Way back in January financial manager Paul Chambers was prosectued for leaving this Tweet "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!". He was due to meet his woman friend in Northern Ireland but bad weather delayed the flight and he obviously got a little bored and impatient, but to take his comment as a genuine threat and prosecute him under some 'menace' law which we apparently have (since when I don't know) seems a bit of an overreaction no? The case finally got settled this month (the British justice system works very quickly these days) in the Crown's favour to the tune of a few grand and a lost job for Paul. But Robin Hood airport? Seriously? I'm not sure a county that has one of the highest violent crime rates in Britain and names its airport after a mythological criminal is in any position to punish stupidity. It was quite apparent to every sane individual on the planet, which clearly doesn't include judge Jacqueline Davies (how do these people get these jobs?), that it was a weak joke backed with some mild frustration, and now she has inccurred the ire of no less than Stephen Fry (yes Stephen Fry) who is of course high King of Twitter.
I'd like to wheel out the old cliche "it's PR gone MAD" for this one but unfortunately that phrase has been hijacked by Labour MPs (nice one Woolas) and the BNP. It would be interesting to know the reaction of staff at the airport and if they were genuinely frightened for their lives or if (most probably) they hear worse to their faces every day and couldn't give a shit. It's hard not to view this as anything other than another stamp on civil liberties by big brother, which in the light of Fitwatch getting closed down looks like something we can get increasingly used to. The worst bit about all this stuff is not just that it is undemocratic and essentially illegal, but that it is such a fucking waste of time and resources by the disconnected idiots who we place in positions of power in this country. Oh and the Daily Mail, let's not leave them out.
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