Vampire Jack At The Liberties Blood Bank

'Nice cup of blood, missus.'

Jack Straw, Defender of Liberties and Architect of the RIP Act (Civil Liberties and Privacy Abolition Act) 2000, wants to 'rebalance' the Human Rights Act.

Cameron has added his pennyworth.

Our Jack's a bit 'frustrated' apparently, about the way courts sometimes interpret the Act. Which is strange, considering a) the Act was introduced under Labour b) Labour have been in power for 11 years (plenty of time to get something right, don't you think?), c) the government tell judges what sentences they can pass and d) Jack Straw has Home Secretary at the time of the Act.

The Mail's article is more detailed than the Guardian's (link above) and shows Straw swiping at everything from ambulance-chasing lawyers to the increase in workplace litigation and undeportable terrorists. Much of what he complains about is of his own doing.

Straw is worried about the 'drift to a law of privacy' - which would, of course, go against his government's remorseless attempts to strip citizens of all privacy in front of the state.

He's also keen to produce a 'Bill of Rights and Responsibilities'. It's that last bit that gives the game away. Our responsibilities to the state is what he means, although he dresses it up in patriotic language. There won't be anything in it (if it ever comes into being) about the responsibilities of members of the state apparatus to us.

I can tell Mr Straw that my responsibilities as a citizen are simply not to break the law (and Labour have added many of those over the last decade). Beyond that, the government can go intercourse itself.

I have no responsibility to fulfil any state jackass's requirements to be a good or 'productive' citizen and no one has the right to impose such a sanction upon me.

No one has the right to judge the level of my patriotism (and by the way, Mr Straw, my loyalty is to my country, not to the state - and certainly not to you or your government). As a result of your connivance and collusion, Mr Straw, that country now not only has no sovereignty, having surroundered that to the EU, but is also being broken up into regions by the EU.

So, what's this all about? Anything to do with the European Court's judgement against British police keeping innocent people's DNA, perhaps? Or the fact that there's going to be an election in the next year and Labour need to appeal to as much of the mob as possible?

Or possibly that our Jack is losing his marbles and wants more blood in the form of our rights for sacrifice?

You can bring a vampire to a bath of blood and he will surely drink his fill.

Labour Child Nazi Snoopers Database

The Labour government won't be satisfied till it has everybody under permanent and complete surveillance, from cradle to grave. In addition to ID cards and the National Identity Register it also plans to keep tabs on all children up to the age of 19.

The popular press have at last cottoned on to what Labour has been up to with regard to our privacy and liberties. The Mail Online carries a useful article on ContactPoint and the Common Assessment Framework, which underpins it.

You can see what kind of information is to be collected by checking out the website of Northamptonshire County Council.

The following gives you an idea:

How the child or young person feels about themselves
Is he/she developing a sense of self as a separate and
valued person? Is he/she confident and self-assured?
Does he/she feel a sense of belonging; express
feelings about ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation?

Aspirations
Does the child or person know what he/she wants to do
in the future? How motivated are they? Are there
obstacles? Is he/she making plans to achieve this (as
expected for their age?)

Guidance, boundaries and stimulation
Is the child or young person helped to control his or her
own emotions and behaviour? Does he/she have
suitable guidance and discipline? Is he/she helped to
learn and participate in positive activities?

Housing, employment and financial considerations
If not already mentioned, what are the family living
arrangements? Does the accommodation have
everything needed for safe and healthy living? Who in
the family is employed? Have there been disruptions to
employment? Is there enough money to support the
family? Do work arrangements leave the family time to
be together?

Children and young people shouldn't be asked questions like these. Neither should they be brought up to accept this intrusive questioning as normal.

All this information will be made available to thousands of 'professionals' and cross-referenced with other government databases, so you can see why the government are so keen to gather details of household income, etc.

And, as is par for the course with this government and their cowboy contractors, data will continue to be lost or stolen on a regular basis.

At the moment inclusion on the database is voluntary, so parents can refuse to have their childrens' details collected, but if Labour get in at the next election it will soon become compulsory. Another creepy bit of Labour nastiness, however, is that once a child is 12 they can decide to have information recorded without parents' permission - or even knowledge. Talk about setting up a snooper state.

The Conservatives have repeatedly said they would scrap ContactPoint and the ID card scheme. We can only hope they can be trusted and hold them to account should they win the next election.

ContactPoint is to go live in January 2009. Resist it.

She May Be Nice But She Votes Like A Clone

Gillian Merron is Labour MP for Lincoln. Unlike many MPs she's very active doing what she can for the people she represents.

However, she is typical of the contemporary Labour MP. In other words she's a clone, doing the government's bidding without question.

So, although she campaigns to keep local Post Offices open (despite the fact that her own government's eagerness to embrace EU diktat is a primary cause of their closing) she nevertheless does as she's told in voting for anti-democratic measures that destroy our liberties. These are the things that matter. Unfortunately these are the things that large numbers of voters know nothing about.

The following, from TheyWorkForYou:

How Gillian Merron voted on key issues since 2001:

* Voted very strongly against a transparent Parliament
* Voted moderately for introducing a smoking ban
* Voted strongly for introducing ID cards
* Voted very strongly for introducing foundation hospitals
* Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees
* Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws
* Voted very strongly for the Iraq war
* Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war
* Voted very strongly for replacing Trident
* Voted very strongly for the hunting ban
* Voted moderately for equal gay rights
* Voted a mixture of for and against laws to stop climate change

She's all for compelling every inhabitant of Lincoln to have an unnecessary, intrusive and expensive ID card, with all the database surveillance and threats of fines that go with it; she's all for taking us into an unwanted, unnecessary and illegal war and stopping us having an enquiry into it; she's all against allowing us, the voters and taxpayers, access to the doings of the government, who happily make decisions for us about things we have not been asked about, and who spend our money on things we are regularly misinformed about.

She's also for the further privatisation of the Health Service and for driving our young people deeper into debt when they want to better themselves by going to university. She's for having your number plate photographed on every journey you make by main road, for the 3,000 new ways we can all become criminals, for a semi-official snoop force (Community Safety Accreditation) of bouncers and jobsworths who can fine us on the spot for minor misdemeanours, for ContactPoint, a database that will record private details of EVERY child up to the age of 18, including information on family lifestyle and behaviour of neighbours, etc, etc.

And, from 1997, when she was elected, until just recently she was Minister for the East Midlands. This is another imposition by the EU (I've already talked about it) - an unelected layer of administration set eventually to replace our existing system of local government, all driven by our friends in Brussels. I bet she didn't mention that very often to the ordinary folk she encountered as Minister.

A glance at her CV also reveals a career typical of today's political class:

Educated

* Lancaster University, BSc (Hons) Management Sciences (1978-81)
* Wanstead High School

Career (from her own website):

* UNISON, Senior Regional Officer for Lincolnshire (1995-97)
* East Midlands Full Time Official, National Union of Public Employees (NUPE) – and UNISON (1987-95)
* Local Government Officer (1985-87)
* Business Development Advisor (1982-85)

University, a couple of years in something that might be called a real job (but I doubt anything called 'Advisor' is real), local government and union (a favourite breeding ground for politicos) and finally fully-fledged apparatchik.

Having a background in what we outside the Westminster Village laughingly call the real world doesn't necessarily mean an MP is grounded enough to retain any common sense they may have been born with (the ludicrous figure of Prescott, for example, blunders into view) but it would occasionally be reassuring to think our representatives had some notion of what it's like not to be privileged, powerful and well-paid.

When you're well-paid, privileged and powerful it's easy to vote happily for a police state - for other people. But it is unforgivable.

Terrorist Paperboys In Cambridgeshire Little Hitlers Drama

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000) may have proved unfit for purpose, in that, designed to counter terrorism and crime, it failed to stop the July 7 bombings in London (and subsequent actions), but it is proving immensely useful to local authorities in allowing them to spy on constituents for truly heinous crimes such as not having the correct paperwork for paperboys.

No mention of the names of any of the council members or employees responsible turns up in the article, despite the fact these people are there to look after the interests of local people, who also pay their wages and expenses. Here is the page of the Council's own website dealing with enforcement:

2 It is the County Council’s policy that only officers authorized through the delegated powers of Deputy Chief Executives, Directors and Senior Officers can undertake enforcement work.

I don't suppose we shall know the name of the person responsible for instigating the use of this act. Perhaps some civic-minded citizens would like to do some spying of their own in order to make the official's name public?

Lying, bullying, spying and snooping: it's about time we started applying the same tactics towards those in authority all over the country. It's about time we started to disobey and subvert. It is well past the time that we started to make their lives a bloody misery.

British Euro Referendum (Not)

Various burblings from the government's reptiles about the UK joining the Euro.

The Euro Preparations Unit was set up back in 1997 to soften us all up. Despite what the Spawn of the Manse has been saying in public, he's planning for us to join.

A referendum on it? Don't be silly. The Spawn will no doubt make promises but he's a pathological liar. Remember the promised referendum on the Lisbon 'Treaty'?