Your Information in the Govt's Hands

[teamsaint]

er, Simon, you really should read what people write, not what you think they might or should have written. I said the INCREASE in government spending, which WAS primarily down the the banks crisis.Until then, spending under labour was pretty close to that of the tories in % of GDP.

The NHS . Actually, everybody except you sees it for what it is, a backdoor privatisation.

Public sector pensions......my evidence is that the government won't publish the accounts. As you say on other matters, "if they have nothing to hide.........."
And did you not see the bit about many schemes already having been renegotiated? They have. Of course costs need to be met, and many unions had faced up to that.

As to your remarks about dumbing down of A levels. If you want to debate that, you really need to differentiate between grade inflation, which there probably has been, and lowering of quality, which I am certain there hasn't been. There is better teaching to exam criteria, but there is also much better teaching than in earlier times, in many areas. My kids all recently did A levels, and they were all taught far better than I was, how to structure an essay, for example. And I was lucky enough to go to a really good school, and got into a top university.(although they only took you if you went to the interview with a socialist worker tucked under your arm, obviously).

[MrGongGong]

I'd appreciate the data from which you draw this conclusion, please.

He can't hear you
and he makes it all up anyway

[Vile Consort]

NO you bloody wouldn't because your bigoted arrogance means that your "logic" dictates that no-one except your paranoid self could ever be right. Now I think you have broken the terms of your parole by referring to someone you are "ignoring" ........

In any case, Simon is fighting on the wrong ground by appealing to logic. The substance of the debate is the balance between the threat on the one hand and the infringement of our liberty involved in countering that threat. It is a matter of weighing up one thing against another, of proportionality, and of acceptability, and it is very subjective.

He has, of course, already realised this in his reply to Stunsworth's excellent rhetorical question, although he made the elementary error of mistaking it for a silly one.

[aeolium]

The bailout to the banks was a fraction of the total and according to reliable figures accounts for less than 25% of the problem.

What reliable figures are those?

This graph and accompanying commentary, based on figures from the Office for National Statistics, shows clearly that the financial bailout of the banks, and the economic consequences of the recession precipitated by the financial crisis, have enormously increased the national debt. While there was an increase in the debt as a percentage of GDP during the later years of the Labour government (after a decline in the earlier years), it is a complete myth to suggest that the real reason for the size of the current debt was that increase in government spending. It's certainly the case that the light regulation of the banks under Labour was a factor in the financial crisis, but the origin of that light regulation was in the policies of previous Conservative governments and if anything in opposition the Conservatives were even arguing for lighter regulation.

[Lateralthinking1]

Wow. Just heard about this news. What a liberal measure. Not in the manifestos or the Agreement of course. What is?

I can live with the proposal if every monitor of our communications stands for election. That won't happen so I can't live with it. Sorry about that chief.

I'm more with Winston Churchill as he was in that reverse version of the photo with the V for Victory sign. He has turned in his grave. And for David Davis here weirdly. What a dangerous rebel he is.

The "I have nothing to hide" people. Great argument. How about sticking a camera from Whitehall in your home? So keen now?

If the BNP ever get elected, or we become invaded and taken over by Islamic Terrorists, look at all the great infrastructure we have introduced to make enforced repatriation and beheadings easy for them?

The more opponents you fear, the more people you have upset. That is the big message for any Government. These new proposals suggest that ours fears that it has upset a lot of people.

We all know that widespread monitoring happens anyway. This attempt at a policy, which is probably expected to fail again,
is essentially just another warning gun message aimed at rioters and protesters.

I had hoped one of my phrases would be my phrase of the week. It isn't. It is this fantastic quote from Shami Chakrabarti which works on so many dark levels: "There is an element of "whoever you vote for, the empire strikes back"."

[Lateralthinking1]

.......Someone's just asked what this means for future voting on line. Will all the Respect and UKIP people be known and targeted? A very good point indeed.

The only thing is that every ballot paper has a number anyway. The fact that ears the size of jumbo jets have been spotted hovering over the streets in Bradford is though purely coincidence.

[Simon]

I was going to reply, Lat - but despite my affection for your posts in general, I'm afraid that a reply to anybody who thinks that Chakrabarti, who has made a nice earner thankyouverymuch out of political correctness and protest, has ever said anything worthwhile, would completely miss it's target!

[amateur51]

I was going to reply, Lat - but despite my affection for your posts in general, I'm afraid that a reply to anybody who thinks that Chakrabarti, who has made a nice earner thankyouverymuch out of political correctness and protest, has ever said anything worthwhile, would completely miss it's target!

"it's target" Simon?

Tut tut your dear parents did not pay for that expensive education so that you could come out with stuff like that

[eighthobstruction]

The govt should put some cctv on my combi-boiler....that's most likely what might blow me up....

[french frank]

In fact, the sort of perverts that would be caught in the net were the proposed changes to be agreed would be the bigger fish - the child pornography rings that cross many frontiers and the slavery rings that operate largely from eastern Europe and north Africa

Thank goodness for the original Maastricht Treaty, which laid the basis for police cooperation, and current EU cross-border crime legislation.

[eighthobstruction]

I see what you are doing there ff....

[french frank]

Sorry about the boiler, eighth.

For the record, I'm on the side of civil liberties. I have no idea where a line should be drawn - but I feel it's been passed.

[Stunsworth]

I have no idea where a line should be drawn - but I feel it's been passed.

There's no need for a line in this case. The bad guys are hardly likely to be sending each other unencrypted emails over an open internet link. Google 'tor', 'vpn', 'proxy server' or 'pgp' for an idea as to why the proposed legislation won't work against them.

[MrGongGong]

Thank goodness for the original Maastricht Treaty, which laid the basis for police cooperation, and current EU cross-border crime legislation.

Actually it's only the EU that will save us from loosing many of the things that we cherish as distinctive

cheese and beer , cheese and beer

Given that these things work on keyword and phrase identification if we ALL inserted BOMB random words into our DEATH TO DEMOCRACY emails and online DEATH TO THE USA posts then we could probably crash the whole thing Having met many geekwizards who write complex code for sound processing i'm sure that the whole thing could be brought down anyway ............

[Flosshilde]

Rather strangely there was nothing in the Guardian on this this morning, when it was headline news in most other broadsheets as far as I could see.