Longrider

I am heading off to the Isle of Man for the TT tomorrow. I won’t be taking a computer with me. I will be offline for nearly two weeks. I shall return refreshed, one hopes.

Spring is well underway now and the Irises have started to flower. This one is called Art Deco.

I have a feeling that Mark Wadsworth will be approving – at least in part – Oliver Kamm’s piece in the Times. In it, he makes some of the same points as Mark. However, I have some issues with the assumptions made. This, for example:

The mythology of home ownership diverts resources from investment in companies that make things or provide services. It encourages people to commute long distances so that they don’t have to go through the expense and inconvenience of moving home. It ossifies the labour market by deterring people from moving jobs. And it destroys the art of conversation. There would be less pollution, higher productivity and more wealth if only the superstition that home ownership is the route to riches were broken.

My own situation gives lie to this assumption. I am returning to the UK at the turn of the year and will take up residence in my old home in Bristol. In the past week, I have accepted a new job based in Purfleet. I will not be moving to Purfleet. This has nothing to do with home ownerism, but to do with my preferring the west country to the home counties. I have no plans to move to Essex either now or in the future.

My home is not, nor has it ever been, a route to riches. I have seen no wealth as a consequence of ownership as the increase in value has not been realised. Had we been able to sell before moving to France, then, yes, we would have realised it – although perhaps it’s worth pointing out here that our French property is worth precisely what we paid for it seven years ago and if we do decide to sell, we will be making an overall loss.

As it is, that “wealth” is unseen. It is a home. We have lived in it, and we will live in it and I object vigorously to any social manipulation by people or governments who think they know best where I should live and in what type of home I should live. What part of “it’s none of your business” do they not understand? If I choose to live in Bristol and work in Essex, that is my concern, not Kamm’s and not the government’s. No amount of social engineering will change this. I will live where I choose to live and if that involves a long commute or staying away from home to work, then that is what I will do.

The big flaw in Kamm’s argument though – that CGT should be incurred on selling one’s primary residence – is that it would deter people from moving rather than the opposite as he claims. Kamm is assuming that people would rent in order to be able to move about more freely. This may be true of some, but I would never rent as it would mean being beholden to a landlord. My home is my castle, I do not expect to have to ask a landlord if I may re-decorate, keep pets or carry out significant changes to the garden , for example.

Kamm’s proposal would certainly deter me from moving as it would make it more costly. And, frankly, we should all be paying less tax, not finding an excuse for raising more.

I’ve never really understood the mentality of people who camp outside shops for the sales or for concert tickets – although the limited supply is an understandable justification. Frankly, I’d prefer to go without, but that’s just me. But camping out just to be the first to own the latest gadget? That’s taking sad to a whole new level.

Dozens of people have been queuing outside Apple‘s flagship store on Regent Street since Thursday afternoon, ahead of the official launch of the iPad at 8am today.

The iPad will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis, and Currys and PC World are also stocking the touch-screen, tablet-style computer.

Next week they will be on the shelves and you can walk in without queuing, so these people are merely queuing to be the first – why? Who are they hoping to impress? It may well be a nice shiny gadget, but camping out to be the first to own one?

I won’t be queueing, nor will I be buying one at a later date. Quite apart from having no need for this device, I will never buy a computer product where the developer exercises such tight control over third party applications. Love ’em or hate ’em at least Microsoft’s operating system will run applications developed by independent developers without MS being involved or “approving” them. And I can, should I wish, view a Flash website on my MS based PC. Okay, Flash is a pain in the arse and I have a plug-in that disables it by default, but that’s not the point – I have made this choice, not the PC’s maunfacturer or the operating system’s developer.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, unveiled the iPad at a press conference in San Francisco in January. He said the device was “magical”, and bridged the gap between mobile phones and laptop computers.

Presumably said without a hint of irony… Magic is what you find on Discworld.

John Kirby is one of the early adopters of the ID card scheme and he thinks it is wonderful.

My identity card is the same size and almost the same colour as a driving licence, and I can carry it in my wallet. It’s got my photograph, my name and my citizenship on it – and it works well.

Works well, eh? For what, precisely? The usual reasoning being that it helps with things like buying alcohol, opening a bank account and buying age related goods in a supermarket. But what idiots like Kirby forget is that these things are all needed because the Labour government made them necessary. In other words, an ID card is a solution to a problem that was artificially created. Remove the artificial constructs and the need for a card vanishes. Even then, I have not needed to prove my identity for as long as I can remember, so it isn’t that necessary, and therefore I take Kirby’s assertion that it works well with a bucketful of salt. Besides, Kirby is a class one weapons grade bell end as his next statement demonstrates so well.

I’ve been interested in the identity card since it was first mooted. I pre-registered for a card on the Identity and Passport Service website before they started the roll-out in Manchester last autumn.

I am interested in my identity. That is why I have opposed this scheme from the outset – it is my identity and I neither need nor want the government to get involved. Of course, if inadequates like Kirby need the comfort blanket of a card that tells them who they are, that’s fine by me, providing any such arrangement is entirely voluntary.

It is his inadequacy in needing the ID cards scheme as designed that I object to; the database that was intended to create an audit trail of our lives and the eventual compulsion for all of us. People like Kirby are the useful idiots that gave the Labour control freaks a toe in the door. This is why I despise Kirby and all those of his ilk.

And very useful it is too. Previously, I was in the nightclub business and identity was an important issue because, with alcohol, I had to look out for people’s ages to protect my licence.

Er, Kirby’s card doesn’t help one jot here, does it? The man is clearly a cretin.

In the eight weeks since I’ve had it, I have travelled with it and used it to open bank accounts. I’ve used it on internal flights in the UK because you must have some form of photo ID. The identity card is accepted here and is accepted as a travel document across Europe.

I have a passport, which works well for travel – as it is designed to do. I didn’t have to go onto the NIR to get it. That I need it for domestic flights is a disgrace, but see my comments above on that one.

When I turned up at the airport, the identity card was recognised straight away. There were absolutely no qualms at all. They took it, put it through the machine reader, the same as they would with your passport. It was all set up, ready for it.

Oh, wow! So does my passport. My passport does not require entry on the NIR.

I’m not worried by the civil liberties arguments.

Then you are a fuckwit.

I believe the state already has all the same details on me – they’ve got my photograph and the details on my driving licence. So the only extra thing I’ve given over is my fingerprints – and that’s fine by me. I’ve got no big secrets.

Ah, yes, sooner or later we get the argument put forward by the intellectually challenged, the nothing to hide, nothing to fear cockwaffle. Whether I have anything to hide is neither here nor there – I should not have to demonstrate it to the government. My life is not an open book and nor should it be. Anyone who uses this stupid, stupid argument loses all rights to be taken seriously.

Most European countries have got an identity card…

Not like the one planned for the UK – not even close, you cretin.

…and we implement technology quite well in this country.

Yes, indeed, of course. Pillock! Watch the cognitive dissonance kick in with the next statement.

There are, of course, big failures when they lose data. But given the number of data sources there are in the world, you don’t hear of that many losses taking place, so I’m quite comfortable with it.

Er… This man is straight out of 1984 – the fellow who was happy to have his children report him for thought crimes. Although in Kirby’s case, thought crime would be impossible, as one has to be able to think in the first place.

I think it’s definitely a backward step for the government to do away with the identity card.

Fortunately, you are part of a weak-minded insecure minority of Labour drones who are incapable of independent thought. The rest of us are sufficiently independently minded and self-assured to be able to manage without the card and its database.

I’d have liked to have seen a situation where every time you got issued with a new passport, you got an identity card with it. It would give you a choice of which document to use in daily life.

Why not just change the way a passport looks, so that it fits in a wallet? That said, mine isn’t a problem and I do not use any ID documents in daily life, so Kirby is proposing a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

I paid £30 for this identity card and I certainly would have paid £75 for it because of the advantages it has given me.

It hasn’t given you any advantages – certainly nothing in this risible piece lists any advantages. And you are an idiot.

The new government says that it’s costly, unwanted and unneeded.

The new government is correct.

I totally disagree.

You are entitled to do so. That’s what free speech is all about. You are not entitled to expect the rest of us to be tagged just because you are an insecure inadequate.

I certainly know of three people who have gone out and applied for one because they have seen mine.

Three! Wow! That makes four insecure inadequates.

Some people do want it.

Some people are morons. You are one of them.

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Update: I see that this post has been picked up elsewhere. As I’m not going to join a forum merely to enlarge on some of the points I’ve made here – I’ll respond to those points here and if those people concerned wish to comment below, that’s fine.

Firstly, a quickie from “Puddington”:

I’d rather read something that wasn’t a personal attack on someone else.

So would I. However, after nine years of hearing this tripe put out by people like John Kirby, the time for polite discourse has long passed. He and the others who signed up to this scheme were enabling one of the most pernicious examples of the database state. Their selfishness would, had Labour been reelected, have led to all of us being forced to carry one of these cards and be entered on the database. Personal abuse is the very least such people deserve.

Moving on to “Chrisull”:

Read the article. I’m fuming… “Labour government” – This was one of John Major’s babies mooted by Michael Howard (along with the road traffic cone hotline) and last time I looked that was a Tory administration. It was introduced in 1995 in a Home Office Green Paper – you can find a brief history of what happened then – Link to www.privacyinternational.org

I’m not quite sure why Blair chose to resurrect them, but both party Labour and Tories have been complicit in their introduction. And as for the rest of the thrust of teh article, blaming the Labour government for the current problems in supermarkets and them not vending alcohol to mums with teenagers etc etc, can I suggest that it’s the litigation culture leading corporations to be ultra-cautious about doing anything, so that they avoid expensive lawsuits, and I might suggest again that this is a symptom of unfettered free market interests, lawyers feathering their own nests, making a buck anytime anyone slips on a pavement, and that’s what happens with deregulation, rather than too much regulation.

I am well aware that the Major government looked at ID cards. However, they did not enact the Identity Cards Act, Labour did. It was Labour that brought about the insane, paranoid money laundering legislation that led to ordinary bank customers being asked for photo ID when they want to draw £500 out of their account, despite the teller knowing them by sight because they are regular visitors to the branch. The teller is not afraid of being sued, he is afraid of being prosecuted.

It was a Labour government that brought about the entirely unnecessary and absurd age limit of 21 for people buying alcohol despite the legal age for drinking it being 18. It was a Labour government that bombarded us with propaganda about binge drinking and it was under a Labour administration that shopkeepers became subjected to entrapment sting operations by government agencies. Retailers are not asking for ID because they are afraid of being sued, they are afraid of being prosecuted. It has nothing to do with unregulated market forces (that do not exist anyway) or litigation, it has to do with a government that became out of control with its obsession for micro-managing our lives.

My comments about a Labour government may make you fume. They are, however, observations of fact – and I say this as someone who in 1997 was not only a Labour voter, but an active member of the party. Okay?

Joseph Harker opines once more on CiF about his favourite subject; racism. In this instance it is the case of the teacher who dared to express “extremist” and therefore “racist” views online. Harker feels that such people shouldn’t be allowed to teach.

When Maurice Smith, a former chief inspector of schools, ruled that it was OK for BNP members to teach our children, he exhibited an astonishing level of naivety about how racism works in the classroom. That the then schools secretary Ed Balls chose to accept his advice was one of the most depressing examples of how the dying New Labour government showed it had completely forgotten why it was in power.

In reaching his decision, Smith had said that barring the BNP was “taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut”. And he added: “The existing measures in place to protect children and young people from discrimination or political indoctrination are well-grounded, and comprehensive enough to mitigate the risk.”

Today his lack of understanding was exposed when Adam Walker, a teacher and BNP activist, was cleared by his profession’s watchdog of racial intolerance – despite using a school laptop to claim in an online forum that Britain was a “dumping ground for the filth of the third world” and lauding the BNP as “the only party who are making a stand and are prepared to protect the rights of citizens against the savage animals New Labour and Bliar [sic] are filling our communities with”.

There’s more of this egregious twaddle, but let’s just look at the basics, shall we? Did Adam Walker allow his views to affect his teaching? No evidence has been proffered. Therefore, the decision to clear him was the appropriate one. His use of school equipment is another matter entirely.

Did Maurice Smith rule appropriately? Well, it is not for the chief inspector of schools to decide what political parties teachers may belong to and it is not his place to decide what views they may hold. His reasoning for his ruling, far from being naive, is perfectly sound. Have any of the teachers who belong to the BNP been shown to have allowed their views to affect their professional behaviour? If not, then there is no case to answer. Those of us who are capable of thinking will determine that freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are cornerstones of a civilised society – even if the views and thoughts of those we defend are abhorrent.

Of course, for Harker, thought crime should always be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And, let’s bear in mind that this is the Joseph Harker who, in 2002 said this:

White people need to accept that, no matter how many anti-racist demos they’ve marched on, they inevitably make assumptions, however subconscious, which are influenced by a racist society and which help to form their views and opinions. To refute this is to be in complete denial.

There is only one conclusion that we may draw from this comment and that is that, despite in the same piece saying that he cannot be racist because he is black, Joseph Harker is a racist. Anyone who believes that a whole group of people make assumptions because of the colour of their skin is, by definition, a racist. Joseph Harker is, by his own execrable argument, a racist.

Regular readers will recall me mentioning Kiya last month when I wrote about Ptolemy dying. Kiya was one of last year’s kittens. Of the four born, one died within hours and Kiya along with her two brothers appeared to be healthy. Unfortunately when she was about eight weeks old she suffered a urinary tract infection. We had been concerned prior to this that she appeared to be incontinent. We presumed that the two were linked. What followed was a series of antibiotics treatment which saw her overcome the infection, but the incontinence remained.

Kiya, along with her mother comes from a semi-feral colony loosely owned by our neighbour. I say loosely because he takes no responsibility for them, he just lets them be. This means that the toms hang around and the resultant incest leads to successively weaker kittens. This explained the mystery of the relatively low amount of new generations that we saw. We had presumed that he drowned unwanted kittens, but he doesn’t even take that much notice. It explains why Minnie gave birth to four stillborn kittens. This is, to our knowledge, her second pregnancy and from those two pregnancies, only one kitten has survived.

We suspected that Kiya had an ectopic ureter. The vet advised trying medication for a neurological problem first. So poor Kiya spent a couple of months being medicated for this. There was a slight improvement, but Mrs L suggested that as it was summer and Kiya was out most of the time, we weren’t noticing it so much. By the turn of the year, it became obvious that this was not working. The vet then suggested what we had suspected all along – an ectopic ureter. This was operable, but would be expensive. However, before any such operation took place, they had to check the condition of her kidneys. That was the bomb-shell, both kidneys were failing. So, no operation. All we could do was manage the condition and when the time came, a final trip to the vet. The vet’s prognosis was that she would live a few weeks at best. As it turned out, it was closer to three months.

We thought this was going to happen over Easter, but she rallied and spent the next few weeks almost her old self, playing in the garden with her siblings and hunting the odd rodent.

Yesterday morning, I noticed her sunning herself in next door’s garden. By late afternoon, I realised that I hadn’t seen her about, so we went looking. I found her under a hedge, almost lifeless. It was too late to involve the vet as out of hours cover involves an hour’s trip to Montpellier. All we could do was make her comfortable and a couple of hours later she slipped peacefully out of our lives.

On the one hand, I am angry that our neighbour allows a feral colony to continue to inbreed, creating such unnecessary death and weakened genes. On the other, there are some compensations. For thirteen brief months we got to share this beautiful creature’s company. She lived longer than if we had not been around. And, when it came, the end was mercifully quick and peaceful.

Apparently this is National Vegetarian Week. To which I have to say; that piece of chicken I had for lunch went down well.

Look, I have no problem with people choosing not to eat meat for whatever reason, I merely object to their sanctimonious whining at the rest of us. That said, at least I can tell them where to get off if they cross the line and annoy me enough. Not so for cats and dogs. Naturally, this being the Guardian where the moral compass points east, we are asked two – presumably rhetorical – questions that are absurd, stupid and typical of the self-righteous codswallop we expect from that tome. Questions to which any rational, moderately intelligent person will already know the answer and therefore dismiss the rest of the piece as barking bunkum.

So is it ethical to impose a vegetarian diet on your pet? And for a start, is it healthy?

The answers, by the way are; “no” and “no”. That doesn’t stop the subject being explored further and one of the commenters to the execrable piece letting us know that her dog is a vegetarian. This is animal cruelty – but these idiots are too wrapped up in their own warped morality to see this.

I wonder if these lackwits have thought of going on safari so that they can point out to the big cats where they are all going wrong and how those five fruit and veg a day are so good for one’s health and longevity. I’m sure the first pack of lions they encounter will wise them up…

If you are a veggie and you really cannot accept the fact that in order for one organism to live, another will die, then don’t keep pets. However, if you can face the fact that vegetation can die, you could keep herbivorous creatures such as a tortoise, but do remember, dandelions have rights, too.

While those of us concerned about the invasions of liberty and privacy by government have been pretty vocal, let us not forget that commercial concerns are also more than happy to mine our data for their benefits. A discussion today on CiF reminds us.

Perhaps, though, the most chilling comment comes from Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.

‘If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.’

WTF?! There are plenty of things I do that are legal, perfectly normal and nothing to do with anyone else and I prefer not to share. Schmidt’s comment is straight out of the nothing to hide, nothing to fear handbook for the budding totalitarian and their useful idiots. It is not up to him to decide what we may be doing. It is up to his company not to mine for data and invade peoples’ privacy. It is up to us to do all we can to make that task as difficult as possible. Stop using Google, maybe…

Liam Donaldson finally disappears this week.

Professor Sir Liam Donaldson is starting his last week as England’s top doctor – the Chief Medical Officer.

Not a moment too soon, frankly.

He has served in the post for 12 years, offering advice to ministers and the public on some of the great health challenges of our times.

Sir Liam helped to shape policy on a range of issues including stem cell research, patient safety, and smoking.

Oh, he did that alright.

For many, the defining moment was in 2005 with his intervention in the debate over smoking.

As ministers fretted over plans for limited new restrictions, Sir Liam told MPs that he would considered resigning over their failure to back a full smoking ban in enclosed public spaces.

And being the spineless whimps that they were, instead of telling him to fuck off, they caved in and gave us the smoking ban – an egregious piece of legislation at the heart of the nanny state if ever there was one.

The Labour MP Kevin Barron, who was chairman of the health select committee, says Sir Liam’s role was crucial.

“If in 10 years time we look back at this one particular measure of public health that was taken that was effectively led by Liam, I think we’ll probably say it’s one of the best pieces of legislation, from a health point of view, that we’ve ever had in the UK.”

Bollocks. It has nothing to do with health and everything to do with control.

Sir Liam was prepared to challenge ministers on other issues, such as his call for presumed consent on organ donation, and his backing for a minimum price per unit of alcohol.

Ah, yes, the old state owns our bodies for use when we shuffle off the mortal coil thing, I do recall his grubby fingerprints all over that one as well as the stupid idea that minimum pricing of alcohol will have any effect on health whatsoever. As with the smoking ban, it has nothing to do with health and everything to do with puritanical control freakery. Liam Donaldson is an obsessive control freak totally unfit for his role who should have been sacked long ago and would have been had there been an ounce of decency in government at the time.

Alan Johnson, who served as health secretary for two years, came to value Sir Liam’s independence, describing him as: “A CMO who – despite what ever political wind is blowing – will take his own view and provide an independent voice for the public.”

I’m a member of the public and he didn’t provide an independent voice for me. He actively spoke for the state, not the individual. My health is nothing to do with the state, Liam Donaldson or anyone else for that matter.

The most urgent challenge Sir Liam faced as CMO was the swine flu pandemic.

Ah, yes, this arsehole’s crowning glory, the pandemic that never was.

He helped to develop elaborate – and expensive – response plans that swung into action as the virus spread.

The pandemic that never was.

For most people it proved harmless, but Alan Johnson says Sir Liam was right to play it safe.

There is a difference between playing it safe and running around like a headless chicken shouting “we’re all gonna die!”.

“The public would never have forgiven us if we hadn’t had that level of preparation in place and Liam Donaldson was central to that,” he says.

I will never forgive his intrusion into matters that are none of his concern. I will never forgive the fatuous, self-righteous hectoring and lecturing by this fat fuck who thought that he had the right to tell me how to live my life, with the threat of state force if I failed to fall into line.

Sir Liam’s willingness to take a stand, often on sensitive and controversial subjects, was bound to draw criticism. But few dispute his legacy is substantial.

Oh, yeah, it’s substantial alright…

And he has promised he will fight on for a minimum price for alcohol.

Kevin Barron says it is a battle he may yet win.

“I think this coalition government will have to look seriously at this when you look round at the problems we have with binge drinking in this country.”

“And I think that, he may not be in office of course, but he may yet see that minimum pricing of alcohol is something that will happen”.

I have a horrible feeling that Barron is right. Like a bad smell, Liam Donaldson may be gone from office but will lurk like a rotting mouse hidden by the cat behind a cupboard in the corner of the room, a malodorous presence hanging in the air, wafting into our nostrils as we pass by, a constant reminder of his malevolent legacy.

A deeply nasty man who represents the puritanical heart of the self-righteous New Labour Fabian control freakery.