Tuesday, July 8, 2008 Wearing my Free Society hat, I have been invited to contribute to a new think tank blog on the Telegraph website. My first post can be found HERE. Comments welcome.
Thursday, May 8, 2008 The BBC is reporting that "workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers". I wonder how soon smokers and other people with "bad" or "anti-social" habits will be added to that list? Story HERE.
Friday, August 3, 2007 
Remarkable front page story in the Daily Mail yesterday. Difficult to know how much of it to believe (August is the silly season, after all) but the essence of it was that drivers stopped for speeding - or even failing to wear a seatbelt - could soon be placed on a DNA database for life. "The most trivial offences, such as dropping litter, would also lead to samples being taken under sweeping new powers which police are demanding."
The police believe that taking the a DNA sample - even in these circumstances - will make it easier to solve future crimes. A cartoon that accompanied the story featured a motorist saying to a policeman: "Honestly officer, I did not stick out my tongue at you ... I was merely offering a DNA sample." You've got to laugh. Or perhaps not.
Full story, which also appeared in the London Evening Standard on Wednesday, HERE.
Simon Clark
"Smokers are being fingerprinted and timed when they pop outside a top London nightclub for a cigarette. Koko, in Camden High Street, will only allow revellers seven minutes outside and is insisting on scanning their prints." Full story HERE.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 
An NHS Tayside smoking policy leaflet has the following advice for 'In-Patients Who Want To Smoke': "Staff will advise you that it is not in your best interests to leave the clinical area to smoke. Should you choose to leave to smoke a note will be made in your records [my italics]."
The good news is that "If you suffer symptoms of nicotine withdrawal while an in-patient, you can request staff to prescribe nicotine replacement therapy." Well, it's good news for the pharmaceutical industry.
Simon Clark
Bruce Parish, who alerted me to the above, adds, "Medical staff screen all patients on admission so they know whether they smoke or not, and this information will already be stated as 'a note in your records'. Either this information is being duplicated repeatedly by overworked ward staff for no reason, or it is intended to intimidate." I'll let you be the judge.
Sunday, April 15, 2007 
Hats off to the Institute for Public Policy Research. New Labour's most influential think-tank knows how to attract publicity. Writing in the latest issue of Public Policy Research, the IPPR magazine, Observer columnist Jasper Gerrard says that Britain should consider raising the legal drinking age to 21. Failing that, he suggests making 18-year-olds carry smart cards "which record how much they have drunk each night and making it an offence to serve more alcohol to anyone under-21 who had already consumed more than three units". (Full report HERE.)
Can Gerrard be serious? Sadly, I think he is. Nor is he alone. His proposal is similar to one put forward by a doctor in Scotland who last year suggested that people should be limited to three units of alcohol when they go to the pub. The idea was dismissed as ludicrous and impractical but, thanks to Gerrard, the idea has resurfaced but with one significant 'improvement' - the smart card. Of course the idea is still ridiculous - and worryingly authoritarian - but others will no doubt repeat it in the hope that it gets taken up by campaigners and politicians who are either on a mission to 'protect' us from ourselves or will do anything to justify their existence.
Meanwhile, keep an eye on the IPPR. Earlier this month Simon Retallack, the organisation's head of climate change, called for tobacco style health warnings to be displayed on holiday ads, warning people about the possible damage that flights and cars will do to the environment. What next? A ban on short-haul flights? Weekend breaks abroad? Or perhaps we'll be issued with a smart card that monitors how far we've travelled by car or plane and prevents us from going any further once we've reached our 'limit'.
Saturday, April 7, 2007 
In response to a previous post, Caty Crawford writes: "What do people think about the news that more CCTV cameras are to be fitted with loudspeakers to allow security staff to chastise people who, for example, litter? Is it just coincidental that the Government has announced this ahead of the smoking ban?"
'Talking' CCTV cameras are nothing new. Petrol stations have had them for years, the idea being that if anyone has a problem operating the pump a member of staff can guide them through the process without leaving the till. Of course, most people now know how to operate a self-service pump so the system is very rarely used, but it did happen to me once and the sound of an anonymous, disembodied voice barking orders via a concealed speaker is quite disorientating.
Meanwhile some hospitals have already invested public money installing similar systems to stop people dropping fags ends outside the building. The irony is that increased litter is one of the consequences of banning smoking in all enclosed public places; and in order to counteract that, the authorities have to employ more officials, install more CCTV cameras, issue more fines, and so it goes on.
Many people - Home Secretary John Reid among them - will argue that if you do nothing wrong 'talking' CCTV cameras won't affect you. But there's a bigger issue here - the fact that someone, somewhere, is watching, waiting to chastise you if you put a foot out of place. I'm not condoning those who drop litter or engage in other anti-social activities, but surely education is better than this oppressive, Big Brother approach?
A few months ago Austin Williams, who runs the excellent Future Cities Project, put the explosion of CCTV cameras like this: imagine that instead of a CCTV camera on every corner, a policeman with a pair of binoculars is watching and recording your every move. Viewed in that light, CCTV cameras take on a very different complexion.
