Sports Heart Rate Monitors – Talking Politics – Yahoo! News UK
Talking Politics – Yahoo! News UK
By Ian Dunt
It’s rarely words that give it away. It’s the assumptions behind the words
Gordon Brown gave civil libertarians some breadcrumbs in his speech to conference today. For one thing, ID cards will not be made compulsory in the next parliament, although Alan Johnson had already announced this.
On biometric passports, Brown promised no further information would be required than that needed for current passports. The idiocy of this statement is immediately obvious. If the passport includes biometric information it will necessarily have more information than the previous passports, which didn’t. Hence the name.
But it wasn’t the flimsy nature of the liberal offerings which gave the game away – it was the assumptions. This is the policy, announced today, on teenage pregnancy: Parents on benefits between the age of 16 and 17-years-old will be put in shared, supervised housing where they will “learn responsibility and how to raise their children properly”.
Yes, we have a problem with teenage pregnancy in this country. And we have a problem with anti-social behaviour. It’s also quite clear these two issues are linked up together, although which is a cause of which is difficult to establish. Presumably they endlessly cause each other. But Brown’s solution to this problem tells us everything we need to know about him; it tells us the assumptions he works under. He believes the state has all the answers. That it can monitor and re-educate people – for that is precisely what is being proposed. That it has the moral right to come and take away people who happen to be poor and pregnant and forcibly re-house them. That the state knows how to parent. That the state is always right. A stark and dangerous new line is being crossed.
There was a hint of what was to come earlier in the speech when he described the market. It’s a passage intended for a totally different demographic – lefties and trade unionists and those undone by the financial crisis, basically. He believes in state action in this area, so it’s perfectly coherent – necessary even – for him to believe in state action in correcting societal problems.
This thinking has always been foolish nonsense. The state’s role in the economy has no moral or political equivalence to its role in society’s affairs. Only Stalinists and mad right-wing libertarians (social Darwinists, to all intents and purposes) believe otherwise.
The plan was coupled with a raft of other measures to tackle anti-social behaviour. Parents of children who breach Asbos will be given orders along with their kids. Asbos themselves managed to dissolve basic legal standards, for example by instigating legal proceedings on actions which weren’t actually crimes and allowing hearsay evidence into proceedings. We can now see where that reasoning has taken us. People are going to be punished despite having done nothing wrong.
There is a crime known as negligence. This is a suitable vehicle with which to tackle the parents who allow children to run wild. Simply punishing them for being related to someone is a dangerous legal precedent.
Last year, Brown addressed the Broken Britain agenda during his conference speech as well, although in a far more fleeting manner than he did today.
“Nothing has ever broken this country,” he roared. It affected me, because I’m liable to be moved by patriotic sentiment. Minutes afterwards I realised the rhetorical trick he had used. He had swapped one thing – patriotism – for another – crime – and used a linguistic sleight to mask it. I remember feeling angry. He had used my patriotism against me.
Today he took a different approach to a Conservative agenda which Labour strategists clearly believe to be a vote winner. He finally addressed anti-social behaviour and Broken Britain. And he did it in the most dangerous, illiberal way imaginable.
After a decade in power, Mr Brown suddenly realised he was far further to the left than he previously thought, and we saw the results in his conference speech last year. Suddenly greedy bankers and unrestrained markets were the bad guys, not the saints they had previously been made out to be. Now he realises that anti-social behaviour has to be addressed, something he seemed disinterested in until now.
But nothing has changed. The ruthless, authoritarian heart of this government is still in place.
It’s not in the words. It’s in the assumptions.
Ian Dunt is a brave man to slag off attempts to tackle anti-social behaviour on the day after all the papers caried stories about how a gang of kids were allowed to terrorise a mother and daughter to death. Normally I can follow his reasoning but in this article he seems very confused.
Why wait till June let's get rid of these idiots NOW!
The state controlling this and the state controlling that? These are very dangerous times and I'm telling you here and now, whatever this un-Labour Government have implimented or want to implement and which have and will choke our civil liberties and freedoms still further, the Conservatives, when they are elected next year, will adopt and run with every bit as much as the last lot. Getting rid of the old and bringing in the new, is just a way to take peoples eye off what is really happening. When Governments talk about borrowing money, who do they borrow money off? These people who Governments borrow money off, are the people who really run our country. They are the financial puppeteers and elected governments are merely their puppets.
At long last a political correspondant who is prepared to say what I have been saying since Bliar was first elected. Political control of all walks of our life has crept in under the radar. As for the sun I have never voted labour in all of my 63years and stopped taking the Sun years ago although I have been a life long reader of the MIRROR. You cannot find a more politically biased newspaper in Christendom yet it allows me to understand the left (for you can be assured that this is what Nu Labour always has been.) Who saw capitalism apparently working and therefore embraced its mechanics whilst still following left wing projects (wasting money) whilst claiming GROWTH will pay for them. Brown's 'No more Boom & Bust' was a classic when you consdier that both are the result of economic cycles in the various countries around the WORLD – Buy votes -get elected -tighten the belt. When each country in the world is buying votes = BOOM, all countries Tightening belts at same time = BUST.
All politicians are the same, however, when the financial system gets too greedy at the same time as bust = Deep RECESSION. As Alexander Merecat say “Simple”
We now have to return to a time where we are all responsible and not reliant on THE STATE. Take responsibility for our actions because THE STATE does NOT KNOW BETTER. Election before XMAS Brown and no more legislature while you are in Power. If your administration had a brain between the lot of you you would turn this country into a 5th rate nation instead of the LITTLE(minded) BRITAIN you have turned us into!!!!!!!!!!
Having always thought of the Sun as tory and the mirror as the true labour champion the fuss just emphasises how some rich powerful people can be quite dangerous. Anyone who is in any doubt can look at history when you had to pay to see the doctor or USA to know as bad as it is we are the lucky ones as much as I agree it doesnt feel like it.
Having always thought of the Sun as tory and the mirror as the true labour champion the fuss just emphasises how some rich powerful people can be quite dangerous. Anyone who is in any doubt can look at history when you had to pay to see the doctor or USA to know as bad as it is we are the lucky ones as much as I agree it doesnt feel like it.
Humans are animals, with savage tendencies and an ability to kill others of its kind.Man has learned over time that to live in peace with one another requires forbearance, patience and goodwill. These traits must needs be passed on new generations. Who is there to pass the message to todays latch key children. Someone once said, “as ye sow, so shall ye reap”. Politicians take heed.
The situation in the USA is much more controlled by self interest groups the MEDICAL LOBBY being the biggest. That is why we do not need reform of THE HOUSE OF LORDS. An elected second chamber just makes lobbying more effective. It is because THE LORDS has stopped lunatic party political legislation that Labour & Lib Dems probably want the house reformed.
We used to be a free country with free speech (blackballing apart) but now political correctness means we cannot call a GOLLYWOG a gollywog, or talk openly about immigration from all parts of the world (Europe especially) without being accused of being racist. I abhor the BNP and UKIP to some extent, but lets us return to a sane, sensible, rational climate where all views are heard irrespective of race , religion or source maybe then we could remove a lot of our anomolies from the system. In the last instance remember the phrase “When In Rome”. Whilst being brought up as a member of a service family around the world, this one aspect of life we had to adhere to whether we liked the laws of our host country or not!!
The situation in the USA is much more controlled by self interest groups the MEDICAL LOBBY being the biggest. That is why we do not need reform of THE HOUSE OF LORDS. An elected second chamber just makes lobbying more effective. It is because THE LORDS has stopped lunatic party political legislation that Labour & Lib Dems probably want the house reformed.
We used to be a free country with free speech (blackballing apart) but now political correctness means we cannot call a GOLLYWOG a gollywog, or talk openly about immigration from all parts of the world (Europe especially) without being accused of being racist. I abhor the BNP and UKIP to some extent, but lets us return to a sane, sensible, rational climate where all views are heard irrespective of race , religion or source maybe then we could remove a lot of our anomolies from the system. In the last instance remember the phrase “When In Rome”. Whilst being brought up as a member of a service family around the world, this one aspect of life we had to adhere to whether we liked the laws of our host country or not!!
Get rid of them and replace them with what? The Tories? Omg it will be a case of out of the frying pan and into a very big fire. Say goodbye to public services and the watch the NHS go to the dogs. Watch unemployment go up, your standard of living nose-dive, your bills increase etc.
Labour have been @#$%s but lets be honest, up until they recession we never had it so good. So go ahead vote Tory, and watch what happenss to “broken” (lol) Britain.It scares the @#$% out of me, and how anyone can think Cameron and that bloody twerp Osborne are capable of running our country…
They are lightweights..
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