NOW ITS A HANDBRAKE TURN ON ID CARDS

I used to believe that Gordon Brown was gung-ho about ID Cards but the news that Alan Johnson, the ex-health minister who is now Home Secretary has done a handbrake turn on them and promised that the Cards would never be compulsory for British people, could indicate that Brown is no longer in control of the Labour party. I must be one of millions who welcome this move but there are still various flies in the ointment.

The DNA database is still on the agenda and when you have a Government that acts on issues it really doesnt understand in a high-handed and far from democratic manner and does frequent U Turns, one can never be sure what they will do next. Perhaps the only sure thing is that whatever they turn too will be repressive, undemocratic, badly crafted and both highly expensive and wasteful. It almost goes without saying that whatever they do, will simply not work.

The latest change on ID cards certainly does not mark a change to a more responsive and benign type of government; they have a long way to go before that could be said of them and probably nowhere near enough time left in office to complete their lamentable agenda. Whatever Brown and his cronies may say publicly, its almost certainly because the credit crunch has robbed them and everyone else of many options. I know from many environmental campaigns in the past that when push came to shove, the big decisions were imposed not as a result of environmental pressure or enlightened and intelligent government but actually by accountants and lawyers.

The people of Britain have never been convinced on the value of ID Cards. They have credit and debit cards, driving licenses and much other parathrenalia which clearly identifies who they are and there is also much resentment at the prospect of having to take an ID card with them even if they are only walking the dog or nipping down to the corner shop. Both the LibDem and Tory opposition parties have opposed ID cards since they were first mooted and even that old authoritarian Winston Churchil abandoned ID cards as soon as World War 11 was over. Even the effects of 911 and the London bombings did not convince people who realised that ID Cards would not tackle either terrorism or ID fraud and indeed might even help promote it.

Before Alan Johnson was awarded this poison chalice, no less than three (count them) home secretaries have failed to progress them. First there was Jock Strap, then Blunkett and of course Fungus Big Ears. Just as one swallow does not make a Spring, three incompetents do not constitute a Home Secretary. The latest nonentity, Johnson is well up to standard it seems.

He's probably very glad indeed to have left the NHS behind. After all, he was confronted with the prospect of cutting £10-15BN off its budget and may yet, and hopefully, have to abandon plans to fluoridate the whole of the UK. Opposition to this useless and dangerous process is growing World wide, not just in the UK and so much that even in Southampton, not noted as a hotbed of militants. he and his Government had to lie through their teeth and bulshit about "consultation" (sic) and with the consent of local people, only to to abandon all pretense of trust and even the democratic process when it became obvious that the people of Southamption were really not that daft. As i write, plans are being drawn up to refuse to pay the water companies for water polluted by fluoride and as the Government cannot actually disconnect the water supply the Government is going to have to find large sums of money to recompense the water companies. Of course the whole process may soon be abandoned because of this and all the logistical problems that they face.

When Andy Burnham was unmasked as a double agent, working for the Government and also Vice Chair of the British Fluoridation Society it probably reduced the total amount of dosh he was trousering. If on the other hand he was only promoting fluoride for a hobby or in his spare time or regarded it as a charitable activity, then I am sure I am not the only one who would like to hear the details. And now that he is Health Minister (please dont laugh it might hurt his feelings) he will no doubt have to find promotional funds out of his own pocket. This at least marks a big improvement as in the past it all seemed to come out of our pockets.

BROWN DOES A U-TURN OVER IRAQ INQUIRY (SORT OF)

So Gordon Brown of You Tube fame is to do a U Turn on the controversial Iraq Inquiry or so it appears unless you read on. It later appears that it will only be partially public. The Prime Minister had originally said that the inquiry would be held in private but, after widespread anger, today opened the way for some of the hearings to be held in public. Decisions on what will actually be public will be made by the Chairman, Lord Chilcott enabling Brown to appear independent of all blame.

Based on past experience however this will mean that important matters such as the amount of toilet paper or ipod downloads will now be fully disclosed whilst trivial matters such as why we had such poor intelleligence about WMDs and why we joined with the Americans entering into this whole debacle will be heard only in private.
Stay tuned for more developments and of course. excuses.

Government Business as Usual? -- I Don't Think So

So the Government of New Labour crisis is over is it? The bad boys and girls of New Labour (and the Tories) have been unmasked by the Telegraph and have left for Heavens knows what and faith in the Leadership of Gordon Brown has been restored. Somehow I don't share this confidence and I know I am not alone. Usually the Phony war comes before the real thing but in the current case it has set in after the expenses and loss of confidence punch up. What is predictable, is the phenomena where the crap floats to the top. Some things do remain eternal.

A good example is that our once proud Cabinet is now reduced to Ant and Dec, alias Alan Johnson and Andy Burnham. The Rats have deserted, and continue to desert the sinking shit taking their brilliant ideas with them. And as the days dwindle down to a precious few along with their polices, very soon, the only surviving policy will soon be fluoride instead of the NHS. Some say its been this way since 2003. But, with the NHS now facing a shortfall of £15BN and major cutbacks coming over the horizon the future looks exceeding bleak.

It makes little difference which Government is elected next year or for that matter for the next twenty odd years. Taxes will have to go up which will dismay the Tories and their supporters and investment in Education, Transport, Health, the Military etc etc, will have to be reduced, in some cases, severely. Vast sums have been dished out to salvage the greedy and incompetent bankers which even Brown admits will remain outstanding till 2032 and many think it will take much longer than this.

Swedish pirates capture EU seat

Sweden's Pirate Party has won a seat in the European Parliament.
The group - which campaigned on reformation of copyright and patent law - secured 7.1% of the Swedish vote.
The result puts the Pirate Party in fifth place, behind the Social Democrats, Greens, Liberals and the Moderate Party.
Rickard Falkvinge, the party leader, told the BBC the win was "gigantic" and that they were now negotiating with four different EU Parliamentary groups.
"Last night, we gained political credibility," said Mr Falkvinge.
"People were not taken in by the establishment and we got political trust from the citizens."

The profile of the Pirate Party and issues surrounding copyright law have dominated headlines in Sweden over the past few months.
Rallying cry. In April, a court in Sweden sentenced the four men behind The Pirate Bay, the world's most high-profile file-sharing website, to a year in jail and ordered them to pay $4.5m (£3m) in damages.
Mr Falkvinge said it had played a significant role in getting them the vote.
Many people just don't see illegal file-sharing as a crime, however hard the media industries try to persuade the public that it's just as bad as shoplifting.

Rory Cellan-JonesBBC technology correspondent
Read dot.life in full
"The establishment is trying to prevent control of knowledge and culture slipping from their grasp.
"When the Pirate Bay got hit, people realised the wolf was outside the front door.
"That happened one month before the ballot opened, so it had quite a rallying effect," he said.
Parties within the European Parliament tend to join one of the big voting blocs, otherwise their MEP can become marginalised.
Mr Falkvinge said they were still considering their position.
"We're looking at four different EU Parliament groups," he said.
"However, we're probably going to join either the Green block or the ALDE group."

The biggest loser in Sweden's election was the eurosceptic June List party, which saw its share of the vote fall by more than 10 points to 3.6% of the vote. The Left Party also saw its vote halved to 5.6%

SOURCE. BBC NEWS

BAD NEWS THEN MORE BAD NEWS

Andy Burnham replaces Alan Johnson.



Now we have all vented our fury at the greed of our MPs we should be grateful that we have disposed of so many of them. A pity that some good Councillors have suffered for no good reason of course but i suppose being in any way related to this nasty allegedly Labour government is good enough reason for most. And lets not forget that this was all made possible by Thatcherism and Reagonomics. The Big Bang in the City of London and deregulation made the Credit Crunch not just possible but probably inevitable. And as Thatcher froze MPs salaries she also freed up the expenses system for MPs; ( a pay rise in disguise as many MPs clearly seemed to think)And as the end of the Thatcher and Major regimes, drew near, it was blindingly obvious that no one was going to re-elect the Tories for a very long time. So what did the Thatcherite Neocons do to get elected. I would suggest that they simply joined the Labour Party, gained the majority position, elected a new Thatcherite leader, Tony B Liar and the rest is history. Tony was not the Bambi they thought but rather Tonasaurus Rex whose gleaming teeth were soon sunk into the soft underbelly of the Welfare State. Single parents, the sick, the disabled, the elderly the unemployed and small brown people with oil were all sitting ducks.As the end of days for New Labour draws nearer, Brown in desperate straights has retrenched and brought together his most loyal (at least for now) henchmen. Chief Fluoridista and Health Minister Alan Johnson is now elevated to Home Secretary. No, please don't laugh, its not funny, its actually all rather tragic and dangerous. Now he can lock us up for opposing fluoridation if he wishes. He already has more than enough laws to use against democracy and New Labour are always ready to pass some more at a moments notice.But surely, Johnson, who appeared to believe that fluoride was actually safe or even helpful, has been replaced by a safe pair of hands in the Department of Health? Sadly no. Step forward Andy Burnham, Minister for Dirty Jobs and original Pusher of Fluoride for Blair in 2003 and since then, such popular and useless measures as ID Cards and DNA databases. Here I will pause till the sobbing dies down and sick bags have been handed out...... OK time's up!Johnson and Burnham are probably the Ant and Dec of the Labour government, a pair of buffoons for sure but not as funny or clever. Even more horrifying is the distinct possibility that Johnson could be the next Prime Minister if Brown finally agrees to go and this may be sooner than we think. Brown may desperately wish to stay in the Job he preyed for so long but Events may yet get the better of him.Labour is now the lowest in the polls that it has ever been and may yet fall lower. The Local Elections have just been disastrous for Brown with the Labour candidates being pushed into third and fourth place. And on this coming Sunday, the omens are not good for them as the results of the European elections are pretty sure to rubbish Labour yet again. Calls for Brown to go will probably increase and some more resignations and defections are probable.Which ever Government assumes power after the next election which could be as soon as this October and certainly no later than next year. They will not have any money to throw around. Rail spending has been cut and eduction and health will also soon come under pressure. Its possible that Fluoride will be dumped as an unnecessary and expensive waste of time. Unfortunately we cannot depend on this so the best thing we can do is step up the pressure. We have to kick the Government whilst it is down, after all this is what they always do to us. The Council Tax comes to mind but i digress.At the same time we have to renew the pressure on prospective candidates for the future Government of whatever party. If candidates do not categorically state they are opposed to fluoride and especially water fluoridation then tell them to their face that you will not vote for them and will recommend to your friends that they do the same. Friends of the Earth have always steered clear of Politics with a capital P and have never recommended that we should vote for anyone, not even the Greens who we are often associated with, but we have never hesitated to Not Recommend those who pollute or exploit the environment. It is bad enough that many of our MPs have been on the make but surely when they desire to pollute and poison us as well, its time for them to go. Say No To Fluoride and those who promote or push it.

DONT WASTE YOUR VOTE - NOT VOTING ELECTS A NUTCASE

So who can we vote for this coming Thursday? The Tories? These are the jokers er... the party that closed down our industry and production, wasted our natural gas and made us dependent on the Russians, and paved the way for the Privitisation of the NHS and everything else not nailed down, and who allowed the banks to get away with all the cash as we now know to our collective and individual cost.

Or maybe you would prefer New Labour in which Tony B Liar smiled and waved and lied and wore Thatchers Knickers as he licked W Bushes bottom and persueded Thatchers policies even further to the right than she did. Despite all the talk of democrasy and even electoral reform in the run up to the 97 election, all this was dropped once Blair had his huge landslide and just like the Thatcher regime, then proceeded to persue arrogant and high handed repressive and undemocratic policies. He Kicked the enemployed, single parents, the disabled: Made the council tax even worse and even buggered it for small businesses via business rates and Health and Safety. Even the old right wing warhorse Winston Churchill abandoned ID cards once the war was over but not B Liar of course for whom the War is never over. New Labour was and is a party of hipocrites and charlatans, greasing their palms and trousering the cash: paranoid and crooked to such an extent that they think everyone else is as bent and dishonest as they are and therefore desirous of more CCTV cams, Biometicr passports, Finger printing of kids, and ID cards you must carry if you are just taking the dog for a walk. Their crowning achievements probably the overturning of Magna Carta and the rendering of the Labour Party as Unelectable for ever and ever Amen. Traitors to those who backed them through thick and thin and traitors to the traditional Labour Party who misguidedly thought the new intake of candidates were supporters when in fact they proved to be Neocons. No, I dont think I can vote for them either.

Of course there is always UKIP and as a man who voted NO in the original referendum on entry into Europe I might be expected to give them a chance, but they are a single issue party with a single mouth piece and anyway, I could not trust them to organise a piss up in a brewery even if I took my own glasses. Despite their big talk about reforming Europe and taking us out, some of their number when given the opportunity merely signed up to the EC gravy train. This leaves only the Real Socialists for whom I do have some sympathy. but in an era when all the newspapers are at leaste a couple of steps to the right of Atilla the Hun and the vast majority of people no longer know the difference between Socialism and Communism they don't really stand a chance. A pity really, imagine the fun we could have with Arthur Scargill in Number 10.

Having looked at all the others, I think I will be voting for the Greens in the Local and European Elections this coming Thursday. We have not had many Green candidates in my part of the world so i will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not telling lies about abandoning all fluoridation and hope that they keep their expenses claims under a close watch. As I said earlier, we cannot vote for the main parties who still believe in First to the Trough so its got to be whatever reasonable alternatives are available and of the smaller parties, the Greens are the only ones who are not out and out nutcases or thugs and who know what sustainability actually means. Hopefully we can go for some form of Proportianal Representation so that all the smaller parties can elect a few members and have some say in the debates. True it may slow down the enactment of laws in some cases but generally people usually find a way of agreeing if the issue is important enough and i think Slow Government is much preferable to Bad Government and surely we have had more than enough of that since the end of World War 2.

the alternative is simply not tenable. not voting at all merely lets in the biggest twat or nutcase as they are always the most determined. Enough loonies seem to get a seat without any help so we should do what we can to whittle them down.

CAN I SEE YOUR PAPERS PLEASE (LUV) ?

So King Canute aka Gordon Brown wants to press ahead with his clearly insane ID Cards scheme and who better to help him in this grotesque folly than Jacqui (two houses) Smith The opposition parties will scrap this idea if elected; so its probably safe to say that they will indeed eventually be scrapped; But of course the financial whizz kid (surely some mistake) is so confident that his financial acumen will help us escape from the debt he has so ably assisted in racking up that he sees no reason why we shouldnt have some more of the same. Lots more !

Of course when you are facing almost certain defeat, even in once traditional Labour heartlands like Manchester you wont be picking up the bills yourself anyway. You can make a nice living out of selling your memoirs, "United Kingdom, My Part In Its Downfall" and an international lecture tour explaining to a slumbering audience, how you managed to not only lead the country to financial collapse but even managed to make things worse.

The choice of Manchester for the first ID Cards pilot scheme which is apparently to be announced today, is revealing too. Could it be revenge for the unwelcome (to him) rejection of Fluoridation in the North West, or merely a dagger in the Labour Heartland ?? So as Manchester Punk rocker Jilted John would have said, "Gordon Is a Moron" Well we knew that didnt we but one mistery remains. Why a Home Secretary like Smith who herself is not unaquainted with failure and incompetence? After all, many are suprised that she is still in Government or even Parliament at all in view of her recent and widely publicised shenanagins over housing. The answer seems to be rather simple New Labour Proverb: When you're in a hole, keep digging and get someone equipped for little else to help you with the spade work.

According to your ID card Mr Brown, you are from Scotland, may I ask you what brings you to Manchester? I think you better accompany me to the Police Station to help us with our enquiries. And ar these porn movies yours Mr Brown? No i think they are Jacquis. !

Since yesterday when i wrote the above, the Government has announced that it will make new provisions over the ruling on Databases from Europe, As one might expect there is more tokenism and those who were arrested for but not charged with an offences will not find themselves free of the stigma of being on a database.

Up to 850,000 innocent people in England and Wales who appear on a national DNA database will have their profiles wiped.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker says keeping the DNA of people who are arrested will ensure murderers and rapists who would otherwise escape justice will be convicted.
Shami Chakrabarti, head of civil liberties organisation Liberty, says that while DNA evidence is useful, the bigger the database is, the bigger the risk it will be abused.

Minor suspected offences will remain on the database for up to six years and serious offences will be held for more than twice that. It would appear that in its attempts to not conform fully with the Europan ruling it has abandoned the presumption of innocence. They claimed on radio that the mere fact of them being arrested for an offence was an indication that the innocent suspect would at some time in the future commit an officen and that further charges or offences were literally only a matter of time. Talk about weasel words.

In Scotland if a suspect is arrested and subsequently charges are dropped or he is found innocent, the database records will be removed immediately. Even if some people do go on to re-offend, this should not be used as an excuse to keep long term records. One definition of a Police State is that the authorities keep records of innocent people. If that was the only indication of creeping fascism it might not be so serious but over the last fifteen years, the Police have been given major new powers over individuals and groups.

So what we have here is a police forece that is presumed to have powers of prophecy and the next stage is that police officers will have to be present at every birth. As each new life emerges into the world a constable will be make a note of its "particulars" and turn to his seargent and say "Looks like a wrong-un to me sarge, shall i cuff him ? Presumably the proud mother will be charged with aiding and abetting.