Ian Hamilton QC

This first appeared in the on line legal and current affairs journal THE FIRM

by Ian Hamilton QC

The magnificent distortion of English history by Locog was largely financed by a magnificent distortion of the law. The question arises. Will that law be enforceable in Scotland?

The law is contained in the innocent seeming UK Olympic Act 2006 which appears to apply throughout the United Kingdom. Among its provisions is to create for sale certain words and phrases relative to the great celebration of athleticism presently taking place. Locog has raised £700 million pounds by the selling of advertising to big business. Coca Cola and McDonalds, the purveyors of food fit for athletics in training, are among the foremost. So far so good.

The distortion arises when we look a little closer at the enforcement of the sponsors’ advertising rights. It has not been left to the sponsors to protect their rights in the civil courts. This would usually be the case. If someone were to claim to be the man who stole the Stone of Destiny I could sue him for violating my intellectual property, I think. Similarly Mcdonalds could sue a rival firm who claimed to be caterer to the games.

This is not what is happening at all. A whole host of names have been assigned to the advertising powers of the sponsors. Locog claims it has an intellectual copyright in such names as “Gold”, “Games”, “London”, and even in time itself for the year “2012” may not be used in your adverts. This is a bit much and I doubt if any civil court would sustain such a claim to a property right in these common words.

Fearing that this might happen all the power of the criminal law has been brought into force. Anyone, other than a sponsor, using such words, and others like them, in their advertising is liable to prosecution in the criminal courts and a very hefty fine.

This is repugnant to Scots law. Our law is a reserved subject, reserved to us since 1707. Even if offences can be created by Westminster our laws essential purpose remains. That purpose is to preserve society; not to preserve the advertising campaigns of international corporations. I assert that the criminal powers of the Olympic Act 2006 are so repugnant to the Scottish conception of justice that our courts would hold them to be frivolous and unenforceable. At least I hope they would.

Dicey and Bagehot have much to say on the subject of Westminster sovereignty. Put bluntly, as we used to say in the barrack room, they can even make a man pregnant; but they can’t make him love the bastard. Our Scottish Courts have shown a welcome independence against some of the follies of Holyrood’s legislation. It is to be hoped that they will show the same robust courage with Westminster’s.

And will that dismal civil servant, the Lord Advocate, really waste our courts’ time with such prosecutions. Someone should ask him

I’m a grumpy old man.

But I dislike government by bread and circuses.

Particular when big business makes off with the bread.

I hope all the people have fun.

Finish.

by Ian Hamilton
Let the people strike. Let them bring this Olympic farce to an end. The world’s athletes are being cynically used by big business to enrich the rich.

Take Coca Cola. They have a hand wrist deep in the money pot. No one may sell food or drink anywhere in the Olympic stadiums without advertising Coco Cola. Bet your life McDonalds will have the same ‘rights’. You can’t even advertise a Forfar bridie in Forfar “as eaten at the Olympics” without incurring a penalty in favour of big business.

How is this to be enforced? The innocent sounding Olympic Act makes it an offence to run a stall if you don’t advertise the goods of a ‘sponsor’. There are spies everywhere and the criminal law has been evoked. If you sell a bun and don’t advertise Coca Cola you can be fined up to £20,000. Is there nothing London won’t stoop to for money?

The criminal law was never meant to guard such business advertising. The Lord Advocate should be asked if he intends to be a pimp. Will he prostitute Scots law in the name of the Olympics?

In the piece below I write as an ex-serviceman. I volunteered to fight for full employment in a free society. It isn’t a free society where I must advertise Coco Cola when I refer to the Olympics.

Let the people strike. They are being offered minimum wages to run an advertising scheme for big business, mainly American, while small businesses are penalised.

The Olympics are a Con. Let the people strike. 

by Ian Hamilton

In December 1941 William Beverage published a book called FULL EMPLOYMENT IN A FREE SOCIETY. It became our domestic war aim. For ten years after the war that is what we had.

Then this noble aim was forgotten. Under Harold Macmillan’s government, but against his will, inflation became more important than full employment. Inflation reduces the value of the money held by the rich who inevitably form our rulers. How many millions is Tony Blair now worth? Donald Dewar managed to leave only two. The Labour Party is now the banker’s party.

I have lived a long life and hoped to pass on a better one to my grandchildren. I had hoped to pass on full employment in a free society. We have more poverty and more rich today than would have been tolerated in 1945 by those who fought for better things.

I speak for the wartime generation. This may be an impertinence because I never saw action. Yet I passed the boards to be a commissioned pilot in 1943 when the chances of survival were fifty-fifty. I occasionally wear the tie of the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve in remembrance of the 60,000 dead in Bomber Command alone, average age 22. I was 19 when the war ended. Dead mouths can’t speak. I can. I assert that these people died for many things. Among these was full employment in a free society.

We see Mr Diamond getting twenty millions. We don’t know what service he rendered to us for this reward. Many get millions while the people have their jobs taken from them and their pensions cut.

I write this piece on the eve of the Olympic Games in London. A few of the working class are not playing the game. They are going on strike. They may interrupt the games and cause havoc. In the name of the millions of war dead who died for a better society I wish the strikers well. Let the millionaires wear their Red Poppies while the people scrimp. The Olympics divert us from the real issues. The Olympics hide the failure of capitalism.

Let them fail too.

By Ian Hamilton
 
 
Of the millions of words spoken by Charles Stewart Parnell
less than twenty matter.
 
These are the words.
 
No man has a right to say to his country,
 ……….

Thus far shalt thou go and no further.
 
The referendum is only one day’s opinion of those who bother to vote.
 
It cannot bind our children.
 
In 1942 the membership of the Glasgow Young Nationalists was three. I was one. We were told we were daft.
 
Look at Scotland now.
 
The march of the nation continued. It continues today.
 
We do not seek isolation.
 
There is no such thing as separatism. There is only the right to
choose our friends.

England will always be one of them. But we seek the right to change the terms of our friendship.
 
If we don’t our children will.
 
In our long history the referendum is only an incident.
 
No man has a right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further.’