The Manifesto

A group of British Neo-Cons have come up with their own version of PNAC, which they have entitled “The Euston Manifesto” (any idea why they’ve named it after a train station?). I’ve had a look through it and it seems to be an attempted justification of TWAT with (an oddly placed) mention of support for Open-Source software. It has quickly been spoofed with The Houston Manifesto.

Anyway, to try and counter this, I’ve come up with my own manifesto, but I’m not sure which train station I should name it after: possibly the Piccadilly Manifesto (the one I use most often), or the Mill Hill Manifesto (after where I grew up).

Preamble

We the undersigned have a fresh vision for the future of the UK and the world in general. We believe that the following ideas, which admittedly, need fleshing out, are a good basis for an optimistic future of the UK.

Article 1: Democracy in the UK

We believe that Britain should finally become a functioning democracy, which entails having two Houses of Parliament (elected on a voting system which accurately reflects the public’s voting intentions), a written Constitution and a Bill of Rights.

Article 2: Freedom of Ideas

We believe that people should be free to put forward ideas, without fear of sanction (including those ideas known as “Holocaust Denial”) and that their ideas should be there to be freely challenged by others.

Article 3: Freedom of Assembly

We demand that all restrictions on the right to protest passed since TWAT was started, for example, the banning of protests within 1 km of Parliament, should be scrapped, as they have no place in a democracy.

Article 4: The Right to Liberty & to a Fair Trial

We demand that the ancient right of Habeas Corpus should be upheld, and that laws such as control orders or infinite detention in HMP Belmarsh should be scrapped forthwith, as they have no place in a democracy.

Article 5: Right to Privacy

We demand that the Identity Cards Act 2006 and the National Identity Register should be scrapped with immediate effect, as there are no proper reasons for them to be created; it will be a massive drain on the UK’s economy; will be a prime target for criminals; the technology is shown to be fundamentally flawed and the legislation is full of loopholes.

Article 6: The War Against Terror

We believe that the current way of pursuing The War Against Terror (hereinafter called “TWAT”), should be ended with immediate effect.

We believe that we should be tackling the causes of “terrorism”, namely the following:

• Invading Middle Eastern countries in order to install regimes which will do our bidding,


• Supporting Third World dictatorships, and


• Sorting out the Israel-Palestine problem once and for all.

Article 7: The War on Drugs

We believe that the War on Drugs should also be ended with immediate effect and prohibition has been shown to be a complete failure.

We acknowledge that there are three main aims of the current drug policy, to ensure that:

• There is very little, if any supply, of the substances,


• The prices will be extortionate as a result of the above, and


• The remaining quantity of the substances will be of very low quality.

We note that the effect of the current policy is that drugs are freely available to anyone who wants them; that they are of a very low cost and are of a relatively high quality.

We believe that a solution to this is to legalise, regulate and tax those substances that are currently prohibited, which would eliminate a major source of gang violence and violent crime against people and property.

We believe that heroin should be placed on prescription as well as providing safe places for its injection and that acid, grass, speed, E and coke should be available from licensed premises (in a similar way to tobacco and alcohol). We do not believe that crack should be available; however, as this is merely a very poor quality version of cocaine, once cocaine is legally available, very few if any people will actively seek it out and so the marketplace will eliminate it.

Article 8: Prostitution

We that prostitution should be legalised and regulated like in Holland and Germany as it would mean that they would no longer be exploited by criminal gangs and they would be able to work in safe, clean premises.

Article 9: Copyright

We believe that the concept of Crown Copyright should be abolished on the grounds that the taxpayer funds all “Government Papers” and so they should not have to pay again for documents created in their name.

Article 10: Public Transportation

We believe that the government should reverse it current short-sighted policy on public transportation, based on increased numbers of busses, and should give the go-ahead for the tram networks in Liverpool and Leeds (as well as other areas in the UK that have come up with feasible plans for them). We welcome the go-ahead to fund the extension of the Manchester Metrolink.

We also believe that the government should fund the building of a high-speed, magnetic-levitation-based train network, linking the major cities throughout the UK.

We also believe that the government should authorise the Superlink idea instead of the waste of time and money that is Cross Rail.

Signed

D-Notice

Sooner than you think!

According to the Financial Times, the government are planning to go into overdrive when it comes to issuing ID cards:

Labour plans to race forward with the contentious identity cards scheme to ensure the multi-billion pound infrastructure is up and running before the next election, neutering a Tory pledge to scrap it.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, this month said that ID cards were a monument to over-mighty government. “I promise you this – in office, we will pull it down,” he said.

But Andy Burnham, the home office minister responsible for the scheme, said Mr Cameron’s “throwaway line” would be rendered irrelevant by the rapid roll-out of the scheme. He said it would be a fait accompli by the 2008 or 2009 expected date of the next general election. “I’m keen to see plenty of ID cards in circulation come the next election,” he said. “The whole landscape will have changed by the time if – and it’s a big if – the Tories ever get anywhere near power.”

At first I thought “Fuck!”, but that I thought “The more the rush it, the greater the chance of a complete balls up occurring as they technology won’t be ready, especially with this government’s record with big IT projects,” so I’m in favour of this plan – the earlier the better, I say!

By the way, does anyone find it disturbing that the government are rushing through the ID card roll out simply because they want to screw the Tories (or a potential coalition government) into keeping them, not because they are confident about the technology?

I am a man, not a number!

From the International Herald Tribune:

Most South Korean Web sites require members to register by presenting a name and matching 13-digit "resident registration number.”

The number, issued by the government to every South Korean at birth, is the closest thing the country has to a human bar code. For four decades, it has been a dominant form of identification, used when people buy a house, open a bank account or apply for a library card. The first six digits are the holder's year, month and date of birth. The numbers also reveal sex and place of birth.

The system, however, has a big problem: It is relatively easy to steal names and their matching numbers.

The police say that some people with access to the databases of businesses that store customer information have been collecting them and selling them to data brokers. Web sites with poor firewalls are vulnerable to hackers who can extract the personal data. Indeed, it is possible to find names and matching ID numbers just by using Google.

“It has become too easy to get random resident numbers,” said Kim Young Hong at Citizens’ Action Network, which campaigns for greater online privacy. “The resident number no longer serves as a proper way of identification.”

Our ID cards will also have their own number, which will be as easily to fake as the Korean one.

Good news!

From the Sunday Telegraph:

The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran.

A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran.

It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme.

Yay! Another war in the Middle East which we can’t possibly win! What lies will they come up with this time?

While the Sunday Times has this:

SPY chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last “for many years to come.”

A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says the war in Iraq has “exacerbated” the threat by radicalising British Muslims and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks.

The memo was approved by Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, John Scarlett, the chief of MI6, and Sir David Pepper, head of GCHQ, the government’s eavesdropping centre.

The leak of the JIC’s official assessment — marked “top secret” — will alarm Blair as it appears to be directed at undermining the public statements in which he has denied that the war in Iraq has increased the terror threat from Al-Qaeda.

It says: “There is a clear consensus within the UK extremist community that Iraq is a legitimate jihad and should be supported. Iraq has re-energised and refocused a wide range of networks in the UK.”

Written in April last year and circulated to Blair and other senior ministers before the July attacks, it says: “We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.”

Two pieces of good news in one day!

More on ID Cards

You’re probably heard that the ID Cards Bill has been passed. I was going to say summat but I’ve been so pissed off, that I couldn’t do anything – paralysed by hatred, I guess…

Hell! Even Bloggers4Labour are opposed to them! as they say:

It's pessimistic, but perhaps the new ID infrastructure has to completely crash and burn as a lesson for future Governments.

Anyway, here’s an article about how badly things will turn out – hopefully, things will be even worse.

Also take up this (which I found over at Not Little England):

At the next General Election [and also in the up-coming Local Elections], at every Hustings, in every constituency up and down the country, we ask

Will you vote to abolish the National Identity Register?

If they don't say yes, we get them out. Regardless of party.

The Guardian has this:

People who opt out of having an identity card when they renew their passport will still have to pay the full £93 combined cost of both cards, the Home Office disclosed yesterday.

The decision is a setback to anti-ID card campaigners hoping to develop a boycott on the back of the last minute opt-out compromise which defused parliamentary opposition.

And, if Labour win the next election:

Mr Clarke also confirmed that he would expect the legislation making it compulsory for everyone to hold an ID card to be introduced after the next general election.

See also this, about the logistics of the system, especially the database.

ID cards news

From the NO2ID newsletter:

The BBC announced this week that they are considering issuing a photo ID card to accompany Blue Peter badges after the coveted trinkets have appeared on the auction website ebay. The badges have been touted on ebay as a way of gaining free entry to zoos and stately homes. The BBC are considering issuing bona-fide badge winners with a photo ID card, though they have made no mention of a centralised database or the inclusion of biometrics. We imagine the government will be watching this one closely for ways to cut the astronomical ID card scheme budget using washing up bottles and sticky back plastic.

They also link to this story:

The Conservatives will scrap ID Cards if they win the 2010 election, shadow home secretary David Davis promised last night.

"While I recommend that my party support the amendment, let there be no doubt that my first act when I take over as home secretary after the next election will be to do away with the Bill," declared shadow home secretary David Davis in the Commons last night.

I may vote Tory on this measure alone...