Digital Brown Britain Gas

The government today released its Digital Britain report.

In the meantime you can read Gordon Brown telling us why The internet is as vital as water and gas and justifying what looks like more state interference under the pretext of innovation, provision of vital services, etc, etc:

Improved communications technologies from the progressive digital switchover will enable the Government and local authorities to provide taxpayers with improved individually tailored public services offering the greatest value for money, and increasing efficiency for citizens and businesses. We must also introduce a robust legal framework to combat digital piracy and secure the rights of Britain's creative talent.

The whole article is written in this lego-like prose, with bits of jargon and meaningless techno-politico-speak bodged together, an example of the complete opposite of the innovation and creativity it is supposed to espouse.

Brown, of course, is a great internet user, isn't he? He really knows what the web is all about:

Whether it is to work online, study, learn new skills, pay bills or simply stay in touch with friends and family, a fast internet connection is now seen by most of the public as an essential service, as indispensable as electricity, gas and water.

Nothing about the main reasons people use the web - shopping, gaming, watching porn and wasting time. And aren't those other services, water, electricity and gas, now in private, not government hands?

As with anything issuing from this government, what you see will not be what you get. My suspicion is that the main purpose is to establish a government controlled internet system which will be used primarily as the main contact for public access to all services; ie 'individually tailored services' means you'll only be able to sort them out via the internet. I don't think the Conservatives would be any better, since they've also been spouting this 'post-bureaucratic government' bullshit as well.

The future's not bright, it's shite.

Punch In The Face Digital Progressive Blogging

Back from Australia, where I have managed to avoid UK news and newspapers...however, even in that enlightened country the Righteous are at work trying to snatch people's freedoms away from them under the guise of protecting the kiddies: Filtering (Censoring) the Net. Communications Minister Conroy is obviously a cnut of the most modern, correct kind. May he die from a long painful illness without a pension.

'Progressive' seems to be the new word on the block. It seems to be used a lot by the Lost Righteous - people who realise the New Labour project is a pile of steaming excrement about to go down the crapper but don't have the guts or understanding to reassert Old Labour values. In other words it stinks. If I encounter anyone who speaks this to me directly I shall punch them in the face.

Jackie Smith is still an ugly, stupid and incompetent disgrace squatting like a toad in government.

Pity for the Spawn of the Manse that his bravura performance at the G20 has now dissolved like piss in rain and been swamped by coverage of police (mis)behaviour, including photo footage that the cops somehow managed not to eradicate, despite their new-found laws.

Alice Mahon resigns from the party of the Terminally Righteous, taking a swipe at the EU as she does so:

That same manifesto promised a referendum on the European Constitution, we re-named it the Lisbon Treaty and reneged on that promise also.

If this Treaty is ratified we can say goodbye to any publicly owned services. Article 111-147 is clear, we will be handing over to private corporations, social services, education, transport and postal services. Even the NHS will be up for grabs.

Matthew Taylor finds himself on the panel of an NHS Confederation bash called ‘inequality, nudge and recession: is it time for a new approach to health politics?’ Taking the politics out of health care would be a bloody good start, and as for 'nudge', again I'd have to punch anyone in the face who used that word in front of me. Matthew's post is full of the usual 'progressive' bull: 'Building community resilience and capacity is central to improving public health, which is itself a more important determinant of health outcome and levels of health inequality than the health care system.'

The NHS Confederation bills itself as 'the voice of NHS leadership'. There we have it again, this obsession with leadership. Can't all be members of Common Purpose, can they?

Apparently Mandelshit has been blathering on about 'Digital Britain' (ht Muffled Vociferation). I haven't read the report but I can tell you with complete authority that it is absolute bullshit, the main aims being to promote the image of the government as an up-to-date administration (FAIL) and to act as a smoke screen for extending control over the internet (how's your plan to seize control of Nominet progressing, Your Lordship?). A lot of talk about broadband, no doubt, but I suspect that wireless/mobile access will overtake it within a few years.

Mandelson is also a cnut. May he, too, die of a long and particularly embarrassing disease before he can draw his unearned pension.

And Sunder Katwala sets out 'the ethic which informs the bloggers of the left' in his post: 'Why we blog: our ethic of progressive blogging'. I'm a bit tired and suffering from hallucinations brought on by jet lag, so I'll end with two comments on this: firstly, drawing up a list of 'ethics' for something like blogging just reveals the control-freakery and authoritarian nature of the righteous left (after all, the Spawn himself would create such a list if he knew what blogging was); and secondly, there's that word again, 'progressive'.

Don't fucking come anywhere near me, Sunder, unless you want a punch in the face.