So my Green friends, you'll oppose police infiltration of the BNP too?

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I listened to an 'outraged' environmentalist called Dr Chadderton on the radio today complaining about covert surveillance by the police. Apparently he - and his fellow eco-loons - are upset because somebody spied on them for a 'shadowy' police branch: The National Public Order Intelligence Group*.

Dr Chadderton's beef was that the state was infiltrating 'peaceful' organisations seeking to influence the agenda and campaign to protect the planet. Nice, innocent, unthreatening green folk who knit jumpers from lentils, dine on curried mung beans and carry out acts of vandalism on power stations.

Now I have some sympathy with Dr Chadderton's view point. However, when the BNP were complaining about undercover infiltration by public authorities and covert surveillance, I didn't hear Dr Chadderton's greenie mates complaining at the misuse of public funds investigating legitimate political organisations. Nope, they were all for it - expose those nasty fascists, they said.

Hypocrites?

*The Police are slipping - what kind of 'shadowy' body has the acronym NPOIG?

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