I’m aware its been quiet round these parts for the last 10 days or so - thats because I’ve been bumbling around Egypt and Jordan generally having a good time and forgetting about work and the UK.
Right now its quite hard to get angry about anything, so enjoy this photo instead.
You, you and you.
So I’ve blogged about this before. The Government wanting to log calls, emails, Internet access. The lot. For everyone. All the time.
Lovely isn’t it.
Of course they’re already claiming that it won’t be abused and only used for counter terrorism cases. Just like all those other laws that were only going to be used for counter terrorism cases.
And you can see why they’re so drawn to the ISPs holding the data. They’d love to hold it themselves, they’re quite open about this, but apparently ISPs will have to do it. Two simple reasons for this:
1) The ISPs will look like the bad guys when they pass on the cost
2) When the data gets lost the government will be able to point at the ISP
Then finally there’s this choice quote from Jacqui Smith:
Criminals are getting more sophisticated in using this technology and they are going to exploit it unless we do something.
She knows as well as you and I that serious criminals will be the one of the two groups of people who don’t get caught out by this as they’ll simply work round it (and don’t let them kid you its secure and failure proof - Oyster card anyone?). Of course the other group are MPs themselves - what are the odds that by the time this is developed there will be some far fetched reason for the need to keep MPs out of the loop.
Fucking wankers the lot of them.
Tonight I had the lucky privilege of seeing Show of Hands perform for the second time this year - tonight at The Stables in Milton Keynes, and a couple of months back at the Womad 2008 festival.
An excellent excellent two-piece (three-piece if you include Miranda Sykes) band who’s lyrical sentiments strike a chord with me and who’s music is excellent.
That said - if you ever get a chance to see them my recommendation is to go see them somewhere with a relaxed lighter atmosphere where people are not going to feel self conscious standing up dancing and having a good sing along: a festival is perfect.
I mean this in the most complimentary manner possible: for me they are the ultimate pub band. If they played to 75 people at my local real ale pub (the Wellington Arms, Bedford, Bedfordshire Pub of the Year) I’d be in hogs heaven. Perfect venue for them.
The Mail on Sunday believes that the next shifty dishonest bastard to be brought back into the Cabinet is David Blunkett.
What. The. Fuck.
Really.
What. The. Fuck.
Normally I’d dismiss this as pure speculation but with the resurrection of one fraudster this week, well, why not another? And don’t think for one minute that Blunkett isn’t as bad as Mandelson. As well as his two resignations when he got caught breaking various rules remember this is the man that lectures all in earshot of how important it is that the country has ID cards while in the employ of a company that makes considerable profits from them and has a vested interest in seeing them introduced in the UK. Oddly enough he doesn’t like to mention this.
There’s clearly no end to the level of contempt these fuckers hold us in. No end at all.
The more I think about this fraudster’s reappointment to the Cabinet I can only come to one of two conclusions:
1) Brown has well and truly lost the plot - to the point where I think questioning his mental state and general competence is entirely justified. A vote of no confidence seems an appropriate action.
2) Brown has done something sufficiently crooked or scandalous enough in the past that Mandelson has calculated, correctly, that with Brown’s weakened position bribery will guarantee him a Cabinet post.
You only have to look at Mandelson’s own past and the history between the two men to know that there’s nothing sane or clean cut about this decision. Any value Mandelson may offer is far outweighed by the perception of him by most people as a conniving dishonest fraudulent back stabber.
What scares me the most is that with the spineless nature of the Cabinet we’re going to have to stumble on under an embarrassingly incompetent Prime Minister and government until 2010.
Shudder.
Unbelievable. But true.
Perhaps they’re planning a new Dome for the olympics.
Or maybe Gordon is thinking ahead and planning on using the almost inevitable third resignation as a cover for some particularly bad news.
Getting rid of Ian Blair is one of the things I hoped would happen following the departure of Red Ken.
Former head of the Metropolitan Police and a complete wanker.
Bye bye Ian. You won’t be missed.
Very funny skit of an interview between Katie Couric and Sarah Palin.
I’m sorry but I just don’t get it. Why should the tax payer buy a failed business?
I’ve read commentary about restoring confidence in the system and limiting damage but if the system is so frail and so broken then maybe, just maybe, it should be allowed to collapse - trying to prop it up is simply postponing the inevitable.
Sure it’ll hurt, but new businesses will grow in the vacuum left by these failed institutions.