Good times to bury unwanted stories

Hasn’t it been a really good time to bury bad news recently…

The political equivalent of building a new overpass with lots of concrete.

Amid all the blanket reporting of the problems with the banking system and stock markets globally the MSM have had such a problem paying attention to things like the New Labour State’s obsessive desire to control and spy on it’s own Citizens.

Even 24hr news channels only seem able to find room for one or two story lines, repeated endlessly, or they cut to an empty podium and talk rubbish waiting for a speech. God forbid they should actually report a wider variety of news.

So the leopard does not change it’s spots. New Labour does not trust the citizen. It apparently does not believe the average citizen is capable enough adult enough to run their own lives and affairs.

They cannot be trusted, they need to be kept safe from the malice of others and their own stupidity. They even need to be told what they can eat and drink.

They need a patrician socialist class to govern every aspect of their lives… And if they object then doesn’t that show how foolish and irresponsible they are?

The silly citizen has a foolish traditional belief in their hard one ancient rights and liberties, but these just get in the way of shiny new legislation that the state needs to protect itself and it’s interests the public.

There is little that can be does to amend this pernicious attitude. New Labour need to be removed from power for a generation to contemplate the error of their thinking and the ripe contempt they apparently hold the citizen in. It would appear that this sort of medicine can work, ask David Cameron…

Threat of yet more laws and another huge UK State database

New-Labour’s developing fascist state moves a little closer as it’s Ministers consider plans for a vast and intrusive database of electronic information. A real move in the direction of a sinister total surveillance society.

Their plan is for New-Labour to legislate to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telephone companies to pass the details of all emails and telephone calls to them to be stored in a gargantuan database.

Their current justification is national security, a marvellous excuse to make the gullible grateful for their own oppression, but if they couldn’t talk that up then they would probably look to find some other reason.

A Home Office ‘spokesman’ claimed retaining communications information is now apparently essential for protecting national security. He also insisted that powers to hold information were subject to strict safeguards.

Yes, but somehow with other legislation and systems it has still resulted in things like local councils spying on ordinary people over schools admissions, people getting criminal records for putting a little too much rubbish in their bins and the private data of huge numbers of people being lost, or given away, or even published on the internet. These safeguards and promises are clearly utterly worthless.

In fact the prime minister’s personal representative has publicly admitted that "manifesto pledges are not subject to legitimate expectation", so it is curious they expect us to actually believe any such lesser assurances.

The state claims that if only they can bring in this law, restrict that freedom, then they can make the citizen safe. It is a lie. They can not guarantee safety, not from chance, not from natural disaster, not from crime and not from terrorism. They can even genuinely try, but sooner or later they are sill bound to fail.

Quite frankly I would rather take the chance of not making it easier to catch and more problematically convict terrorists (because they are easier to foil than catch and easier to catch than convict) than to allow them change my society to the point where it no longer reflects values I would be willing to defend. That is one of the aims of terrorism.

Are we are reaching the point where the state is in danger of becoming a greater menace to out liberties, values and way of life than terrorism.

What’s wrong with New-Labour

I was listening to some of the spin and damage limitation over New-Labour’s pretty disastrous showings in the local and London mayoral elections on Sky News this morning.

They were speaking to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, (she of being afraid to walk the streets after dark fame).

She was articulating all the excuses New-Labour seem to be developing while Gordon gets up the courage to show his face in public again and avoids the initial heat. Need to take the lesson on board and listen to the electorate, etc.

Any way she said something cut out of later repeats and I paraphrase as best I recall, about providing the leadership the electorate needed. It struck me as a bit of a Freudian slip. That’s just it – we don’t want to be told what to do by them we want to be left to live our lives in peace the way we wish to.

That is part of the whole problem with New-Labour and their natural bedfellows who seem to populate social services, education and local government, some of the upper echelons of the medical profession, etc. They seem so convinced that they know best and they will damned well force us to follow their will for our own good and we will all be grateful in the end really…

They want to control and regulate us keep record about everything and force us to prove who we are. Watch us all the time, tell us how to raise our children, what we can eat, drink and do in public and private. Make every thing illegal unless they have given specific permission, preferably controlled by expensive permit or licence that we have to pay for.

These are many of the reasons New-Labour did so badly, do they see it? Hell no! It seems the beast will never change.

A permit to allow you to do lawful things the ruling political elite disapprove of

It is arguable that Professor Julian le Grand a lecturer in social policy at the London School of Economics, is a very scary person.

Why? Because of some of the more sinister methods of state control of the individual that he advocates, coupled with the fact that, as a former aid to Tony Blair and chairman of Health England, a ministerial advisory board, he has the ear of those in power, so wealds undue influence.

He is advocating the introduction of licences to permit people to purchase perfectly legal goods.

He proposes that the licences should be made as difficult as possible to obtain, with complicated forms to fill out and that they should cost between £10 and up to £200 (presumably to penalise the better off) and be renewable annually.

You know it must be something to concern citizens of every political stripe when both the Telegraph and the Guardian have commented on it detrimentally.

He is talking about smoking in this case and the permit would be to purchase tobacco products – but the principle is dangerously easily applicable to anything the state, as the tool of the ruling political elite 'disapproves' of.

But hey! The money would all go to the good old NHS, so that’s OK then – Right?

Once the principle is accepted and applied to a limited hate group, who many non smokers will not worry about, it can be rolled out further.

Alcohol? All those binge drinkers disrupting society, it would keep underage kids away from the stuff right? Stop those middle class wine lovers inadvertantly drinking themselves to death right? Probably not…

‘Unhealthy’, ‘fattening’, food and drinks like burgers, or even tea? Apparently drinking bottled water is ‘immoral’ now. How about that?

A petrol/diesel permit?

What about certain activities like taking a cheap flight, or maybe taking a foreign holiday?

This is actually pretty scary stuff - and by no means beyond the realms of possibility.

In a truly bizarre piece of convoluted newspeak he attempts to brand this classic example of fascist thinking as “libertarian paternalism". An oxymoreon if ever there was one.

It is certainly a fine example of the Political Patrician classes mental processes at work. Showcasing the patrician view of the lower orders he feels and possibly intends this to impact more on poor and less well educated, justifying it on the grounds that it should contribute to a reduction in 'health inequalities'.

It clearly about as diametrically opposed to actual Libertarian thinking as it is possible to get.

One wonders if this may be deliberate on his part, in an attepmpt at black propaganda, targeted at the political ‘meat and two veg brigade’, to put them off realising what Libertarian ideas are really about, given that those ideas are such a threat to his way of thinking.

Is anyone listening to us?

Have you ever heard of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000? Have you any idea what it actually results in - in practice?

It means that in the UK A total of 653 state bodies have the power to intercept private communications – private communications including your’s.

This includes 474 Councils who only require a senior council officer to authorise the surveillance.

Many might regard this as sinister enough - and largely unnecessary given that wiretap evidence is not actually admissible in court.

The problem is these wanna-be big brothers are often unaccountable civil servants, absolutely renowned for their ability and competence ;-) You - know, the sort Government Ministers like to use as scapegoats.

In a nine month period, the Communications Commissioner, has found that 122 local authorities sought to obtain people's private communications, in more than 1,600 cases.

Scarily and possibly predictably, it turns out over 1,000 of all the bugging operations measured in that same period were flawed. Including instances where the phones of innocent people who had nothing to do with them were tapped by mistake.

So next time you pick up the phone keep in mind - If you phone someone who works in the same building as a suspected fly tipper then you may be being bugged by a council clerk. Even if you are just phoning a friend you may be being bugged, by mistake, by a council clerk.

Careful what you say…

Innocent until proven guilty? Not in the UK anymore it seems

I was channel hopping last night and I saw one of those ‘enforcement’ programs where they follow police and bailiffs.

One incident struck me. Liverpool police were trying out this piece of kit that appeared to combine an automated number plate recognition camera with a database, or databases.

A car registered on their system driven by a woman on the way to help arrange her mother’s birthday party, she had the cake and children with her.

This wonderful piece of kit flagged her up as uninsured, the last one had recently expired.

When they spoke to her she was adamant they had cover. Her husband had arranged it with a different insurer. What insurer? Could she prove it?, they asked. Not right there and thenshe couldn't.

There did not appear to be any doubt as to her identity. They knew where she lived. The vehicle had current tax and you can’t get that without insurance.

Given her strenuous and obviously sincere insistence that they had insurance the sensible thing would surely have been to ask her to produce her documents within seven days at a police station and let her go on the way to arrangeing the party.

Not these boys though. Maybe they were performing for the camera - maybe not.

The computer says No!

So I presume the presumption of the law of the land is no longer ‘innocent until proven guilty’, certainly not according to the Liverpool Police.

They turned her out of her vehicle together with her children and the cake and stuck big stickers all over the windscreens saying the vehicle was uninsured.

At the end of the program it was mentioned that she had been insured all along. Her husband had changed companies and the new details had not found it’s way onto the clearly inadequate database.

So here we have a perfectly law abiding person forbidden from lawfully going about her business, on the whim of a police officer with a discretion (and common sense) bypass, on the basis of an inadequate incomplete database.

Presumably causing her considerable inconvenience, stress, embarrassment and some expense. Her only 'crime' bing her husband changed insurance companies.

A database is not definitive proof someone is uninsured. She could and did easily prove she was insured given the opportunity, but surely it should be the job of the police to prove she was uninsured, not the other way round and their precious database did not and could not do that.

I remember thinking as I watched the segment unfold, that if the family had changed insurers the new details may have been slow finding their way onto the system. Why could the police officer not have worked that out.

More worryingly, one fears it is a taste of things to come. God help us all if New-Lab do introduce their precious Fascist ID cards and almost certainly unreliable (just like other systems they have introduced) database to go with it.

“Don’t have your ‘voluntary’ ID with you card? Can’t prove who you are then, can you? Must be an illegal immigrant. You’re nicked.”

The UK asylum system unable to cope.

The Government’s obsession with it’s ill judged and useless targets chalks up another resounding success – not!

Despite the fact that, according to the figures (yes I know you can’t trust them – but for the sake of argument) so-called ’refugees’ are at a 14 year low, never-the-less our wonderful Government and it’s highly effective and ever expanding army of client employees have somehow contrived to foul up the asylum system so badly it is in turmoil.

According to a leaked memo the Telegraph got sight of the Home Office has been set a Government target of resolving 40% of all next year's asylum claims within 6 months.

This would in all likelihood result in all the older cases being put on the ‘back burner’. In recognition of this the home office are trawling staff for "quick win" ideas to tackle the problem. Amnesties anyone?

Already they are conducting an exercise to clear 450,000 ‘legacy’ cases by more-or-less just granting them amnesty.

It seems there is unrest in detention centres (Why? They are safe and being fed and clothed) and also claimants are just doing a runner before cases their cases are decided.

On top of that it seems fewer and fewer bogus/failed asylum seekers are actually being deported.

What is the actual point of an asylum ‘system’, if the Government grants amnesties at the drop of a hat when it becomes too much bother to process asylum seekers?

If the system functioned, no one should be allowed to stay once asylum was refused and all claims should be properly processed with no amnesties. Any offences committed in detention centres should have some influence on any asylum claim made by the perpetrator.

If the system, as it exists, is to be taken seriously then surely very few should be granted asylum in the UK if they have travelled through other countries that they could have claimed asylum in to get to the UK. The whole point of the idea is that they are supposed to be seeking safety not picking and choosing somewhere they particularly fancy living.

Why is this a problem with all this in the first place? The welfare State.

It makes the UK very attractive to asylum seekers/economic migrants. It also makes them a problem because too many of them could be a drain on the system.

What will this be used to help justify? ID cards that won’t actually be compulsory to start with for citizens - just impossible to do a lot of things without, and the ‘soft’ fascist state.

See where Government ‘incompetence’ leads to…

Big Brother really is watching you

In order to comply with an EU directive on the retention of phone data, this July, the UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, agreed a new law, under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 requiring phone companies to log every call, or text message, sent to and from every phone in Britain.

We should be concerned about this because it is effectively being imposed on the UK by a directive. It is being done under a law made up by the Government, not Parliament and then just slid in with little democratic oversight under a seven year old act.

The details logged include: The subscriber information, calls made, calls received and the location where the calls are made from.

We should be concerned about that because it is deeply intrusive. There will be the usual tired old excuses about if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear that the more naive and trusting old grannies actually believe, but this is yet another erosion of our privacy on the road to a total surveillance society.

Much of this information is in fact not restricted to the police, or security services as you might imagine.

No - It can be accessed by virtually any local authority, government department, body, or Quango who cares to. Including, but not limited to, the DSS, the Gaming Board, the Food Standards Authority and every District and County Council in the country. Around 652 public bodies in all.

The civil rights group Liberty are rightly concerned over this and so should everyone else be. Your local council can, if it wishes, unbeknown to you, build up profile of your personal relationships, on the basis of who you speak to and when you do it.

Make no mistake. Now these powers are there to be used, they will, sooner or later, be used. They are another nail in Liberty’s coffin.