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To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of ke

To put your numbers in perspective: the cost of Julian Assange being kept in the embassy is not policing all of the UK for a day or so. That is, the cost of keeping Assange under watch is the same as what would be spent on 1 average day of policing for the entire country. If I were a UK citizen concerned about local crime rates, I'd be mildly ticked off they were spending 1 nationwide police day on some guy rather than dealing with crimes over the entire rest of the country.

dublinclontarf 12y ago
What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  They should bring the Swedish Prosecutors to the Embassy and conduct the interview there, as is done in other cases. This case is not about enforcing the law, it appears to be about using the letter of the law to intimidate one of USAs most wanted individuals and keeping him detained without a fair trial. Like using tax laws against Capone. Doing a s/Gitmo/Embassy/.
- sago 12y ago
  There are many, many laws, that if it cost £10m to catch one violator, would not be enforced (well, would not be aggressively pursued, it isn't like they'd say "no, you're fine, go about your life"). Police make priority judgements all the time about where to allocate their resources. The concern in this case is that the allocation is not being made on reasonable grounds based on the nature of the crime and normal policing priorities, but on political grounds because of who the accused person is.
  - matthewmacleod 12y ago
    I don't agree. In reality, there are very few situations in which ew are fully aware of a criminal's location, but for diplomatic reasons we can't actually apprehend them. That's why this is different. Can you imagine the uproar if we allowed targets of arrest warrants to walk free despite knowing their location, and having it surrounded? This is an exceptional case.
    - sago 12y ago
      Seems a false dichotomy. I wouldn't suggest we "let him go free", but when any public service has resource limits, you have assign them reasonably to the public benefit. As for whether this would happen for another person in the same situation who wasn't a major political bogeyman figure? I suspect not. I suspect they'd wait until intelligence suggested he had left, and apprehend him then. Or he'd just be on general no-travel lists at ports and airports. It strains my belief to think that this kind of theatre isn't in large part because he's Julian Assange, source of significant political embarrassment for the UK and its ally across the pond.
      - matthewmacleod 12y ago
        I don't think that follows – surely if the target was a source of 'significant political embarrassment', the last thing you'd want to do is draw attention to the matter! Honestly, I don't know what would happen if he weren't a political hot potato. Much like Abu Hamza, I imagine the British establishment would rather he was just none of their problem. Unfortunately, that's not something they can do in this case.
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- vdaniuk 12y ago
  It is absolutely unthinkable for UK Government not to prosecute sexual crimes, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier
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- ObviousScience 12y ago
  Enforce which law? The police already don't have the resources to enforce every infraction, every time, so we're already discussing which cases we should be enforcing and how much effort we should be putting in to each. In this particular case, I think that the public would be better served by simply letting the foreign government move him to their nation and allowing the two foreign governments to sort the issue out between themselves (since he was granted amnesty AND the government who seeks his arrest to interview him refuses to interview him in the UK, as has been done with other cases, which suggests an ulterior motive to wanting him in custody). I think the enforcement effort would be better spent stopping crimes against UK citizens, instead of playing middle-man in an international conflict between Sweden, Ecuador, and likely the US. Heck, if you really wanted to spend your police money on international drama, there are plenty of financial crimes committed in the UK against UK citizens that they could be investigating, nevermind that policing street level crime would likely do more for the average citizen than big drama cases like this. (Of course, that's speaking from the perspective of a citizen. Politicians have other reasons they'd like to trade favors like this.)

dublinclontarf 12y ago

What are they supposed to do? Just not enforce the law?

draugadrotten 12y ago
They should bring the Swedish Prosecutors to the Embassy and conduct the interview there, as is done in other cases. This case is not about enforcing the law, it appears to be about using the letter of the law to intimidate one of USAs most wanted individuals and keeping him detained without a fair trial. Like using tax laws against Capone. Doing a s/Gitmo/Embassy/.
sago 12y ago
There are many, many laws, that if it cost £10m to catch one violator, would not be enforced (well, would not be aggressively pursued, it isn't like they'd say "no, you're fine, go about your life"). Police make priority judgements all the time about where to allocate their resources. The concern in this case is that the allocation is not being made on reasonable grounds based on the nature of the crime and normal policing priorities, but on political grounds because of who the accused person is.
- matthewmacleod 12y ago
  I don't agree. In reality, there are very few situations in which ew are fully aware of a criminal's location, but for diplomatic reasons we can't actually apprehend them. That's why this is different. Can you imagine the uproar if we allowed targets of arrest warrants to walk free despite knowing their location, and having it surrounded? This is an exceptional case.
  - sago 12y ago
    Seems a false dichotomy. I wouldn't suggest we "let him go free", but when any public service has resource limits, you have assign them reasonably to the public benefit. As for whether this would happen for another person in the same situation who wasn't a major political bogeyman figure? I suspect not. I suspect they'd wait until intelligence suggested he had left, and apprehend him then. Or he'd just be on general no-travel lists at ports and airports. It strains my belief to think that this kind of theatre isn't in large part because he's Julian Assange, source of significant political embarrassment for the UK and its ally across the pond.
    - matthewmacleod 12y ago
      I don't think that follows – surely if the target was a source of 'significant political embarrassment', the last thing you'd want to do is draw attention to the matter! Honestly, I don't know what would happen if he weren't a political hot potato. Much like Abu Hamza, I imagine the British establishment would rather he was just none of their problem. Unfortunately, that's not something they can do in this case.
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vdaniuk 12y ago
It is absolutely unthinkable for UK Government not to prosecute sexual crimes, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier
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ObviousScience 12y ago
Enforce which law? The police already don't have the resources to enforce every infraction, every time, so we're already discussing which cases we should be enforcing and how much effort we should be putting in to each. In this particular case, I think that the public would be better served by simply letting the foreign government move him to their nation and allowing the two foreign governments to sort the issue out between themselves (since he was granted amnesty AND the government who seeks his arrest to interview him refuses to interview him in the UK, as has been done with other cases, which suggests an ulterior motive to wanting him in custody). I think the enforcement effort would be better spent stopping crimes against UK citizens, instead of playing middle-man in an international conflict between Sweden, Ecuador, and likely the US. Heck, if you really wanted to spend your police money on international drama, there are plenty of financial crimes committed in the UK against UK citizens that they could be investigating, nevermind that policing street level crime would likely do more for the average citizen than big drama cases like this. (Of course, that's speaking from the perspective of a citizen. Politicians have other reasons they'd like to trade favors like this.)