A very British disease
Friday, February 15, 2008 If you think surveillance cameras, listening devices and so on are a worldwide phenomenon, read today's main feature on The Free Society blog. Last weekend Dr Eamonn Butler, director of the Adam Smith Institute, took some American relatives to Ely Cathedral. On the way, he writes, they passed through an ‘average speed check’ system.
Our car was photographed at the beginning and the end, and our registration number logged by number-recognition software ... So the authorities knew exactly where we all were, and when. And we would not have escaped scrutiny by going on the train or by bus, because they all have surveillance cameras too. And if we had walked, we would probably have shown up on at least two dozen of the four million CCTV cameras around Britain.
Once inside the cathedral they were asked, quite reasonably, for a donation. Eamonn was asked if he would like it to qualify for gift aid.
I gave my postcode and house number, and in an instant my name and those of my family flashed up on the teller’s screen. My US relatives were shocked that we should be so minutely catalogued and easily accessible. Given the incongruity of this high-tech intrusion happening in an eleventh-century stone vaulted cathedral porch, I must say I was surprised too.
Full article HERE. Comments welcome.
Reader Comments (8)
There is an article in "The Guardian" highlighted by the newsfeed on FOREST's homepage that shows the degree of control the Government is prepared to consider. A Prof Le Grand proposes that smokers should be required to buy a permit to allow them to buy cigarettes. The permit would be granted on the completion of an application form which, he suggests, could be made "sufficiently complex". This is to deter smokers from applying.
So, not only do we have surveillance of our movements and personal data being captured at every turn, we will also have a database of smokers. Will this be used to inform the NHS so that we can be denied treatment? Will we eventually be required to state how heavily we smoke and to provide proof of purchase of cigarettes. Will state benefits be denied to people who are on the database? How long before a personal ration is proposed and the permit has to be stamped whenever cigarettes are bought?
Not content with vilifying smokers whilst grabbing huge amounts in tax, HMG would have us seek permission to indulge in a legal product.
I really didn't think I could feel angrier than I already do but I am absolutely raging.
Ho-hum. it just means I but even more black market cigarettes. Stuff their permits, they're irrelevant.
What an absolutely perfect title for such a jumped up, jump on every bandwaggon, twerp this man is.
"Prof Le Grand" has held so many possitions in such a variety of jobs that it is hard to actually pin him down to one thing that he might do best, apart from self publicising of course.
I just read his cv, so to speak, and this extract stood out a mile:
"He is one of the principal architects of the UK Government's current public service reforms introducing choice and competition into health care and education"
Choice? a very unfortunate choice of word to be used in connection with this man, I would say.
If you do want to spoil the rest of your day, then please read more about this self centered man here Http://www.julian.legrand.me.uk/
What about those who don't have a source of supply or if your source runs dry and you can't buy cigs because you haven't got a permit? Maybe my imagination is running away with me but I can just see the backlog of permits that no-one gives a stuff about issuing but without which smokers can't buy cigarettes. If you're caught smoking will the plastic police demand to see your permit failure to produce which will result in prosecution because "you must be smoking on the black market unless you can prove otherwise"?
I wouldn't put it past this Government.
My message to Prof Le Grand: I did not vote for a Government that listens to someone in the unelected position that you hold, who justifies his generous salary by dreaming up ideas that ride roughshod over the autonomy and freedom from control that adults in a free society should have to use a perfectly legal product.
I remember being told at school, that we lived in the frest country in the world.
Sorry Chas, don't know how long ago you were at school, but perhaps the brainwashing and propoganda was starting then!
Teach the children that we live in the freest country and they won't want to stray, but will tow the line as they believe they are freer than they would be anywhere else!
Thank God for cheap airlines - they have probably opened up more education than the schools can manage to dole out!
Like Joyce, I am absolutely bloody fuming at this moment in time I don't need a cigarette, there is enough smoke pouring out of my ears and I am indoors, at work!!
This so called Prof Le Grand is a complete fool to even suggest such a scheme. The sheer cost of administrating the collection of £10.00 per smoker is a non-starter.
I fear our politicians will listen to such garbage and without a whimper rubber stamp the further erosion of our few freedoms. Where is the backbone from our politicians to savage such a nonsensical idea and sack this man.