Labour - the new Nasty Party
Vicky Woods had an excellent article in the weekend's Telegraph called
When did Labour become the nasty party?
It makes some very powerful points about how the power of the state to boss ordinary people around has increased out of all proportion to justice or common sense.
Although the increase in state power which she rightly criticises has been particularly marked under the present government, there have been similar moves under governments of both parties and it is extremely important that the next Conservative government makes a serious effort to roll back the extent of bureaucratic interference in people's lives.
The article begins with a coruscating attack on the national children's database:
"I was stunned to read this week about the stupidly named "ContactPoint": the children's database that is almost ready to be launched.
"ContactPoint" will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11?million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social worker and the police.
I can think of 20 objections to such a database; but here are a few:
1) Who the hell decided that "ContactPoint" was a good idea and to whom are they accountable? Us? Don't think so.
2) Who the hell in government thought this was a good idea and why wasn't it scrutinised and argued over by Parliament? Answer: parliamentary scrutiny is a kind of yesterday idea these days; do keep up.
And 3) Why should any parent in Britain agree to have their three-year-old on a database? Answer: they won't need to; nobody would dream of asking for their consent."
As she rightly points out both the children's database and the National Identity Register, presented as tools to keep our identities safe and stop them being stolen by crooks, are all too likely to hacked into like any other database - that's if some incompetent clerk or employee of some badly run contractor doesn't lose the data on a CD or datastick where it gets into the wrong hands.
She concludes by saying
"These people are not our friends. They're a nasty bunch. Pray heaven I live long enough to vote them out."
You can read the full article
here.
When did Labour become the nasty party?
It makes some very powerful points about how the power of the state to boss ordinary people around has increased out of all proportion to justice or common sense.
Although the increase in state power which she rightly criticises has been particularly marked under the present government, there have been similar moves under governments of both parties and it is extremely important that the next Conservative government makes a serious effort to roll back the extent of bureaucratic interference in people's lives.
The article begins with a coruscating attack on the national children's database:
"I was stunned to read this week about the stupidly named "ContactPoint": the children's database that is almost ready to be launched.
"ContactPoint" will include the names, ages and addresses of all 11?million under-18s in England as well as information on their parents, GPs, schools and support services such as social worker and the police.
I can think of 20 objections to such a database; but here are a few:
1) Who the hell decided that "ContactPoint" was a good idea and to whom are they accountable? Us? Don't think so.
2) Who the hell in government thought this was a good idea and why wasn't it scrutinised and argued over by Parliament? Answer: parliamentary scrutiny is a kind of yesterday idea these days; do keep up.
And 3) Why should any parent in Britain agree to have their three-year-old on a database? Answer: they won't need to; nobody would dream of asking for their consent."
As she rightly points out both the children's database and the National Identity Register, presented as tools to keep our identities safe and stop them being stolen by crooks, are all too likely to hacked into like any other database - that's if some incompetent clerk or employee of some badly run contractor doesn't lose the data on a CD or datastick where it gets into the wrong hands.
She concludes by saying
"These people are not our friends. They're a nasty bunch. Pray heaven I live long enough to vote them out."
You can read the full article
here.
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