Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
and keeping DNA records of innocent people indefinately. This surveilance society has gone far too far and this is just one aspect of the ever more powerful, intrusive, nannying and authoritan State in which we now live.
Chris Grayling has made an important comment that I would hope sets the theme for the next Conservative Government to reverse this trend.
I copied this extract from Conhome this morning:
"People know that I believe we should be tough on crime. DNA data plays an important part in many modern criminal investigations. So it should be taken and used where needed. But I also believe in the fundamental principles of our nation - and one of the most important of those is that people are innocent until proven guilty. So if the system judges someone innocent, or if they are only peripherally involved in a case, there is no excuse for storing their DNA indefinitely. This practice has now clearly been ruled illegal by the courts. It is morally wrong as well. Yet Ministers are dithering about what to do. It's very simple. They should stop breaking the law, and remove this data right now."
This is only the tip of the iceberg though. Even more sinister in my view are these proposals to put tracking devises in all cars so the authorities will know where we are at all times. It will be used for road pricing and to identify and prosecute speeding drivers but, of course, the potential for abuse of this system is huge. We are becoming a police state and the next Government must reverse this before it is too late.
Guest 660- Registered: 14 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,205
What have you got to hide Barry!DNA a newish process is now finding people who have got away with murder and bringing them to Justice,it is also clearing people who were inocent,mind you I bet you would have strung them up in market squares,then said sorry we hung the wrong person.On the tracking devises surely that would help with road pricing and speeding and I see nothing wrong in that or is it ok to break the speed limit?
Police State? perhaps you are right,when did it start? when strikers were video for going on strike,when thousands of police were used to break up disputes,yes Barry your friend Maggie started the Police State,don't blame all that your lot started on the present Goverment,progress is important yet you talk about the Goverment breaking the law and moan,then you say that by using tracking devises they will be able to tell if you break the law and that is wrong.Make up your mind.
If you knew what I know,we would both be in trouble!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
You are making the same argument JHG that all fascist and communist dictators have made since the dawn of time. If you have nothing to hide then there is nothing to worry about...
Guest 674- Registered: 25 Jun 2008
- Posts: 3,391
no Barryw
you missed johns point
whren did it all get intrusive and heavy? yep under maggie!!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
yes barry it WAS maggie or have you forgotten.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Hardly. You simply cannot compare her time with now and the steady erosion of our freedoms that have accellerated the longer this Government has been in power.
Guest 643- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 1,321
Here here Barry! I find it very amusing how whenever something like this comes up it all gets blamed on Maggie. I'm surprised they haven't tried to blame her condition of the River Dour ..............
There's always a little truth behind every "Just kidding", a little emotion behind every "I don't care" and a little pain behind every "I'm ok".
All leaders are culpable for "now" simply because they were major contributors to "history". Thatcher made a bigger, not necessarily better, contribution!!!
Brian Dixon- Location: Dover
- Registered: 23 Sep 2008
- Posts: 23,940
yep, i still blame madam maggie for everything including the river dour and the demize of dover.i allso blame her for this resesion the iraqi and afgan wars.
Ross Miller- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,681
BarryW try removing the sky blue tinted specs for a while and see the world and history without that glorious blue glow of self righteousness.
John is right in that the trend for eroding personal freedoms started during the early years of Thatchers first term in government; that erosion continued throughout her and subsequent Tory administrations; you are right that the rate of erosion has accelerated through the period of Blair and Browns NuLab administration.
This debate however, should not be a tit for tat dispute about the history of the removal/changing of freedoms, rights, duties and responsibilities it should be about how do we make it better, what freedoms and rights should we restore, what new duties and responsibilities ought we to consider etc.
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
As with MPs expenses and their total lack of credibility, perhaps now is a good time to look at everything freshly. There is the whiff of mild anarchy (!?) in the air - have The People had enough? I hope so.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Ross - I would say the opposite, Mrs T was a great liberator. She freed millions of people to buy their own homes, liberated the markets to do their job, freed businesses to run their own affairs, overthrew the tyrrany of the Trade Union barons, forcing Unions to bring in real democracy.
............and condemned millions to homelessness and poverty, reduced our view of society to one of a commercial enterprise no more no less, established the Me Culture we are now reaping the non-benefits of, removed the "tyranny" of the unions and replaced it with.....nothing....
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
Back in 1979 she inherited an economic disaster zone from Labour which led to exactly what you described, but she cured that. Once again a Conservative Government will inherit an economic disaster from Labour within the next 15 months. Labour Governments always end in economic disaster, nothing changes there.
There are times when the cure is worse than the disease.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
The alternative to the cure in 1979 was even more unemployment, sky high inflation and an economy at a third world level.
Guest 674- Registered: 25 Jun 2008
- Posts: 3,391
Barryw
On the trade union issue, yep maggie went for the N.U.M. and from her point of view and the tories planned realy well.
Scargill on the other hand although he was correct in what he said at thre time about pit closures(denied by many at the time)
he made mistakes and they were costly to the N.U.M and the wider tracde union movement.
But trade unions do dust themselves down and regroup and the ones iv been active in
RMT USDAW and now UNISON
all looking at ways forward.
The sad fact is that maggie destroyed a lot of the joint working between emloyers and employees and made a very unfair slant towards the employer.
This doesn't help industrial relations between the two.
I'm sure most unions will regroup, and continue to look at looking after thre interests of its members.
9
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
It was about a lot more than Scargill and the NUM Keith. The whole of British industry was being destroyed by idiotic and short sighted Trade Unions. Incidentally, it was Scargill who was out to get the Government out and to 'get Maggie'. She knew it and was prepared for him and his bully boys.
What a relief to know that the UK was destroyed but that the two main egos were in the right on both sides. I am reassured that at least two people tasked with responsible management of UK resources, including people, had no other way forward than bullying and strong-arm. Right or left, union or government, this was a serious error of judgement that has repercussions even now and for a long time to come. No-one with sense would claim that unions were perfect or that ego and arrogance didn't play a part, but it is the arrognace of the ruling classes that sticks in the craw: if they are arrogant and self-seeking that is ok, but when the oiks and underclass demonstrate the same characteristics they are lambasted and "sorted out". Hypocrites - you bet!
Guest 674- Registered: 25 Jun 2008
- Posts: 3,391
Bern
Being a national negotiator myself I saw how unreven the playing field became during those dark days of maggie.
Whilst I was sitting around the table with thre chief executive trying to resolve things his managers were in court trying to get samn injuction against my union! hardly helped!
The unions did go to far at times, and there needs to be (and has been) major changes to the way unions/employers operate.
But it does have to be an even playing field.
It needs to be done by negotiation, and when this all fails as it will at times, there has to be a rioute the unions/employers go.
Acas is one but decisions made there should be binding and they have real teeth