National Fraudit Office on eBay
[via the Register]
Here we have two CD-R's for auction. They are not blank, but seem to have some sort of database written to them. I found them in my local courier firm's sorting office, addressed to
"Her Majesties Audit Office - Child Benefits Section"
Satire isn't dead, it's just on eBay.
Ahem. More seriously, the Tories appear to have caught on (after ten years of apparently believing that Tony Blair won elections because he was good at his job) to the fact that New Labour can't run a whelk stall. No ideological society or project can - loyalty to the cause is ranked higher than actual competence and, just like Stalin, anyone with any competence is actively excluded, resulting in pissed off doctors, teachers and other professionals while 'radicals' like Lord Adonis fuck things up in complete safety from inside the walls. In the case of HMRC, the place has been outsourced, cut about, merged and even had its building sold to a tax haven company - even a working organisation is going to suffer there while management are distracted with the latest edict from the centre.
There's only so long that you can keep up the pretence of competence without it cracking. We're seeing New Labour ideological failures coming thick and fast (don't miss the report on the QinetiQ privatisation).
The only problem is that the Tories started all this, so yet again they're slightly stuck between their ideological Thatcherite roots and actually doing the right thing and holding the Government to account. It's good to see them pressing the ID card button repeatedly, since the likelihood of the wheels falling off that is approaching unity and I want to see massive public opposition start to grow. In which cause, no2id are asking for cash to fight it, I've stuck my hand in my pocket and blown the moths out of my wallet, and the more the better. We're doing the country a favour.
Tom Don`t be fooled by the
Tom
Don`t be fooled by the Tories they want ID cards MORE then New Labour. They are just trying to gain votes.
There's nothing actually
There's nothing actually *wrong* with wanting to gain votes (ideally, of course, we want New Labour to link ditching ID cards to a *gain* in popularity, by pointing out the truth behind the plastic and discrediting the idea).
I want to use the fact that the Tories are willing to throw ID cards on the bonfire to put them off for a generation or two - we need large outsourced Government IT schemes to be seen as fundamentally white elephants and money pits, to deter future governments from trying them on. It would also be a spike on the path to total surveillance police states and would be an important victory for democracy. Having Joe Public saying 'You can't trust the Government with your data' is a vital first step to getting people to give personal privacy the importance it deserves.
No1ID will fail, because
No1ID will fail, because even if they win every single court case,. Brown will put in a fix on the judges, and deny no2ID ANY victory or any positive result. Our PM is as much a stranger to democracy as the last one..
Tom is talking bollocks. Nu Labour are desperate for ID cards, because they fundamentally distrust the people, and feel they need to control them in any way at all. Hence their desperation to track car journeys (Galileo), retain your DNA even when innocent, know everything about you down to what you last asked your doctor about. The Tories don't give a stuff about ID cards, because they are no damn use for hunting foxes. Who unaccountably, won't have to carry them.
"The Tories don't give a
"The Tories don't give a stuff about ID cards"
Beachhutman
You could be right in saying that?. The Tories would rather microchip us all and keep track of all our movements by satellite. Of course they will start by compulsory microchipping criminals and in a short time everyone. They might make it so you have no choice...
"We will be living in a cash-free society by 2012, if the chief of Visa is to be believed"...
http://tinyurl.com/2dgsax
Barcelona clubbers get chipped...
http://tinyurl.com/vwvga
24HRS a Day...
http://tinyurl.com/ypxx83
Of course it won`t happen will it?.
I was about to call my bank
I was about to call my bank to change the account number, as I like the idea of their having to do it for millions of customers at once, but was struck by the thought that I would also have to tell HMRC (who make the payments) so not much point, really...
Let's not forget the
Let's not forget the totalitarian marxist leninist (trotskyite and communist) roots of so many of Nu Labors spring. Dogma, ideology and theory is all - reality which most of us experience and live in doesn't really exist for them.
That Eric Forth's all right - but he actually had a real job instead of being a lawyer, a polytechnic lecturer, a journalist or a political advisor.
(Sorry, interesting slip. Eric Forth was of course the Tory who used to be a Trot - like Janet Daley whoever that bonkers Irish woman hack is, to say nothing of Melanie Philips. I was thinking of the Labour Cabinet Minister who used to be a postman).
"To allow Local Authorities
"To allow Local Authorities to borrow money on the same terms as Housing associations would cost the public purse an extra £12 Billion over the next three years, this is simply unaffordable."...
http://tinyurl.com/32rwbq
But it is affordble to bail out Northern Wreck with £40 Billion.
New Labour
"After promises that the systems at Pirbirght were sound, they appear to have broken down yet again.
"It is a relief that the virus appears not to have leaked into the environment.
"However, we cannot have a situation where farmers in Surrey and across the country are in a constant state of fear that their livelihoods could be devastated by sloppy practice at a Government sponsored laboratory...
http://tinyurl.com/33hpky
All the repulsive ideologies
All the repulsive ideologies that have plagued mankind for generations are converging - big States are now run as PLC's: the US, UK , Japan and most others. While big capital takes on the role of the State at every level: witness Halliburton in Iraq, BP in Central Asia, Capita and Bechtel in the UK..
Some countries (China) enjoy an ecumenical mixture of both horrors - The communist state
acting as security consultant for foreign investors, guaranteeing human degradation in the interests of big capital.
Neo-Labour (statist authoritarians) prefer the Chinese approach - the state as corporate partner/ accessory. The Conservatives (statist reactionaries) reject this approach, preferring outright corporate tyranny with the state deployed purely to destroy trade unionists and other malcontents on behalf of big money.
By and large big business finds the New Labour model more acceptable and less disruptive to the smooth operation of the machine. However, all agree that the public should have some (limited) role in selecting which group of reactionary technocrats rips them off, hence demonstration elections every few years. They're harmless to the countries ownership, and welcomed as an alternative to football matches and foreign wars during quiet periods....!
Our PM is as much a stranger
Or indeed, any of them. It's hard to get a politician to like the process by which he can be thrown out of office. Asking a politician to look after democracy is like asking Rose West to babysit your daughter.
 Cassandra You forgot to
Cassandra
You forgot to mention that big business, big money has bought the british armed forces lock stock and barrel and the USA armed forces and the...well the list goes on and on.