Back when I were a young lad, there was a simple distinction between the two main UK parties. The Tories were all for economic freedom but were big on very strong police powers. Labour couldn’t understand economic freedom but used to be against giving too much power to the police.

How times have changed; the Tories are raising VAT and Labour disappeared into a fog of Big Brotherism. To me it looks like both parties have pilfered the worst aspects of the opposition while keeping hold of their original bad habits, so we end up with two parties both wanting more control over the economy and both wanting people locked up for any reason possible.

And it’s not just locking up that they like, they also like making it easier to lock people up. Like, fer instance, taking DNA from everyone in an entire city to rule out involvement in one murder.

MURDER squad detectives were last night under pressure to order a mass DNA screening to flush out Joanna Yeates’s killer.

An MP led the call for all men living in the same city as the landscape architect to give saliva samples to the police as their investigation makes slow progress. Kerry McCarthy, Labour MP for Bristol East, said the need to catch Joanna’s killer overrides the questions of intrusion and invasion of privacy in a mass screening.

Three things:

1. No, it doesn’t – casting such a wide net is entirely unjustified.
2. British police have shown repeatedly that they cannot be trusted with DNA that they should have destroyed, so volunteering to give them any isn’t exactly smart.
3. There has been no news from police that they are hunting for a male suspect, has there? Yet this MP is only encouraging the DNA testing of men. Either she knows something we don’t (which she shouldn’t about an ongoing investigation) or she’s just assuming that only men could be doing such a thing.

I’d like to hear from Ms McCarthy about her reasons for this. Does she know more than the rest of us; is she revealing too much about an ongoing investigation than she should; or is she just a rampant sexist? The public need to know…

Since September 11^th, we’ve all been ‘protected’ by enhanced security at airports. And several ludicrous plots later, that security has only gotten worse.

And since I’ve always flown quite a bit between London and NI, I’ve often had to enjoy the pleasures of this security. This has included lots of the usual queuing, regular pat-downs, and even half hearted comments about getting arrested.

Of course, it’s not even the UK that insists on the worst flights. Back in 2003, I got to go through the usual UK security, and then the extra security mandated by the US before boarding a flight to Washington. That was pretty invasive.

Recent experience in Germany has been pretty sensible, given the stupid rules they work within. Special ire is reserved for the French, who seem to quite like picking on very elderly and infirm people in wheelchairs while ignoring more likely people.

But go to somewhere like Morocco, and the security is pretty sensible. And if you go all the way to Malaysia, the security is excellent. More like what they had at Aldergrove back before the ceasefires than the monstrosity that is called security there these days¹. Liquids? No problem. An occasional bit of metal? It’ll do…

But, as always, the US gets the final word in security. And boy, do they enjoy that privilege. Numpties.

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¹ – yes, at the hight of the Troubles over here, security was much lighter than it is now. And I’d wager that it was probably more effective too.

With horrible predictability, just days after I complained about security theatre, there was another act and even a little local spin on it.

Which was just marvellous. Given that this weekend was one I spent in Norn Iron⁽¹⁾, it meant that TLW & I got caught up in the inevitable theatrical response to a threat. To whit: extra intensive screening. Not of the sort that results in shoes being taken off, but of the sort that required every third bag to be rechecked through the X-ray machine and then hand searched and then X-rayed again.

Guess whose bag counted?

So, TLW got through and I did not. I got to wait while the security staff did their thing (walked slowly, searched slowly, kicked bags about) until it was my turn. After the second X-ray the very friendly, highly polite⁽²⁾ security lady strolled over to me and said, in no uncertain terms, that there was an aerosol in my bag.

No there isn’t. There’s an empty glass container that was a wedding present, but there’s no aerosol.

Of course, she couldn’t accept this (which I understand, obviously) and so the actual search began. Going back to the time when I did door a lot, I started opening the bag and went to remove things but she insisted on doing things herself⁽³⁾, including lifting out a small package wrapped in a napkin.

That’s a bun, says I.

Don’t say that, you say that you could get arrested, says she.

What? It’s a bun, a cake.

Oh, OK then.

At this point, I’m seeing the funny side (because if I didn’t I’d be saying sarcastic things or actually trying to get her to arrest me and see what happens) but TLW was unamused…

The rest of the search went a bit quicker after that, and as it happens the only things we’ve learned are:

1. Security theatre is alive and well;
2. Aldergrove security is more of a joke than most;
3. A bun is apparently threatening enough to warrant arrest; and
4. The carrying of wedding presents is a very suspicious activity.

Again: this nonsense is getting to piss me off. So much so that we’re seriously looking at the possibility of driving/ferrying for the next trip to the auld sod.

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⁽¹⁾ – speaking of which, hello to Mr ‘Wulf, who I bumped into in an airport.

⁽³⁾ – Hah, fool. You done picked up my dirty boxer shorts.

If you were a government that liked to write laws quickly (also: badly), and you didn’t want to make the effort to write proper laws in the future, what would you do if people kept making money by using the fookin’ mahoosive loopholes in your laws?

Simple: you’d try and make people sign binding pledges to obey the spirit of the law, rather than the actual law.

Hence Gordon Brown & co came up with the governments code of taxing conduct for banks, which banks were supposed to sign up to to prevent tax avoidance. You know, tax avoidance. The entirely legal way to arrange your financial matters to minimise your losses to the tax man. It may be legal, but G Brown didn’t like it being legal, and didn’t have the brains to make it illegal, so he went down this route.

However, it seems that banks without a government representative on their boards want nothing to do with it. And I make them right on that.

However, the new government disagrees, and seems to way to coerce said non-compliant banks into agreeing to it. Lets hope that he doesn’t succeed.

It’s that time of year again, where the government puts forth how much they plan to screw us this year. By making an octogenarian tell us.

EXPECTED NEW MEASURES
Fiscal Responsibility Bill – put into law promise to halve deficit
Financial Services and Business Bill – clamp down on bonuses for bankers taking too many risks
The Flood and Water Management Bill – give councils powers to prevent floods
Social Care Bill – neediest elderly to get home care
Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill – DNA of more sex offenders added to database
Energy Bill – give Ofgem more powers to keep prices down
Bribery Bill – make it offence to bribe foreign officials and for business to fail to prevent bribery
Digital Economy Bill – set up fund to bring in universal broadband by 2012
Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill – ratify international ban on cluster bombs

Surprisingly, most of those don’t make my blood boil. Because they’re presented in nice, sterilised form. What they mean:

Fiscal Responsibility Bill – put into law promise to halve deficit
A way for G Brown to say he’s being tough on cutting the deficit. But expect it so late in the Parliament that his government hasn’t a chance to implement any of it – they’ll just pass that burden onto whichever lucky sod wins the election.

Financial Services and Business Bill – clamp down on bonuses for bankers taking too many risks
And expect may sub clauses on people who earn more than the lefties think is fair.

The Flood and Water Management Bill – give councils powers to prevent floods
So local planners – among the most despised people in the entire world, almost as bad as bankers – will get more power. Hurrah.

Social Care Bill – neediest elderly to get home care
Yes, that’s a fine sentiment. But how much extra paperwork for all involved will there be, how many more random commissions and quangos will administer it?

Policing, Crime and Private Security Bill – DNA of more sex offenders added to database
Because the world’s biggest DNA database just ain’t big enough…

Energy Bill – give Ofgem more powers to keep prices down
.. by making realities of international trade just not apply to the UK, one assumes.

Bribery Bill – make it offence to bribe foreign officials and for business to fail to prevent bribery
Note that the burden will now be on private companies to prove their innocence here, rather than the state to prove any wrongdoing. That’s nice.

Digital Economy Bill – set up fund to bring in universal broadband by 2012
Things that the government don’t seem to realise: most of the people who don’t have broadband now, just don’t want it Leave them alone.

Cluster Munitions Prohibition Bill – ratify international ban on cluster bombs
Why? Surely you could just not use them unless you really need to? I don’t understand this trend for banning perfectly sensible weapons just because some countries can’t be trusted with them. The kind of country that uses them the worst will still use them – they’re hardly that worried about international disapproval, are they?

So, there we go. Yet another Queens Speech. Yet another list of future rodgerings. I hope you’re all looking forward to it!

The national ID card scheme: a perfect example of a solution without a problem. At least from the point of view of the citizen, there is nothing that it’s needed for and only downsides to it. Like all that “being reduced to a number” and “handing over guardianship of your identity to someone else”. Oh, and the bit about “not trusting this shower of political bastards as far as you could throw them, let alone the next unknown lot”.

But our political masters want ID cards, for reasons unknown. As do elements of the Home Office, probably because it makes life easier for cops if the more law abiding can be safely reduced to numbers and statistics, while the really bad folks won’t have ID cards and can therefore be ignored.

Because they want these cards, and because we don’t, they keep having to come up with solutions. Originally, they were to stop terrorism in its tracks, but that was shown to be a lie seven seconds after the claim was made when it was pointed out that Spain has a national ID card and still has terrorism. Then it was identity theft that was to be banished, but that waas shown to be a bit of a paper tiger, and the controls on the ID card were shown to be stupidly easy to beat.

So now all the claims are about how it will be easier to interact with the state. And funnily enough, those interactions are getting less easy and more delayed, just in time to say that an ID card would improved them. What fun.

Millions could be asked to provide ID card and fingerprint data to get a job under new systems being developed by the Home Office following a collapse in the accuracy of background checks.

News of the plans emerged in the response to a Register Freedom of Information Act request to the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB). Today campaigners warned it could be used to help impose ID cards through the back door.

Remember: the CRB is another thing like the ID card. It was introduced by this government in a cack handed manner, and won’t solve any problems because it works from flawed data. Also, it erases the concept of presumed innocence and once again says that only the state can provide a proper judgement of character. A concept that is so beyond laughable I just wept a little.

Saying that having the ID cards would make it easier to get your CRB check is like saying that having one leg broken would make it easier for people to catch you to break your other leg: it ignores the rather basic assumption that leg breakage is a bad thing, and something to be avoided.

But the circular arguments (that ID cards will solve problems that the people who want us to have ID cards keep creating) will go on, I fear. Because those arguments are all that they have left.

I’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes or so, trying to think of a single recent government idea that hasn’t been stupidly anti-freedom to some extent.

Nope. Can’t think of a single one.

But clearly some folk just haven’t got that message. They haven’t noticed it.

Internet service providers (ISPs) have reacted with anger to new proposals on how to tackle internet piracy.

The government is proposing a tougher stance which would include cutting off repeat offenders from the net.

UK ISP Talk Talk said the recommendations were likely to “breach fundamental rights” and would not work.

Breech fundamental rights? Of course they do, that’s pretty much how you can tell it’s a brain fart from Brown or Mandeson. Ditto for not working.

Another quote from that article that tickled me, this time from a random Tory talking head:

“Personally I am on his [Lord Mandleson] side; peer-to-peer sharing is the greatest threat to our creative industries,”

Well, he managed to get the cause and the caused there, but not in the way he meant it. Over-regulation, as embodied by the mindset of Lord Mandleson, is the biggest threat to the UK’s creative industries. And its non-creative industries. To be honest, the service sector isn’t exactly safe from his little ways of screwing things up…

I am on record as thinking that the developing vetting database is a very bad idea, and it’s moving us from a place where we presume innocence to a place where all are guilty until they prove (through the wonders of bureaucracy) that they are not a threat.

Which is a very bad thing. Especially since the bureaucracy that is going to be doing the proving is working with datasets that are fundamentally flawed.

However, trust the Norn Irish to be leagues ahead when it comes to such flaws.

In 2008, he [Sir Ian Magee, investigating the implementation of the flawed response to the dodgy Soham inqury recommendations] reported there were “only limited links” between the Police National Computer (PNC) in GB and Northern Ireland police information.

It meant that only information relating to sex offences and some other very serious offences in Northern Ireland was put on to PNC.

They forgot a bit there. They should have said It meant that only information relating to sex offences and some other very serious offences in Northern Ireland was put on to PNC as is just and proper.

For it is not important that lesser crimes are on the PNC for this vetting scheme – the point was that sexual offenders and other serious offenders are the people that the vetting is supposed to stop. Why worry about lesser offences if they’re not going to be, at some point, barring people from being on the trusted list. And then who decides what minor offences stop you from getting one of the 11.6 million jobs that will eventually require vetting?

In short: they’re talking shit, and the PSNI isn’t (yet) playing ball with them. For which they get a pat on the back.