“I am not particularly bothered with this civil liberties stuff” announced Boris Johnson on the 11th of January in a statement to Sky News. The Mayor of London responded to opposition from the Liberal Democrats about the introduction of a Conservative-led 'Snoopers' Charter' (more about this on p 7) catalysed by the extremist attacks in Paris. The Charter would mean amending the Communications Data Bill so that accessing personal information would be lawful for security officials. This would very much resemble 'The Patriot Act' in America.
Johnson stated that the government had every right to want to monitor 'these people' and those who did not accept this should just 'go away': "I think the values we stand for in London and Paris are the same - enlightenment and freedom. In our society there are limits on what you can say (…) What we do not accept is that people's sense of being offended justifies in any way any act of violence. We have to stand up very firmly for freedom of speech, for democracy and the rule of law (…) The Muslim mayor of Rotterdam said to the would be Dutch jihadis 'if you don't like freedom then go away'. I think that was very powerful, very moving."
