Longrider

This excellent piece by Ian Bell (h/t NO2ID Newsblog) is worth a read. Bell compares the threats to our society with those of the past, from wartime when liberty was curtailed and subsequently replaced in peacetime, through the IRA years when the Labour party deplored the Prevention of Terrorism Act as an “abomination, the antithesis of the rule of law”. The same party that was opposed to identity cards, I recall. He reminds us of that noxious thug Reid and his “reasoning” for this assault on our liberty:

Why? Because Dr Reid says so, for reasons Dr Reid is unwilling to explain. The threat is vast, he says, and unremitting. It would chill your blood to know what John Reid knows. But Reid, departing a great office of state with all the grace he has brought to the position, will not tell you what he knows. Trust him on that.

I wouldn’t trust that foul, faeces ridden arsehole further than I could kick him and that would be stretching it. The man is deserving of no trust whatsoever and he gets none from me. I despise him and everything he represents; Stalinism. He is the embodiment of all that is evil in that philosophy.

Bell makes an excellent point along the way, that draconian measures merely create more of the chaos they are supposed to counteract.

When Blair takes another bite from our liberties in the pages of a Murdoch paper, therefore, take it as guaranteed: another couple of dozen young Muslim men have just had their paranoia confirmed. As a consequence, another Tube train is at risk. Iraq may have become a kind of virtual conflict, a theoretical construct droning away as a sub-text to the nightly news, a cause for arguments and an excuse for rhetoric. It is, still, a small country, far away, of which, inexcusably, we know little. This assault is different.

And yet there is no justification for it. This is not a country in wartime – to compare the current threat with WWII is ludicrous in the extreme. The immediate threat to individuals carrying out their daily business is less now than thirty years ago when IRA active service units were at large, bombing British cities. There is no justification for these assaults on our liberties outside the paranoid and power hungry imaginations of fevered politicians seeking to make a name for themselves.

Are we under threat? Probably. Are we more safe, thanks to our implacable new Labour guardians? I doubt it. Are notions of rights and due process at risk? Unquestionably. Are we losing sight of the freedoms we claim to live by?

I fear so. No hyperbole: I fear.

A dark note to finish the piece. It is one with which I have to reluctantly concur.

Blogging has been light this past few days. Firstly a severe bout of hay fever laid me low. For the first time in my life, I sought medical advice. Normally, I just take the anti-histamine and get on with life. After a week of increasingly severe symptoms, I realised that this method was not working. That was followed by our phone line going dead. It is at times like this when you realise just how much the Internet has become apart of your life. Notes for an article I’m planning? Backed up on-line. Banking? On-line. Shopping? On-line. Then there was that eBay auction I had coming to an end on Sunday…

Still, despite BT telling us that the line wouldn’t be up and running until Wednesday, we have a connection, so I’m making the most of it…

The first thing to hit me between the eyes was the “papers please” story that is, quite rightly being roundly criticised by just about everyone:

Government plans for new police powers to stop and question people were greeted with a barrage of criticism yesterday, after it emerged that senior police officers had neither requested the change nor been consulted. The Home Office confirmed that the power would be included in a counterterrorism bill to be announced in early June.

This is another example of the thoroughly disreputable and evil administration that beleagures this country seeking to treat the population like suspects. Of course the police had not asked for these powers. That is because they have no need of them. The police already have the right to question people when conducting an investigation and they expect people to respond appropriately as is their civic duty. This change – apart from being typical of New Labour’s making policy by headline policy – undermines that goodwill by seeking to criminalise failure to cooperate. It is neither necessary nor desirable.

But the vehemence and breadth of criticism led Home Office ministers to signal a willingness to compromise after the idea was also attacked by MPs, civil liberties and Muslim groups as unnecessary and harmful.

Well, quite. You would have to be more dense than a chunk of  lignumvitae not to realise that this is unnecessary, unreasonable and an outrageous assault on civil liberties, indeed, the  nasty, brutish, Stalinist home secretary; that evil thug John Reid and his nasty little lap dog, the truly repugnant Tony McNulty seem oblivious to what they are proposing… Or do they?

The new powers, contained in a leaked letter from the counter-terrorism minister, Tony McNulty, to Tony Blair, would make it an offence punishable with a £5,000 fine for a person to withhold their identity or refuse to answer questions. He wrote: “Arguably one of the weaknesses of [stop and search] is that although it enables a search of an individual, it does not enable a police officer to ask that individual who they are or where they are going.”

There you have it; compulsory identity cards. Despite any assurances uttered by this government, their plan all along has been to turn this into a “papers please” state, one where an official may demand to know who we are, and we will be required to produce suitable evidence on pain of prosecution. No, carrying ID cards may not actually be a requirement of the identity cards act; they are too cunning for that, they will simply make it a defacto requirement with moves such as this one. But, then, what do you expect when a bunch of un-reconstituted Stalinists grab the reins of power?

Hat tip to Archblog for this one. From the Financial Times we get Google’s great ambition; to know all about us:

Google’s ambition to maximise the personal information it holds on users is so great that the search engine envisages a day when it can tell people what jobs to take and how they might spend their days off.

Now, there are those who will expect me to be horrified by this and engage in a knee jerk reaction. Sorry to disappoint… Google is a private company and I am under no obligation to help them satisfy their thirst for knowledge. That said, I can’t say that this thirst for knowledge is something I care for over much, but it is entirely up to users to decide just how much information they wish to share.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

Funny, that; I can answer both those questions without any help whatsoever from Google. I intend to carry on precisely as I am. Google is a great search engine, but a life coach, it ain’t and I’ve no plans to use it as such. And there you have it; I can choose to ignore Google and I can choose not to ask them the questions I’m perfectly capable of managing for myself.

Mr Schmidt told journalists in London: “We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

Actually, you know quite enough, thank you. You are free to ask the question and I am free to decline – and I fully intend to do so.

He said Google’s newly relaunched iGoogle service, which allows users to personalise their own Google search page and publish their own content, would be a key feature.

And there is the crux of it… choice. I will choose not to personalise my Google search page and as a consequence, I choose not to be bombarded with personalised adverts; it really is that simple. Google asks and I politely refuse. If you want to give them personal information, then they will be more than happy to oblige – and you won’t see me standing in your way.

The Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK said it was not concerned about the personalisation developments.

Neither am I.

Ah, I suppose it had to come sooner or later; even Neil is showing signs of discontent:

What is the point of being in the Labour Party anymore?

Indeed. I asked myself that very same question two and a half years ago. For a different reason, of course, but I share the sense of disappointment and the feeling of being let down. Neil is disappointed at the coronation of Brown as leader, stripping away the possibility of a democratic leadership contest.

I felt quite important thinking a few million of us Labour party members and union members were going to have a say deciding the next PM, but now all we have is a meaningless deputy PM election

Well, sometimes shit happens. The party has rules and they were followed. If an MP can’t scrape together enough nominations they can’t stand; tough. If that means the front runner gets a clear run home, well, that’s the way it is. Of course that letter I received the other day all becomes a bit pointless now, doesn’t it?

Neil isn’t keen on Brown. Can’t say I am either, but I’m happy enough with the outcome. Brown is likely to piss off the electorate between now and 2009 sufficiently for them to boot him out on his miserable arse. That may not be the outcome Neil would want, but it is an outcome that – even when I was supportive of Labour – I would have reluctantly sought. Too long in power is corrupting. The government becomes tired and ready to go. This one is fast approaching that point. And, frankly, an effective one party state is certainly not healthy.

Neil’s going to stick with it, though:

Well I suppose I will plod along in the Labour Party - still campaigning on the issues but I perfectly understand why so many others have given up and left - even if they are wrong to do so.

That’s a matter of opinion, though. Given my desire to see a change of government, I can hardly see how my leaving was wrong – or that they would want me. Still, Neil manages to get in a back-handed swipe at the Tories:

But at least they were allowed two leaders to vote on, even if they hadn’t a clue what they stood for.

Neil, have you forgotten something of the night so soon?

This article from Melissa Kite, via Tim complains about the behaviour of the blogging boys from the right of the British blogging world:

Every now and then it’s good to be reminded how far things haven’t come. A week ago, I dipped my toe into something called the Tory blogosphere.

The crux of Melissa’s complaint is that she was subjected to personal attacks on the Internet by a group of anonymous bullyboys.

This is a group of internet chatrooms where a certain kind of Conservative supporter, almost always male, hangs out in cyberspace under an amusing alias and holds forth on the issues of the day, unbound by libel or slander laws or indeed any of the conventions of everyday courtesy.

I suppose my initial reaction was “where have you been all this time?” I recall my first experience of this behaviour a decade or so ago on a motorcycle forum (now defunct). I was, frankly, astounded at the sheer level of rudeness and discourtesy exhibited. Anyone who dared to put forward a contrary viewpoint was immediately rounded upon by the home crowd in a manner that I have never seen in the real world. So here it is; the difference between the real and the virtual worlds. The virtual is one where not having to face each other means that saying anything goes – and frequently does. I’m mildly surprised that Melissa has only just discovered the phenomenon.

I would also add here something that has been pointed out repeatedly regarding anonymity. Bloggers are not professional journalists (on the whole). Therefore, as amateurs, we have to consider whether our online activities might have an adverse affect on our real life employment. Some employers don’t like – or don’t understand – the phenomenon and will dismiss employees who do it; despite it not necessarily having anything to do with work per se. Consequently a veneer of anonymity separates the real from the virtual. If you really, really, want to know who I am, it won’t take Hercule Poirot to find out.

Iain Dale of iaindale.blogspot.com critiqued my piece line by line. Then conservativehome.com announced that it had been “authorised” by Alan Duncan, shadow trade secretary, to publish a statement by him denouncing my predictions. Comments duly poured forth from people called TomTom and Umbrella Man attacking me professionally.

Ah, the old “fisk”. While bloggers have become used to the line by line evisceration of an argument, newspaper journalists have been largely shielded from it – the most they could usually expect is a letter to the editor that itself is likely to be edited. If an article is badly written or poorly researched, is low on fact or just plan wrong, then someone, somewhere will fisk it. This is no bad thing and as Melissa points out, blogs are “brilliant debating forums”. Unfortunately, it can sometimes represent a bar room brawl in the subsequent comments. How this is handled depends on the individual blogger. Some have a policy of not removing or editing any comments no matter how vicious they are.

In commenting on the no-holds-barred, brawling nature of the debate, Melissa refers to misogyny. She has a point here, but I’m not so sure that it is as simple as that. If you say the wrong thing (no matter how right you may be) gender is irrelevant, you will get torn to pieces by the pirana swimming round the comments section.

So I wrote a piece defending myself on The Spectator’s blogsite “Coffeehouse” in which I mentioned the words misogyny and Right-wingers in the same sentence. Uh-oh, I hear you sigh, nisht gut. Well, maybe.

Yeah, see, that’s poking the pirana in the eye. I wouldn’t stop you doing it – they probably deserved it – but just don’t be too surprised when they strip your fingers to the bone, is all I’m saying.

I would like to claim that I designed my post to wind up the boys a bit, expose the unpleasant underbelly of certain Right-wing circles.

Fair enough, but it isn’t just the right wing that behave badly. Try dropping into a left wing blog and talk about free markets, privatised railways or some other antithesis of left wing group think and see what happens. As I mentioned earlier in the post, the phenomenon has its roots in the Internet forum and they remain as vigorous in their bad behaviour as ever. Administrators and moderators do their best to keep things civil, but lurking beneath the surface is a layer of pure vitriol. Dip your toe in at your peril. Or, dip your toe in fully aware of what you are doing and stir the whole thing up, stand back and watch the frenzy that follows. Well done, you just joined the ranks of the Internet troll.

Another site popular with Tory surfers, Guido Fawkes’s Blog, Order-order.com, run by “Right-wing libertarian” Paul Staines..

Here’s a little request; please stop holding up Staines and Dale as somehow typical or representative of British bloggers. They are neither. While Ian’s is better written than Staines’ frankly puerile garbage, neither are truly representative of the range of blogs available. If you take the time to look, you will find a wealth of well written, informed and informative articles out there that are far more typical. Staines may be well known – for all the wrong reasons – but he is none of these things.

All I want to say is that a week ago I speculated about the shadow cabinet. Tory blogger-boys responded by speculating about whether they would like to sleep with me. The same people are online right now demanding that David Cameron change his policies. I now speculate that the Tory leader knows exactly what he is dealing with and will completely ignore them.

Actually, changing polices isn’t the problem with Cameron; it’s that he doesn’t appear to have any…

Two transport stories come to my attention this morning. The first story concerns the proposed stealth tax on people who use their own vehicles for work:

Millions of drivers who use their own cars for work face sharply increased taxes under proposals being considered by ministers, it was confirmed last night.

Even those doing voluntary work could be caught by a scheme drawn up by Revenue and Customs.

Those who could be affected range from salesman to vicars in sprawling rural parishes.

Should the idea be adopted, a motorist driving 10,000 miles a year for an employer could face an additional tax bill of £500 to £1,500 annually.

The plans were described as another “stealth tax” by Chris Grayling, the Tory transport spokesman.

Frankly, this beggars belief. It is one thing to tax company cars as this is effectively extra income in the form of payment in kind. However, people who use their own vehicles are doing their employer a big favour. The expenses paid per mile just about cover the costs of doing so. According the AA, in many cases they would amount to a loss. That all depends on the vehicle of course. If I use my bike, I’ll probably just about break even. By the time we consider fuel and wear and tear along with the increased insurance premiums, it is not going to be enough to then justify extra tax. If I use my own vehicle and get taxed on it, I’ll be making a significant loss. So how the fucking self satisfied shits in Westminster can come to the conclusion that ranking up the miles on our own vehicles constitutes a taxable benefit is beyond comprehension.

Think about it, we have to pay an increased insurance premium for business use that may – depending on the risk and type of vehicle – be substantial, then we have the depreciation caused by the extra mileage, along with the  increased cost of servicing associated with the higher mileage, not to mention tyres, fuel, oil and other consumables. The justification is, once more, fucking “environmental” and all that carbon footprint bollocks.

It floated the idea at a recent meeting of firms providing company car fleets. It was suggested that the tax threshold be reduced or linked to the environmental friendliness of a car.

The 40p allowance would be slashed to 25p for those using cars with CO2 emissions above 185 grams per kilometre. So anybody driving 10,000 miles for work could be £1,500 a year worse off.

The only carbon footprint I want to talk about is the one used to stamp MPs’ faces into the ground. Oh, and did anyone notice a little vested interest there? After all, if people use their own vehicles, then their employers won’t have to buy all those shiny new cars from company car fleet suppliers, will they? God help us when vested interests and government agencies get into bed with each other; you just know the little guy is going to get shafted.

The other story that caught my eye was the one about cyclists and changes to the Highway Code:

Cyclists who fail to use lanes provided for them could face prosecution as a result of changes to the Highway Code, it became clear last night.

While this may seem to be reasonable at first glance, there is a hidden depth to the issue. Separate cycle lanes make sense as they are clear of traffic and much safer to use. However as has been pointed out in an earlier discussion, they may not always be easy to find.

Often I guess it would be through a lack of local knowledge. In a strange area you can’t really do much but follow the signs and the signs are always set up for cars. Hence people end up on virtual motorways despite there being a superb parallel alternative. Near here it’s the A27, across Devon the A30, both have the “old roads” running near by but unless he’d studied the ordnance survey map carefully a stranger just wouldn’t know.

Then there’s the little matter of those lanes that are situated in city centres. Have you noticed that they appear and disappear at the will of the road planners without any consideration for the poor sod trying to navigate them? One minute you are on a cycle lane, the next you are dicing with the traffic turning left on the approach to a busy roundabout.

The current wording planned for the new Highway Code is sufficiently ambiguous that it could lead to prosecutions for “inconsiderate cycling” under the 1998 Road Traffic Act.

According to the present version of the Highway Code, cycle routes should be used “when practicable”. A revised version said they should be used “where they are provided”. Then, in a concession to cyclists, the latest version was changed to instruct them to use lanes “wherever possible”.

Although the changes in wording appear very subtle, their legal impact could be considerable, according to CTC, formerly known as the Cyclists’ Touring Club.

Failing to stop at red traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, bumping into pedestrians on pavements and cutting across other road users’ paths, forcing them to take avoiding action is, indeed, “inconsiderate cycling”, but I’ll be damned if failing to use a dangerous cycle lane is.