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Pre-empting the failure of the national ID scheme to deliver total surveillance soon enough, HMG is opening the other portals to its totalitarian hell.
When even former cheerleaders for centralised government by technology and datasharing get scared, you have to wonder can it be stopped after all? Michael Cross of The Guardian, now gets it, it seems:
Ministers are preparing to overturn a fundamental principle of data protection in government, the Guardian has learned. They will announce next month that public bodies can assume they are free to share citizens’ personal data with other arms of the state, so long as it is in the public interest.
The policy was agreed upon by a cabinet committee set up by the prime minister, and reverses the current default position – which requires public bodies to find a legal justification each time they want to share data about individuals.
This is straight reporting, there is none of the sneering at privacy advocates we are used to from Cross.
But extended government data-sharing is already happening. This, for example, was unwelcome news to me.
British government scientists claim that Britain faces a growing crisis of obesity. And of course such predictions, which carry all the usual credibility of such things, are accompanied by calls on the powers-that-be to “do something” about it, including the likes of bans on advertising for sinful foods, funding for sports and so on.
First point: even our waistlines are expanding, is it any of the state’s business? At present, one might argue that because we have socialised medicine in the form of the National Health Service, taxpayers, both slim, chubby and positively enormous, have to pay for the consequences of bad health habits. So the neo-puritans will argue for controls on how we all live to reduce the tax cost of bad habits, which is an example of what economists might call a ‘negative externality’. Surely though, the approach that would encourage good habits and treat citizens like adults is one based on private medical insurance. If people want to cut their insurance premiums, then they will have a strong market-driven incentive to do so. In a private sector model, there may be much more encouragement from health providers to get in shape and give up the triple cheeseburgers. Of course, there will always be feckless people who do not give a damn and end up demanding some kind of handout when things go wrong, but I do not see why the liberties of the majority of us should be tossed away to deal with people who are too weak willed or plain stupid to act differently. In any event, I imagine that as in the days before the NHS came along, there will be health care available for those who cannot afford it – as James Bartholomew pointed out in his book – provided through charitable means. I actually think that a charity which supports doctors might, for example, insist that if a poor person wants to get medical care for his or her obesity-related problems, then as part of any treatment, that person has to do something about their problem.
Such an approach may, at first sight, appear to be ‘unaring’ or harsh, but I think there is no greater respect that one can give to one’s fellows than to accord them the ability to act like adults.
Goodness, all this venting has made me hungry. Anyway, as I head towards the kitchen, may I recommend this collection of articles by Reason magazine on the obesity issue.
Bon appetit!
Re-arrange the following words to form a well-known phrase.
Their by petards own hoist:
“A CRIMINAL investigation has been started by Scotland Yard into an advertisement from the Gay Police Association (GPA) that blamed religion for a 74 per cent increase in homophobic crime…
Detective Chief Inspector Gerry Campbell, who leads the domestic violence and hate crime unit, disclosed the investigation in a letter to Ann Widdecombe, the Conservative MP. He wrote: “The original advertisement has been recorded as a religiously aggravated hate crime incident following a crime allegation by a member of the public.
“This crime is now the subject of a proportionate effective and objective criminal investigation. The police senior investigating officer is in consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service. Any decision to prosecute is the sole decision of the CPS.”
Do not just read the article, savour it. For the time is fast approaching when this chaotic edifice will collapse into a little black-hole of nothingness under the massive weight of its own absurdity.
There is an article in the Times Higher Education Supplement that claims not only are radical Islamists trying to recruit at UK universities, the universities are doing little to combat it (a claim they naturally deny).
I do not know who is correct, but as Shiraz Maher claims the universities are not on top of this problem and he was a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir, I am inclined to think the worst.
The Conservative Party has launched a fierce attack on cabinet minister Stephen Byers following the latter’s call for the abolition of Inheritance Tax.
According to the Party’s Shadow Treasury Spokesman:
“This is neo-liberalism gone mad, a selfish Thatcherite appeal to naked greed and self-interest”.
He added:
“This ludicrous idea of handing out tax cuts to the rich is outmoded and has no place in 21st Century Britain. We in the Conservative Party are committed to increasing the rates of Inheritance Tax in order to build a fairer society based on inclusion and social justice”.
Party Leader, David Cameron has confirmed that his party will “fight tooth and nail” to save Inheritance Tax and “conserve the post-war walfare state settlement”.
The ‘end-times’ must be upon us. Former Labour cabinet minister, Stephen Byers, has just said something with which I agree: abolish inheritance tax.
At last we can put an end to all the quarrelsome debates and ill-informed speculation
A fundamentalist Islamic movement is emerging as a common link between several of the men arrested on suspicion of plotting to blow up transatlantic airliners.
Well, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
(And, by the way, I wonder what links the remainder of the men? Perhaps it was too soon to call for an end to the quarrelsome debates.)
I wonder whether anybody was naive enough to believe that the animal ‘rights’ thugs would be appeased by the abolition of fox-hunting?
A gang of masked hunt saboteurs wielding baseball bats smashed up rods, damaged cars and started fights in an unprovoked attack on a group of anglers.
The anti-bloodsports campaigners are believed to have targeted the fly-fishermen after failing to find many grouse-shooting parties to disrupt in the North West of England.
The gang emerged from woodland near Bank House Fly Fishery at Caton, near Lancaster. About 30 men carrying baseball bats and blocks of wood descended on the lake shouting “Sabs” before smashing the anglers’ rods, damaging nearby cars and starting fights. Two fishermen were assaulted and a woman was punched in the face.
The timing is about right to ensure a Labour Party manifesto promise to outlaw angling by, say, 2013.
You may have thought that the recent search orgy at British airports was triggered by a genuine fear that passengers might bring something explosive on board. Apparently not, because the same regulations apply to air crew too. It is of no consequence to the official mind that a pilot can destroy an airliner without any technical assistance. (9/11 didn’t change quite everything – even where it might be thought to be relevant by us untrained civilians.)
Here is an extract from the security briefing from the BALPA (pilots’ association) website:
The requirements for airline crew are:
Any crew, whether operational or positioning, using passenger search areas must be subjected to the same security measures as passengers.
Crew accessing the Restricted Zone through staff search areas must carry only the items they require to perform their duties (including personal hand baggage meeting that description). All such items must be x-rayed where possible and hand searched where not. All crew must be hand searched.
However, no liquids of any type are permitted other than those mentioned above as able to be taken into the Restricted Zone by passengers.
At airports where there is no specific staff search facility, airports should make special arrangements for crew to be screened away from passengers.
How thoughtful they insist crew are not searched in front of passengers. One would not want them humiliated any more than is strictly necessary. Creating artificial privileges is in any case good psychology to keep the recipients of privilege loyal to the heirarchy. It also helps to avoid anyone getting the idea that the whole rigmarole is ludicrous.
Can it be true that UK mobile phone company Orange has suspended an employee, Inigo Wilson, for a non-work related entry on a blog? What seems to have caused offence is him making jokes in his ‘Lefty Lexicon’ such as:
Islamophobic – anyone who objects to having their transport blown up on the way to work
Unless there are other factors at play here (I will be see what I can find out), I am about to become an ex-Orange customer and will start urging others to do likewise. If Orange is concerned about one of their employees ‘upsetting customers’, well I think they need to be told that pursuing this course of action against Inigo Wilson, they are doing precisely that. I do not dispute their right to hire and fire whomsoever they wish, but I intent to try and make them suffer some economic consequences as a result if this is as egregious as it appears.
Update: I received an e-mail from Stuart Jackson at Orange telling me:
To clarify, the suspension of an employee is not intended to imply that the employee in question has done wrong. It is a neutral act that allows us to conduct a full investigation and reach a conclusion based on facts. I will gladly update you regarding the outcome of the investigation.
But as the ‘facts’ are not in dispute, that does not really answer my question, which was:
I am enquiring about why Orange has suspended its employee Inigo Wilson. It is indeed the company’s position that remarks made on an employee’s own time and wholly unrelated to his work, is grounds for action by the company? I ask this as if there are other factors at play here, I may then refrain from cancelling my Orange account.
The ‘facts’ are not the issue. The issue is why Orange feels it has to do anything about them. Frankly even requiring Mr. Wilson to ‘apologise and not do it again’ would be wholly unacceptable given that his off-the-clock non work related remarks should be none of Orange’s business and if they think otherwise, they can do without my business.
I appears that the Blair government has created over three thousand new criminal offences during its nine bleak years in office, almost one for every day they have been our political masters.
Polish Potatoes (Notification) (England) Order 2004
No person shall, in the course of business, import into England potatoes which he knows to be or has reasonable cause to suspect to be Polish potatoes.
No doubt everyone will sleep a little safer knowing that England is protected from Polish potatoes.
So on the (very rash) assumption that David Cameron’s Tory Party actually noticed any of this happening in Parliament over the last nine years, are we going to see ‘Dave’ campaigning on the basis that a Tory victory will mean a massive roll-back of the intrusive powers of the state?
Okay, you can stop laughing now.
I have never been to the Edinburgh Festival, which has been, over the years, a launchpad for standup comedians and musicians such as Denis Leary. James Glassman, who went to the event this year, observes that Jew-bashing and “gags” about the Holocaust is going down a storm. Quite what that says about the organisers and the clientele, heaven only knows. Being an ardent defender of free speech, Glassman rightly points out that the way to deal with jerks like the “comedian” mentioned its contempt. I hope a fair amount of contempt is indeed delivered.
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We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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