U-turn of the day = ID Cards

Wow, these huge decision changes are coming thick and fast now.  FormerHome Secretary David Blunkett, after years of pushing the “We must have ID cards to prevent terrorism” button has suddenly decided that since everybody should have a passport anyway, and the law requires these to be biometric digital things these days maybe an additional card system as well is just an enormous waste of time and tax payers money.

Well done David, you only started wasting cash on this idiotic scheme in 2001.  So today’s question is:

How much did it cost the British Taxpayer for Labour to decide that ID Cards are not a good idea?

• BBC News – Blunkett seeks ‘end to ID Cards’
• The Telegraph – Senior cabinet ministers ‘discussing dropping ID Card scheme’
• The Telegraph – Scrapping ID Cards should be just the start

Another Labour U-turn

Last October Jaqui “Big Brother” Smith wanted to force the monitoring and storage of all internet and communications traffic into a single government database.  The plan was described at the time by the BBC as “Giant database plan Orwellian”.   Industry and politicians spoke out, liberty groups clamoured in concern, and those of us working in the tech industry wondered how the hell it could be done without creating a single point of failure that would be the dream target for hackers world wide.

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen interest in this topic rise again, when desperate to make up for a flotilla of failed policies, poor management, and economic idiocy the Labour bandwagon decided to keep pushing the “It is to keep you safe from terrorists” button (after all it worked so well for George Bush).

Fortunately for the people of Great Britain this new half baked plan has failed, and Jaqui Smith has launched a dramatic U-turn (The Telegraph – Jaqui Smith scraps plan for email database) but don’t start cheering yet.  She is instead suggesting that the communications companies keep these records for her (BBC News – Plan to monitor all internet use).  So look forward to higher internet and phone bills as the firms have to invest in massive data storage facilities to securely hold all the details of your phone conversation with Aunty, or your emails to your school friends.

We’ve moved one point of failure to many privately owned points.  Will the phone company hold your records safer than the Government, who knows, possibly they are less likely to leave laptops in trains or taxis, but that is only because you’d get fired for that kind of idiocy in the private sector.  That being said, if Jaqui Smith faced the wrath of Donald or Alan on “The Apprentice” she’d have been fired in week 1!.  This “save everything” solution doesn’t address the real problem, that intelligence gathering is becoming more complex in the digital age and without serious investment in both technical solutions and sensible legal checks and balances you rapidly create more problems than you solve.

Question: Why are these records really being kept?

If it was phrased as

“the British Government plans to tap every phone in the UK“

there would be far more outrage, but this is indeed what they are suggesting.  The only differences are they’ll be bugging your email too, and they’ll let the private sector keep the tapes!  What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Messing with time

The stupidity of the incumbent British Government knows no bounds, and today they’ve made two great leaps towards further idiocy!

First off, a quick pet peve of mine.  Speed doesn’t kill, reckless driving kills.  Even the government’s own statistics show that excessive speed plays an active part in less than 5% of injury causing accidents (See here for details and DfT facts).  So, lets slow down all our A roads shall we: The Telegraph – A-road speed limits to be reduced to 50mph Wow, they’l cut a third of road deaths by changing a rule that according to their own data only impacts one twentieth of accidents.  I’m pretty sure 5% is less than 33.3%! Could it be that Gordon Brown and the Labour massive are actually just realising that all the speed camera revenue is dropping as people figure where the cameras are, but by randomly changing speed limits around the country they can create some more revenue!  I hear the pennies jingling!

Next up, TIME!

The Telegraph – Putting clocks forward two hours in summer ‘would save hundreds of lives’

Yes, not happy with ruining Great Britain PLC. they’ve decided to target time now.  As you know all time is calculated from the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England. So the crazy scheme is to have Britain operate between 1 and 2 hrs ahead of the Prime Meridian, again to save lives!!!  As the official report claimed:

A move to “double summertime” would also yield benefits including energy savings from lighter evenings, more opportunities for sport and leisure and a boost to British business from being permanently aligned with other western European nations.

So let me show you the times that the sun rises and sets at:

	GMT Sunrise	GMT Sunset	Current Rules Sunrise	Current Rules Sunset	Nu Labour Wacky Time Sunrise	Nu Labour Wacky Time Sunset
Dec 21st 2008	08:03	15:52	08:03	15:52	09:03	16:52
June 21st 2009	04:42	21:20	05:42(bst)	22:20(bst)	06:42	23:20

As you can see the change for the average worker (assumed to be working from 9am to 5pm and commuting between 7am and 7pm) is no difference whatsoever.  Light changes very little during their main travel times, and in the winter they still commute in the dark.

However, for schoolchildren the journey to school (leaving 8am in class at 9am) is much worse in the winter, with them arriving at school in darkness!  Oh, and don’t forget that the chances of alcohol fueled violence on the streets of a Friday or Saturday night will go up in the summer as it stays light enough to cause mayhem into the wee small hours with this brilliant plan.

How idiotic is this?  They admit themselves that:

“There would be a particular impact on northern Scotland resulting from the darker mornings,” it says. There could also be “negative impacts” on areas such as agriculture and the construction industry.

What? So you can accept creating more stressful and dangerous working conditions for two major industries and a large number of people living in the north, but not worry because you’ll be okay in your state funded second homes in London!  Who cares that real people are inconvenienced by your stupidity!

At a time when Gordon Brown’s lousy Government is struggling to look like it has half a brain in the entire cabinet it is reports like this that make you wonder how crazy they really are!

Gordon Brown “I will do better”

Good old Gordon, always there to raise a laugh as you sip the morning coffee and wonder what is happening back home in your green and pleasant land.  The BBC are quoting him as saying:

“I always want to do better and I will do better,”

BBC News – I will do better, Brown pledges

Not to put it mildly, but nothing like setting yourself an easy goal Gordon.  If you had fancied a challenge you’d have said the opposite because you would have to struggle hard to do things much worse.

As Chancellor from 1997 until 2007 Gordon failed to implement any of the banking reforms that are now being suggested.  He never suggested policies that would prevent greedy banks from failing and requiring nationalisation to keep the bank’s customers afloat.  He took the reigns of a system recovering from the recession of the early nineties and carefully, and cautiously steered it into the recession of 2008!

he added he was “never complacent” and “always wanted to test what we have done against what has been done previously and learn lessons from that”.

BBC News – I will do better, Brown pledges

Unfortunately the lesson appears to be “Shouldn’t have done that, whoops, shouldn’t have done that either”. On a plus note he did state that he feels the cabinet is united behind him.  Is that like Brutus and his fellow plotters behind Caesar?  Did he not see the YouGov survey for the Sunday Times of 1200 Labour party members that suggested 53% thought Mr Brown was “indecisive and dithering” and just 34% thought he had an exciting vision for the future?

To top it all off with a political soundbite cherry on top of this steaming pile of nonsense he stated that the current economic problems (nurtured over 10 years by his policies):

could not be dealt with through soundbites and slogans but through “wisdom” and “big decisions”.

And then went on to announce free nursery places for two year olds. Good old Gordon, those 2 years olds might be the only ones naive enough to vote for another Labour term come the general election.

So much for fuel assistance

Another huge Gordon Brown/Labour (mis)government success is being reported today.  It appears that the “Winter Fuel Assistance Package” announced by Gordon earlier this week may actually increase your winter fuel bills since the government cannot stop the fuel companies from passing the cost of the package on to you, the fuel paying customer!

So not only was the plan idiotic in the first place by offering funding to the fuel companies to offer discounts rather than the fuel customers that need it (pensioners, the disabled, those on low income support) to pay their bills but it also allows the fuel companies to make extra revenue by charging their customers more for any work carried out as part of the package. Don’t worry though, Business Secretary John Hutton has said that there would be no justification for them doing so.  Mr Hutton is obviously not aware that his government’s policy provides half-price insulation and frankly;

Half-price loft insulation is a great deal, except when you can’t afford to run the lights and the electric fire at the same time because your state pension isn’t enough to pay for both and food!

- me

BBC News – Fuel Policy ‘may end up on bills’

— update — update — update —

It appears Gordon couldn’t even get the announcement right.  When it was announced that “all pensioners would recive free insultaion” the policy actually states “all pensioners over 75″.  So if you’re a woman between 60 and 75, or a man between 65 and 75 it might be time to ask your MP if you qualify for free insulation like the nice Prime Minister said!

BBC News – Brown attacked on pensioner deal