Most Incompetent Government Yet?

[Sandman]

Originally posted by MOBIUS
ID cards are a quite staggeringly mindbogglingly bad idea!!! Billions and billions to be wasted on something that will do zero to improve our 'safety from terrorism'!

Indeed the outsourcing itself is a major security risk - not to mention that too many of the companies benefitting from the outsourcing are too pally with the govt. Didn't one of the company owners get a peerage off of Blair?

I'm considering joining the organised anti-ID campaign. They've got a whiff of libertarian about them though, which has put me off.

This government, with their penchant for inventing meaningless little 'offences', has come up with some great 'identity crimes':

- refusal to obey an order to register = £2500
- failure to submit to fingerprinting and biometric scanning = £2500
- failure to provide information demanded by the government = £2500
- failure to attend an interview at a specified place and time = £2500
- failure to notify authorities about a lost, stolen, damaged or defective card = up to 51 weeks in prison and/or a fine
- failure to renew a card = £1000
- failure to attend subsequent fingerprinting and biometric scanning when demanded = £1000
- failure to provide subsequent information when demanded = £1000
- failure to attend subsequent interview at specified place and time when demanded = £1000
- failure to notify authorities of any change in personal circumstances (including change of address) = £1000
- providing false information = up to 2 years and/or a fine

All this while setting rapists free and downgrading several types of murder to manslaughter.

[Provost Harrison]

Everyone knows that the only reason Blair won the last election was, basically, by default. People are still wary about voting for the Tories, and quite rightly so. And let's face it, he hardly won by an astounding majority...there are fewer and fewer people voting nowadays - not because of apathy, but because of disillusionment in the current political system as none of the parties have anything for them. Didn't Blair win the election by, actually, only just over a quarter of the voting population voting for him? Hardly high popularity. I'd never vote for the bastard after going into the Iraq war...

[Provost Harrison]

...oh and then there is my beloved MP from back home, John Prescott. The man is a complete walking disaster, isn't he?

[MOBIUS]

Originally posted by Caligastia
Law and order has been breaking down in the U.K. for a while now. You might find this column interesting Mobius.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_oh_to_be.html

Yes, I forgot about crime, and the abysmal education in this country too...

[kittenOFchaos]

Originally posted by MOBIUS


Yes, I forgot about crime, and the abysmal education in this country too...

You try teaching some of the little ****ers

In point of fact, as a teacher it is one of the few areas that I think has seen real benefits from increased funding. The negative is that New Labour has done nothing to making Higher Education valuable to the majority of people entering it. It is simply a waste of people's time and of money.

I have to agree on other points. New Labour used to lie, but don't bother as the opposition to them is like-minded and inept. It stinks so much that our Government is taxing us so greatly and then simply passing our money to private companies of their choice.

Surprise, surprise, who ends up on the board of directors of such companies? Cronies such as Alan Milburn.

To be honest I think it really shouldn't be a crime to kill any of these New Labour politicians, they aren't human, I'm sure if you kill one another will simply be hatched to take their place, parasites to the lifeblood of our nation.

[Provost Harrison]

It's what puts me off teaching as a career more than anything else...

[C0ckney]

Originally posted by Sandman


I'm considering joining the organised anti-ID campaign. They've got a whiff of libertarian about them though, which has put me off.

libertarians

ID cards really anger me as well, yet another attack on civil liberties by labour, and then we find out that they'll be phased in over several years and won't be compulsory for ages. so essentially, they won't give us any benefit and cost a fortune at the same time.

which kinda sums up this government really.

[Pekka]

"This government, with their penchant for inventing meaningless little 'offences', has come up with some great 'identity crimes'"

Are those for real, or just trolling??? No.. seirously?

If those are for freal, burn the city, kill every mofo leader and politician, start anarchy, chaos, bring the whole system down!

Libertarians lead the way

[Pekka]

Where did you get those? Can you provide a link?

[Sandman]

Here's a link to an anti-ID site, which I copied the 'crimes' from.

Here's a link to the ID bill itself. The language is rather technical. But you can still piece together the gist of it.

[Pekka]

I'm reading this document as I speak.. I haven't even gone through it, just taking samples bit by bit. THis is horrible. Why are these people who suggest this still alive?

This is truly horrendous. It's like from a bad movie or book. You seriously need to start riots, violent if need to be. These kind of things can never pass. Ever, not even 50%.

[Sandman]

Be quiet, Pekka. Otherwise the Secretary of State take away your ID for whatever reason he wants with no judicial oversight. Practically putting you under house arrest.

[Japher]

ohoh

[Pekka]

They can trade it for their nuts. That's how I deal with political types I don't like. Their tessies will be smashed.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

That article is hilarious. Check these out-

No one who knows Britain could doubt that it has very serious problems—economic, social, and cultural.

My feelings on crime stats are well known, but the writer of this article would do well to compare the WHO homicide stats of the US and UK. Secondly, Britain's economic performance over the past 10 years has actually been pretty good. The writer is pointedly coy about giving details.

Its public services—which already consume a vast proportion of the national wealth—are not only inefficient but completely beyond amelioration by the expenditure of yet more money.

How often have I heard Americans moaning that they can't afford to see a doctor? Notice you never hear that from a Briton.

Its population is abysmally educated, to the extent that in a few more years Britain will not even have a well-educated elite.

Bull****. Further/Higher education is at an all-time high in Britain, and the spending on Nursery and Primary education has been great- I speak as a parent.

Another story in the newspaper then caught my eye: the government wanted to ban smoking in British prisons.

At first sight, this might seem like a serious rather than a frivolous idea. More than nine-tenths of prisoners smoke, and, if they continue to do so, about a half of them will die prematurely as a result. The evidence that smoking is bad for the health has long since been overwhelming and incontrovertible. Therefore, the government could reasonably claim that the proposed ban was evidence of its solicitude for the welfare of the most despised of all sections of society, prisoners. And after all, what could be more serious, less frivolous, than saving lives, or trying to do so?

In general, I am not sentimental about the rights of prisoners. I don’t think the proposed ban infringes any of their rights; but it seems to me that there are plenty of reasons for treating prisoners decently and humanely other than the observance of their supposed rights. Decency and humanity are goods in themselves, after all. The proposed ban was not only hypocritical but gratuitously cruel and inhumane, and likely to prove ineffective into the bargain

Prisons are a workplace. Smoking is banned in workplaces. Take it up with the anti-smoking lobby.

She noticed some youths setting fire to the contents of a dumpster just outside our house, a fire that could easily have spread to cars parked nearby. She called the police.

“What do you expect us to do about it?” they asked.

“I expect you to come and arrest them,” she said.

The police regarded this as a bizarre and unreasonable expectation. They refused point-blank to send anyone.

Silly bint. Faced with a fire which could spread, she should have used the 999 emergency call to contact the Fire Brigade. The police are automatically notified of all 999 calls.

Two aspects of the case went unexamined in the newspapers. The first was that Kuba-Kuba’s parents were the owners of a grocery store specializing in African foods, and were deeply religious. The young man doubtless did not grow up in abject poverty, then; nor would he have derived his readiness for violence from anything his parents might have taught him.

Because grocers are never poor, and deeply religious people are never, ever violent with it, right?

This writer is on crack.