Longrider

I noticed a toad in the pond this morning. Now that we are well into March, they will be gathering in their numbers for spawning. Give it a week or so and there will be plenty of this going on:

The Tories in the UK are in trouble. Given the unpopularity of the present administration, it seems absurd that the main opposition party should be struggling in this way. Perhaps it is because they are seen as reactionary and out of touch. However, they are starting to realise that many people who voted for Tony Blair in the euphoria of 1997 are disillusioned with New Labour, recognising that it isn’t the bed of roses they thought it was - unless you count the manure and thorns.

In an attempt to garner support from those disaffected voters who might be persuaded to vote conservative, the Tory leadership are looking at a software tool used during the run up to the USA presidential elections last year.

On the face of it, this seems innocuous enough. In the USA, the Republicans used the software tool to identify potential voters in order to target them and encourage them to vote. Desperate to achieve a significant hit at the next election, the Tories are trying it out. Sounds reasonable? However read down the page and it starts to get scary:

The programme takes detailed information from Experian, a company that uses the 2001 census, consumer credit activity, council tax information, magazine subscriptions, supermarket loyalty cards, favourite television programmes and catalogues to define the 23 million households in Britain under 11 categories. Everything about them from their favourite yoghurt brand to their preferred newspaper is fed into the computer.

This is added to information gathered by local party activists and canvassers, and marked against an individual’s voting history. The party soon builds up a picture of the kind of person who might vote Conservative.

Worried? You should be.

emphasis mine
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I have been critical of the Lords over the years. They are after all an anachronism - unelected and therefore unaccountable. However, this week, I’ve been forced to reassess my position. The government’s anti terrorism bill was roundly defeated by the Lords - including Lord Irvine. This is fantastic news. But, I suppose, not surprising. After all, an anachronism dating back to the middle ages is likely to resist changes to our legal system also dating back to the middle ages. Habeas Corpus is something peculiarly British. When the Lords held the King accountable and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, they meant for those protections to mean something. Today, their descendants held onto that principle in the face of an authoritarian government that values nothing but its own wretched grasp on power.

Watching the BBC 6 o’Clock news, I saw that the Lords are digging in for a fight. They are looking for concessions on the sunset clause and, importantly, the burden of proof. Quite right too - the idea that someone can be detained on the “suspicion” of the Home Secretary is abhorrent.

So, well done to the Lords. And I wonder if Tony regrets not carrying through his promised reform of the Lords?

Think Again

On January 1^st 2005, it became a legal requirement in the Netherlands to produce ID when asked. So we have a real life parallel with the planned proposals for the UK.

From the article:

Dutch police has immediately started to use the new power by fining dozens of citizens for not being able to present a valid passport, drivers license or ID card. Most citizens were given double fines, for example for riding on a bicycle without proper illumination, or hanging out in groups and thus presenting a possible threat to the ‘public order’. In the city of Rotterdam alone, 20 fines were issued within the first 24 hours of the new obligation. Two of the first fines that became public have raised serious concerns about the actual intentions of the police with their new power.

Well, well, well, there’s a surprise. I would never have thought that might happen. Of course, it wouldn’t happen in the UK, after all, we’re British and we don’t do things like that do we? The good old British bobbies wouldn’t abuse their powers, now, would they?

What amuses me is this little snippet:

Before 1 January 2005 a large majority of Dutch people supported the new law, in support for any measure that could help increase security. After 1 January, many people start to realise they have to bear the costs themselves, starting at 30 euro for an ID card, but amounting up to 100 euro in case of losing a card or passport. The owner of the website ‘gelijkoversteken’ (hand over simultaneously), calls on all citizens to demand to see the ID of any supervisor or police officer in return for showing theirs. He reports numerous incidents of coloured people being asked for their ID without any other apparent reason than the colour of their skin.

Again, so predictable.

Anyone who really thinks Identity Cards are a good idea needs only to look at the Netherlands to see how it works in the real world.

As the discussion forum is taking shape, it is clear that it needs some focus. Therefore I’ve decided to give it one. The main area of discussion is news stories - so current affairs, it is. With that in mind, I’ve renamed the forum “News & Views” which seems to fit.

And welcome to Libertine.
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The Independent’s online page has an article that suggests the ID Card Legislation is dead in the water. Apparently because the Tories are not supporting the bill and they have the majority in the lords, HMG recognises that they will not get it through in time for the general election (widely speculated to be 5^th May).

“The ID cards Bill is dead,” one minister told The Independent yesterday.

Well, I certainly hope so.

Of course, this is the media we are talking about - and the government is not one to give up so easily. If they get re-elected in May, then it will be business as usual - and, possibly, the Parliament at to force it through if the Peers cut up rough.

However, if the report is true, then

The death of the Bill in the current parliamentary session means that it would have to start its passage all over again, if Labour wins a third term. That would leave less time for the public sector reforms that Tony Blair wants to dominate the first year after the election to show that his administration has not run out of steam.

I really, really want this to be true.

All we have to do now is make sure that their majority is slashed so much that any attempts to put it through are scuppered by effective opposition.
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Sometimes, you’ve just got to wonder at people. I mean, really… Otherwise intelligent folk throw reason to the wind when faced with a good old superstition.

The “cursing” stone, designed by a descendant of the cross border “reivers” who used to steal cattle, pillage and other unsavoury stuff, was commissioned to mark the Millennium and going by the picture on the BBC’s website looks a fine piece of artwork. Well, it appeals to me anyway - all that granite with black lettering across it - simple and eyecatching, I thought.

And that is all it is, a piece of artwork - is not responsible for the following:

Since the Cursing Stone was placed in Carlisle, the city has suffered floods, foot-and-mouth disease, job losses and a goal famine for the football team.

For crying out loud! Floods are caused by natural phenomena - they’ve been happening all over the UK in recent years. The cause is not a

1,069-word 16th Century curse.

It is global warming; a natural phenomenon exacerbated by mankind. Foot and mouth affected the whole country and was caused by one farmer feeding his animals infected food. Job losses are just part of the cycle the economy goes through - it isn’t confined to Carlisle and as for the football results - Jeez! It’s just a game and a bloody stupid one at that. Maybe they are suffering a famine of goals because they’re not very good at it. Did that occur to anyone?

The person kicking up a stink about it is city councillor Jim Tootle who wants the stone destroyed and has tabled a motion to discuss it on 8^th March. If he really believes in ancient curses, I would suggest his constituents seek a by-election pretty damn quick as the man is unfit to represent them. Has he nothing better on his plate than this?

Clearly not.

Prompted by posts on Libertine’s blog and Big John’s Blog I am putting my twopenn’orth in about the time of the year. For me, the first of March is like the shedding of the dark days of winter. Okay, so at the moment it’s snowing outside. However, March snow is ephemeral, rarely does it settle and if it does, it will have melted by midday in most cases. Certainly it isn’t the deep long lasting drifting stuff of early January and February. A little sleety snow, I can bear.

when I look in my garden, I see the first faint stirring of the new year. There were a couple of toads in the pond a week or so ago. Now is the start of their gathering. By the end of the month there will be a dozen or so couples spawning. By late May the pond will be swarming with toad tadpoles.

No, the weather isn’t getting me down - all I need to do is look at these

and be reminded that British Summertime is just around the corner and along with it longer evenings and afternoons sitting in the shade of the parasol watching the world go by…well, I can dream, can’t I?