The government is reportedly considering a centralised database of all phone calls and e-mails to improve security and allow public authorities to investigate more easily.
It’s occurred to me that aside from the obvious privacy implications, surely the government would have access to a vast majority of internal political party communications. This is very dangerous territory.
This case is a bit of a mess. The Times rightly points out that it is an illustration of the chaos over legal aid fees. Getting £175 in a day might seem plenty, but the comments are worth reading - there’s a huge amount of work that goes on outside court.
If something like this has happened already, it makes you wonder how often this is going to happen.
It’s like a trojan horse has wheeled into Downing Street, and the hatch is stuck
Rory Bremner on the general consensus that nobody knows the cabinet
I’ll say it now: I would prefer Barack Obama to win.
But here’s an interesting article. It turns out Hillary has been claiming that she landed in Bosnia under sniper fire.
According to this video though, she didn’t.
Not sure it’ll bring her campaign down entirely, but damaging nonetheless.
Dom kindly sent me a link to a Met page with posters. Have a look at the one about photography. Here’s the quote:
Thousands of people take photos every day.
What if one of them seems odd?
Metropolitan Police Service - Counter-terrorism advertising campaign
My political views have been, well, less than subtle on this website, but I’ll try to keep this one from being too aggressive.
I’ve just received my ballot paper for the internal elections, and was promised that a copy of the manifesto of each candidate would be available online. It might have been there, but I certainly couldn’t find it.
I just spent half-an-hour trawling around the internet just so I could vote, when it should be a fairly simple process.
You know who you are, get your act together.
Jack Straw is apparently due to make a speech in which he is to drop hints about a written British constitution, partly based on a Bill of Rights.
This on its own would be fine, some would say inevitable. But the wording of the BBC article linked below is concerning. Firstly, it’s not just a Bill of Rights (as previously proposed by David Cameron and also suggested by the government), but instead a
Bill of Rights and Responsibilities [which] would spell out an individual’s obligations to society and place a new emphasis on the concept of civic duty
This is troubling for a start. A constitution has traditionally been used to establish rights and the structure of the country, not to impose responsibilities on the population. Often actions by a government will be accused of being “unconstitutional”, but can you really label the actions of an individual who is not doing their “civic duty” as “unconstitutional”? At what point will these be clarified in the form of a series of new laws and crimes?
The wide ambit of a constitution means that any subsequent crimes are likely to be broad as well.
Also alarming is the comment that “the government is ready”. There is no clue in the article as to whether or not this is BBC elaboration, but if this is the precise wording of Jack Straw’s speech then the government need to completely reexamine their position.
The implementation of any legislation or bill, especially a bill of rights or full-blown constitution, is not a matter of whether the government is ready, but whether or not the country is ready. Given the vast amount of negative media coverage over the Human Rights Act, I would suggest that this question needs to be taken very seriously, and not merely glossed over because the government thinks that it is ready.
Open thread: what should the bill contain, and do we need it?
[From BBC NEWS | Politics | Straw's written constitution hint]
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | U2 manager ‘wants end to piracy’
In particular, this manager is keen to see the ISP’s pay money to the artists.
If you were a magazine advertising stolen cars, handling the money for stolen cars and seeing to the delivery of stolen cars, the police would soon be at your door
Is it me, or is this completely the wrong analogy? Surely the correct analogy is a council which provide and build roads, or someone who builds a garage. The fact that roads and garages are used by stolen cars doesn’t mean you should sue or even prosecute the people responsible for the roads and garages.
Paul McGuinness has at least partly blamed the record companies. He blames them for the wrong thing, but at least he blames them. Further, he’s actually standing up for the artists, although he might want to start with the contracts that the artists get with the record labels in the first place.
Any thoughts on whether he’s got it right?
Goodbye Mr Tangerine-Man. You will be missed, in particular with regards to your single-minded mission to destroy your own party and the hilarity that ensues.
cunningtitle suggests a slot as the voice on Celebrity Big Brother.
Long-term readers of cunningtitle (from before the move from .co.uk to .com) may recall a small category of posts labelled HainWatch, since Mr. Tangerine-Man is something of a celebrity for this site after effectively (and fancifully) saying:
I think Guantanamo Bay should close, and the Prime Minister agrees with me [For reference, NOT a direct quote]
Unfortunately it looks like Mr. Hain’s internal demolition of the Labour Party may soon come to an end after an undeclared donation.
This morning one of the BBC’s leading stories was the George Osborne had failed to declare nearly half-a-million pounds to the Commons. To be fair to him, the Commons officials had told him he didn’t need to, but it was clearly being dug-out as an effort to deflect the blame of Peter Hain.
Only it obviously hasn’t worked.
It’s 2:15pm, and now the BBC has replaced the story with another entitled “Cameron warns Hain over donations“. The story about Osborne has been relegated to a few paragraphs at the bottom of this article, and blamed squarely on the Mail on Sunday.
My best guess as to why this change has happened is that the BBC has decided the story is unspinnable, and have just decided to give-up and continue the attacks on Our Orange Friend. It might have something to do with Cameron’s fairly solid defence of Osborne on Andrew Marr, or maybe they’ve just given up hope.
And to those who would say that if he doesn’t declare donations he isn’t doing his job properly, I would point out that breaking rules and mucking things up is Peter Hain’s job. And he is doing it very well too.
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