey fuzzy blob on a camera that will then be deleted in a couple of weeks unless I was a victim of crime (or perpetrator of one!).


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Boris Johnson Wants to Put CCTV on Buses! | 10 comments (10 topical)