Booze pricing

A report buried inside yesterday’s Guardian [1] started off:

Heavy drinking is a major cause of a 25% increase in deaths from liver disease in England in under a decade, according to the government’s specialist NHS unit on terminal care.

The first report from the fledgling National End of Life Care Intelligence Network warns that the victims of liver disease are getting younger, with deaths increasing among people in their forties. Deaths rose from 9,231 in 2001 to 11,575 in 2009; some 60% of these were men, and 90% of them were under 70.

Deaths are more common in England’s northern regions marked by high unemployment and low educational achievement.

(My emphasis.) Now, this is surely the bleedin’ obvious – the poorer you are, the more you drink to alleviate your daily stress. The obvious corollary is that, to get drinking down, you need to improve economic and social conditions. Pretty much the same applies to illegal drugs. However, liberal and reactionary moralists can’t be doing with that, and instead of treating the cause they aim at the symptoms:

The British Liver Trust called for higher alcohol prices, taxing of high fat food, and testing for viral hepatitis, and said: “The current nature of the disease means that people are diagnosed late in their condition. This exposes the inadequacies in our healthcare in identifying patients early and also the lack of will to invest in prevention strategies that will have a serious impact, such as alcohol pricing, taxing high fat foods and testing for viral hepatitis.”

The Tory regime is now proposing minimum alcohol pricing [2]. This is pretty much the same old bourgeois complaint about the sozzled lower orders, a complaint that goes back centuries. The higher orders can be trusted to drink responsibly, and not to make a scene (such as getting pissed on a Saturday night in town). Perhaps if liberals were to spend as much effort campaigning against the evils of neo-liberal capitalism as they do on telling the lower orders how they should behave, they might have some influence on the cause of drug abuse rather than its symptoms.

Whilst increased fag pricing might have effects on smoking tobacco, increased booze pricing will just change boozing behaviour. More folk will get into home brew, which is easy enough to make, even if the result (at least from cheapo kits) isn’t a patch on the real thing. If you want to get pissed, though, home brew is cheap, easy and you can make it as strong or weak as you want. Kits don’t contain alcohol so aren’t affected by alcohol taxes, and if the ruling regime tries to tax them then you’ll just get more dry kits coming out. When it comes down to it, producing beer is a pretty simple process: roast your barley, boil and mash it, add some hops if you want, then bung in yeast and perhaps sugar and wait for those lovely microbes to do their work. Which is why beer has for so long been the drink of the working class, because it’s so easy to make. For those wanting stronger stuff, distilling is easy enough too  as the poitìn makers of Ireland and moonshiners of the US clearly demonstrate. Even school pupils doing Chemistry learn how to distil as a basic skill.

Pubs and microbreweries will suffer under increased booze prices, of course, but the blue and yellow Tories don’t give a monkeys about them, and indeed would welcome fewer pubs in inner cities as that’s where workers get together and discuss sedition and rebellion (though, as we all know, the revolution starts after closing time).

The simple fact is that humans want to get out of our heads, and we’ve been doing it for millennia going by archaeological finds as far back as the neolithic. If moralists stop us using one psychotropic drug, we’ll just find another to take its place. An unintended consequence of pricing workers out of alcohol will be a rise in the consumption of illegal drugs, with all the healthcare costs that implies. Perhaps there’ll also be an increase in grow your own cannabis. You can’t grow tobacco plants in this climate, but hemp grows like crazy on rough ground and doesn’t require curing or preparation, and you can get the seeds easy-peasy from legal and illicit sources.

[1] Alcohol abuse contributes to big rise in deaths from liver disease. Guardian, 22/3/12

[2] Minimum price for alcohol planned. BBC News, 23/3/12

Reasons to leave England, part 5

Part 5 in an occasional series featuring news stories that just make me want to pack my bags and escape across the Border to a civilised country.

Westminster Council proposes banning “tents and similar structures” and “noise equipment” in crackdown on political protest

Statewatch, 11/01/12

London’s Westminster Council is currently running a consultation on proposed new byelaws that seek to prohibit long-term or noisy political protests. If made law, the draft provisions would ban the erection or keeping of tents “or similar structures”, whether for sleeping in or not, as well as permitting “constables and authorised officers” to seize “noise equipment” being used to cause “annoyance”.

Kettling protesters is lawful, appeal court rules

Guardian 19/1/12

Police tactics of kettling protesters, used extensively during the G20 protests in London three years ago, have been upheld as lawful. The appeal court overturned a previous ruling by the high court on the controversial technique deployed to contain demonstrators during the climate camp sit-in.

UK riots: paratroopers are trained in riot control

Daily Telegraph, 28/1/12

Hundreds of soldiers from 3rd battalion The Parachute Regiment spent last week learning how to contain and arrest “rioters” in a series of exercises mirroring last summers violence. Defence sources have confirmed that if violence were to return to British cities, especially during the Olympic Games, the Paras would be “ideally placed” to provide “short-term” support to police forces around the UK.

Sick and disabled people could be forced to work for nothing

Guardian, 17/2/12

Some long-term sick and disabled people face being forced to work unpaid for an unlimited amount of time or have their benefits cut under plans being drawn up by the Department for Work and Pensions. [...] The policy could mean that those on employment and support allowance who have been placed in the work-related activity group (Wrag) could be compelled to undertake work experience for charities, public bodies and high-street retailers. The Wrag group includes those who have been diagnosed with terminal cancer but have more than six months to live; accident and stroke victims; and some of those with mental health issues.

Now, imagine that you’ve been given, say, a year to live by your doctor. What do you think you should be doing in that time? Having as good a time as you can have with your condition and making the most of what little life you have left, or working in some pointless McJob? No civilised society would make someone with terminal illness work for what remains of their living.

Gunning for Gold

Schnews, 6/1/12

The deployment of up to 13,500 military personnel, two of the navy’s largest warships, unspecified numbers of military attack helicopters staffed by snipers, typhoon fighter jets, surface to air missiles, support from the SAS and Navy Marines 12,000 police officers, 300 MI5 agents, 20,000 private security guards and up to 1000 US agents including 500 FBI. The extension of Section 44 of the Terrorism Act across the whole of Britain. All costing in the region of £6million.

So the invasion of Iran? The military contingent sent to join Arab Spring rebel groups? The recent deployment in Libya? No – it’s a just a few folk running and seeing who can throw something the furthest. In the capital city of a country that according to the Country Risk Index is one of the most stable in the world. East London is set to resemble a warzone (again) as the Olympic Games 2012 rolls into town. [...] All of this set to the background of a city crippled by the economic insanity of the last few decades. With the lottery fiasco of Olympic ticket allocation that has seen, predictably, wealthy and influential applicants cream the best of the seats and over a million ordinary families missing out on even the most obscure of events, this complete suspension of civil liberties and obscenely gross spending of millions of pounds is the final insult. The unprecedented security measures being put in place make a mockery of even the draconian Beijing Olympics in 2008 hosted by the Chinese Communist Party. These are the actions of a government that is very, very scared – not only of the ‘threat of international terrorism’ but also of its own people.

Reasons to leave England, part 4

Part 4 in an occasional series featuring news stories that just make me want to pack my bags and escape across the Border to a civilised country.

Cameron should forget about compassion – what people clearly want is the nasty party back

Alexander Chancellor, The Guardian, 8/12/11

David Cameron once preached “compassionate conservatism” to make his party seem nicer, but that’s not what people want at all. What they actually want is “the nasty party”; and the nastier, the better. The latest report on British Social Attitudes, published annually by the National Centre for Social Research, reveals a sharp lurch to the right in public opinion. Most Britons, it finds, believe that the unemployed are deterred by excessive state benefits from looking for jobs, child poverty is the fault of parental indolence, and global warming is a myth. The amount of people willing to pay higher taxes to spend on health and education has fallen in nine years from 63% to 31%. And while people agree that Britain needs more housing, 45% don’t want any new houses built near them (and the percentage is higher – for example, 58% in outer London – in areas where the housing shortage is greatest).

The full, and highly detailed, report is available to download from the NCSR website, and makes depressing reading for liberals and socialists, or indeed anyone who values compassion and solidarity over hatred and self-interest.

Bubble trouble at South Coast derby

Football Supporters Federation, 15/12/11

Fans of Portsmouth and Southampton are unhappy with Hampshire Police thanks to their decision to force a so-called “bubble match” onto supporters this Sunday. Bubble matches place severe restrictions on fans’ freedom of movement and supporters of both sides say the move is unnecessary. [...] Bubble matches are games where ALL away fans must travel on designated transport – usually club coaches – from specific pick-up points. No independent travel is allowed and fans are usually given match tickets en route to the game, which guarantees compliance. It is a tactic that police forces around the UK have used – fans from Bristol City, Burnley, Cardiff City, and Wolves have all been on the receiving end in recent years.

Now police can shoot rioters

Daily Express, 21/12/11

POLICE should be prepared to shoot arsonists during riots to save innocent lives, one of the UK’s senior officers has said. An official review of police tactics during the shocking summer disturbances has found that officers should be ready to use “extraordinary measures” if yobs endanger lives by attacking homes and businesses.

The Super Soaraway Scum also led on this ‘story’:

COPS could shoot rioters who start fires that threaten life, a watchdog said yesterday. Water cannon and rubber bullets could also be used to stop a repeat of the summer disturbances. Live rounds could be used by gun cops against arsonists who torch businesses and homes with people inside, reported HM Inspectorate of Constabulary. It stated: “In extreme circumstances, where life is threatened, (police) commanders must also be able to use extraordinary measures.”

Shooting unarmed people is ‘oppression’ when it happens in Egypt or Syria, but just an ‘extraordinary measure’ to safeguard ‘life and property’ when it happens in the UK. Same old, same old – when under threat on the streets, all States are the same. You might say that the rioters in the UK were just ‘criminals’ and ‘yobs’ with no political aim, whereas ‘protesters’ in Egypt are revolutionaries aiming at removing dictatorship, and many (especially in the chattering classes) said precisely that during the 3 nights of rioting across England. Perhaps we now have two types of rioters, as we now (again) have two types of poor these days: deserving and undeserving.

London Olympics security to be boosted by 13,500 troops

The Guardian, 15/12/11

Up to 13,500 military personnel will be on duty in London and across the country during the Olympic Games next summer, the government has revealed, including 7,500 to boost the number of security staff inside Olympic venues. The number is greater than the 9,500 deployed in Afghanistan, although the defence secretary, Phillip Hammond, insisted the large call on the armed forces would not affect operational capabilities elsewhere. Hammond also revealed that the Royal Navy’s largest ship, 22,500-tonne helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, would be based in Greenwich for the duration of the Games, while assault vessel HMS Bulwark would be moored in Weymouth, where the sailing events will take place. An “appropriate and scaleable” air security plan includes Typhoon aircraft at RAF Northolt, helicopters operating from HMS Ocean and “appropriate” surface to air missile systems.

Reasons to leave England, part 3

Part 3 in an occasional series featuring news stories that just make me want to pack my bags and escape across the Border to a civilised country.

Police turn back 50 cars in operation to stop criminals entering city centre

Manchester Evening News, 13/8/11

Police used number-plate spotting technology to turn known criminals away from Manchester in the days after the riots. Officers stationed on key routes into the city were instantly checking registration plates of vehicles against a string of national databases. Known criminals have been intercepted and ordered to turn around. On Wednesday evening alone, 50 vehicles were turned away from Manchester by officers determined to keep the streets trouble-free.

GMP search protesters outside BBC in Manchester under S.60, Public Order Act. YouTube, 12/8/11. Video taken by passer-by of nonviolent, non-aggressive protesters taking part in a peaceful protest against the Dear Leader – sorry, PM David “Bullingdon Boy” Camer0n – who were stopped and searched in the street by Greater Manchester Police under the Public Order Act.

Shut social networks in riot – poll

The Guardian, 08/11/2011

“More than two-thirds of adults support the shutdown of social networks during periods of social unrest such as the riots in England this summer, new research has revealed. A poll of 973 adults carried out for the online security firm Unisys found 70% of adults supported the shutdown of Twitter, Facebook and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM), while only 27% disagreed. Three-quarters agreed that governments should have open access to data on social network users in order to prevent co-ordinated crime.”

Circle in deal to run Hinchingbrooke NHS hospital

BBC News, 10/11/11

“A groundbreaking £1bn, 10-year deal for a private firm to run a struggling NHS hospital has been confirmed. Circle is to take over Cambridgeshire’s Hinchingbrooke Hospital in February – although it will stay in the NHS. The deal will see Circle assume the financial risks of making the hospital more efficient and paying off its £40m of debts. But fears have been raised it could pave the way for “wholesale transfers” of hospitals to the private sector.”

Plastic bullets available to police for Wednesday’s student protests

Guardian, 7/11/11

“Baton rounds of plastic bullets will be available to police chiefs in an attempt to prevent disorder from breaking out in the capital during the latest round of student fees protests. Trained officers will be free to use baton rounds for “extreme” measures as 10,000 protesters march through London on Wednesday to voice their anger over tuition fees and cuts. Scotland Yard commander Simon Pountain said about 4,000 officers will be on duty to police the event amid fears the march could be hijacked by anarchists.”

‘Death threat’ in union jack row

BBC News Nottingham, 17/11/11

“A man who complained about the permanent flying of a union jack in his Nottinghamshire village said he had received racist death threats. Gamston Parish Council voted in favour of the year-round display of the flag on the village common. Roger Henry said the flag had become a symbol of far-right political groups. He said he had since received a letter which said “we hope you get killed” and “go back to your own country”.”

See also, on this story in the Nottingham Evening Post:

Row over flying of Union Jack in Gamston (8/11/11)

Village in U-turn over plans to take down the Union flag (16/11/11)

It’s the comments to the NEP stories that are the most depressing and disturbing.

E-petitions

The Tory regime’s new ‘e-petition‘ scheme got under way today, and it was immediately reported that the most popular petition by far was that calling for “restoration of the death penalty” [1], with other reactionary beauts not far behind, such as “that prisoners’ diets be restricted to bread and water” [2], EU withdrawal, and repeal of the Human Rights Act. Of the top 10 petitions by numbers of signatures [3], only two could be considered vaguely progressive.

There could be all sorts of reasons for the majority of petitions being barkingly right-wing, but without analysis of the socio-economic backgrounds of those who’ve signed them any speculation would just be whistling in the dark. What is clear, and has been for some time, is that a major part of the population of Ingerlan is backward and regressive, and this backwardness and reaction has only got worse as the economy’s gone down the tubes. In a country with a bit of political consciousness and an active worker’s movement, economic decline goes hand in hand with class struggle as people get the rough end of the economic pineapple. In Ingerlan, though, it’s the immigrants and the shirkers and the scroungers and the ‘liberal elite’ in the media that are to blame for all our ills, and we need the firm smack of strong government, retributive eye-for-an-eye ‘justice’, and a retreat to inglorious isolationism by leaving the EU [4] to restore Ingerlan to its ‘rightful place’ in the world (as the USA’s 51st State and aircraft carrier, say).

As the blogging White Van Man podger Guido Fawkes said on C4 news this evening: “There is a regressive majority in this country” [5]. He may well be right. What’s clear from the last quarter century since the defeat of the Miner’s Strike in 1984 is that the Great English Public has become irredeemably stupid and backward. Individually, or even in small groups, many English folk are rational and reasonable and occasionally progressive, but en masse the GEP is as thick as a lorryload of two by fours and has the morality of a witch-hunting mob.

Here’s an idea, though. I’m sure that all those who’ve backed the petition for the restoration of State killing would agree that with power should come responsibility.  If judicial execution does become law, it would only be ‘right and proper’ that, when there’s to be an execution, the executioner is drawn at random from all those who’ve voted for the ‘death penalty’. He or she would have to throw the switch or press the button or pull the handle to kill the alleged perp, and would have to look them in the eyes whilst they do it. Seems fair enough to me – wodger reckon, Guido?

References and notes

[1] I’ve never understood why judicial killing is called the “death penalty”. A punishment can only be meaningful if the perp understands and suffers it. A long stretch certainly fulfils that purpose – the perp understands why s/he’s locked up and is suffering for it. Kill the perp, and there’s no suffering and thus no punishment. I think that folk who support State murder ought to be clear and honest about the “death penalty” – it’s not a punishment, it’s revenge. Nothing more. Any other ‘justification’ is rationalisation of the basic retributive urge to kill a killer or, these days, anyone who pisses off the petit-bourgeois and White Van Man – remember The Execution of Gary Glitter on C4 in November 2009? The ‘debate’ on the C4 website is as instructive as it is chilling, with many contributors willing to kill “people who commit crimes against children”. So much for the ‘death penalty’ being restricted to ‘capital crimes’, eh?

[2] E-petitions urge MPs to debate return of death penalty, BBC News 4/11/08

[3] You can view petitions by numbers of signatures on the e-petition site. At the time of writing, the top 10 petitions by signatures are:

Petition to retain the ban on Capital Punishment View	3,455	04/02/2012
Keep Formula 1 Free To Air in the UK View	1,674	04/08/2012
Restore Capital Punishment View	1,538	04/02/2012
Britain wants referendum to leave EU View	636	04/08/2012
Legalise cannabis View	636	04/08/2012
Absolute right to self-defence within ones home View	397	04/02/2012
Return of Hanging for Serious Crimes View	345	04/08/2012
Decriminalise recreational drugs View	283	04/08/2012
Remove the ban on gay blood donation View	246	04/08/2012
withdraw from the european human rights act View	229	04/08/2012

[4] When presumably we’ll feed ourselves on Churchillian rhetoric and Vera Lynn songs (“we’ll eat again, don’t know where, don’t know when, but we’ll eat again some lucky, lucky day”).

[5] Guido Fawkes, C4 News, 4/8/11. Emphasis in original.

“Our country, right or wrong!”

I came across the following quote on a web forum today – does it remind you of any recent events? Go on, try to guess who it’s from and when it was written:

“Against our traditions we are now entering upon an unjust and trivial war, a war against a helpless people, and for a base object — robbery. At first our citizens spoke out against this thing, by an impulse natural to their training. Today they have turned, and their voice is the other way. What caused the change? Merely a politician’s trick — a high-sounding phrase, a blood-stirring phrase which turned their uncritical heads: Our Country, right or wrong! An empty phrase, a silly phrase. It was shouted by every newspaper, it was thundered from the pulpit, the Superintendent of Public Instruction placarded it in every schoolhouse in the land, the War Department inscribed it upon the flag. And every man who failed to shout it or who was silent, was proclaimed a traitor — none but those others were patriots.”

It could have been written about any of the ‘imperialist adventures’ undertaken by the US and UK in recent years, from the Falklands/Malvinas war to Iraq and Afghanistan, and how they’ve been propagandised by compliant and complicit media. In fact, it was written back in the early 20th century by Mark Twain, author, journalist, and latterly anti-imperialist. The quote continues:

“To be a patriot, one had to say, and keep on saying, “Our Country, right or wrong,” and urge on the little war. Have you not perceived that that phrase is an insult to the nation?

For in a republic, who is “the Country”? Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. Who, then, is “the country?” Is it the newspaper? Is it the pulpit? Is it the school-superintendent? Why, these are mere parts of the country, not the whole of it; they have not command, they have only their little share in the command. They are but one in the thousand; it is in the thousand that command is lodged; they must determine what is right and what is wrong; they must decide who is a patriot and who isn’t.” [1]

Bear that in mind the next time the Mail or Express or Super Soaraway Neo-Fascist Sun claims to represent ‘true England’, and slags all us bothersome Lefties off as ‘traitors’ to that ‘England’.  It’s quite simple really: there is no one ‘England’ with a common culture which unites queen and commoner, suit and chav, black and white.  There’s a whole heap of Englands, and it’s cynical arrogance for those in the dominant culture to claim to speak for all of them, and to declare those that don’t fit into their reactionary mythology as traitors.

I also liked another of his quotes, which is very apposite given the various revolutions under way in the Arab world:

I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolt.

Is that the bleedin’ obvious, or what?

References

[1] Mark Twain in Wikiquotes, accessed 3/8/11

[2] Wikipedia entry on Mark Twain, accessed 3/8/11

Reasons to leave England, part 2

Part 2 in an occasional series featuring news stories that just make me want to pack my bags and escape across the Border to a civilised country.

UK: New “anti-extremism” strategy

Statewatch News Online, No 1 of 2: 13 June 2011 (15/11)

Updated anti-extremism strategy published (BBC News, link):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13679360

“The new strategy also puts a renewed focus on the use of the internet and says the government will consider a “national blocking list” of violent and unlawful websites. Under the plans, computers in schools, libraries and colleges will also be barred from accessing unlawful material on the internet.”

See also: Doctors asked to identify potential terrorists under government plans (Guardian, links):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/06/doctors-identify-potential-terrorists-plans/print

and Official review finds scant evidence of state funds going to extremists:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/07/review-state-funding-extremism/print

“It will also introduce a new definition of extremism as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance for different faiths and beliefs.”

SICK BENEFITS: 75% ARE FAKING

Daily Express, 27/7/11

THREE in four people on sickness benefits are fit for work or drop their claim before facing strict new tests, shock figures revealed yesterday.

This from a newspaper run by a porn baron (Richard “Dirty” Desmond) and thus hardly a paragon of middle-class probity. Mind you, the figures can’t be that much of a “shock” as the reactionary rag ‘reported’ back in January that “75% ON SICK ARE SKIVING“. Not to be outdone, the neo-fascist (a label I don’t used lightly) Daily Mail’s lead story the same day screamed “The shirking classes: Just 1 in 14 incapacity claimants is unfit to work“, which works out at 93% of claimants being ‘shirkers’. It says a lot for the state of Ingerlan, this green and pleasant land whose inhabitants are so proud of their “tradition of tolerance” ^[TM] when the leading petit-bourgeois papers are putting the boot into folk with disabilities and/or chronic illnesses and causing real damage to real people in real situations. Aren’t they the brave and tough guys, eh? It would be nice to see the ‘journalists’ and editors who publish such stories being held directly and personally to account by those whom the stories damage. Back in the ‘heyday of union power’, the 70s and early 80s, the barking Press always accused union leaders of having power without responsibility. Now there’s the pot calling the kettle black.

Anarchists should be reported, advises Westminster anti-terror police

Guardian, 1/8/11

What should you do if you discover an anarchist living next door? Dust off your old Sex Pistols albums and hang out a black and red flag to make them feel at home? Invite them round to debate the merits of Peter Kropotkin’s anarchist communism versus the individualist anarchism of Emile Armand? No – the answer, according to an official counter-terrorism notice circulated in London last week, is that you must report them to police immediately.

I can’t help paraphrasing the famous saying of Pastor Martin Niemöller from some decades ago, as it looks like anarchists might become the new bogeyman for the Security State now that Islam is just soooooo noughties, darling:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the muslims,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a muslim.

Then they came for the anarchists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an anarchist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Reasons to leave England, part 1

An occasional series featuring news stories that just make me want to pack my bags and escape across the Border to a civilised country.

Migration settlement cuts planned

BBC News, 9/6/11

Proposals to cut the number of migrants allowed to settle permanently in the UK have been published by the Home Office. In future, only a “tightly controlled minority” from outside the European Union will be allowed to stay for more than five years. Ministers say they are also considering stopping wealthy business people staying on after five years. The move is part of the government’s pledge to cut net migration to tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament.

Vince Cable warns unions strikes could spark clampdown on industrial action

Guardian, 6/6/11

The business secretary, Vince Cable, will issue a warning to the country’s union chiefs that if they ratchet up strikes opposing the coalition’s cuts the government may be forced to make it harder for them to embark on industrial action.

David Cameron to target Islamists who hold ‘un-British’ beliefs

Guardian, 6/6/11

David Cameron has won a cabinet battle to toughen up the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy and take a harder line against Islamic traditions that fail to “reflect British mainstream values”.

The successor to Labour’s Prevent strategy is likely to redefine extremists as those who hold “un-British” views, such as intolerance of equal rights for women, because ministers believe there is a link between non-violent extremism and violent acts of terrorism.

The new policy, which could be unveiled this week, will reflect the prime minister’s February speech in Munich in which he claimed “state multiculturalism” had failed. Further education colleges are likely to be targeted in the belief that they have become a breeding ground for young Islamists.

British airline passengers to US could have details kept for 15 years

Daily Telegraph, 26/5/11

British airline passengers flying to the United States face having their personal information, including addresses, phone numbers and credit card details, stored for 15 years under under a proposed agreement between the US and the European Union.

UK Census and confidentiality

The blurb on UK census forms, and on the census website, seeks to assure us that all the data collected by the exercise will be anonymised, and that there are strict controls in place to prevent personal data being leaked or abused. Being a person by nature untrusting of authority I sought to check this out. I got a bit suspicious looking at the Census Help page on privacy and security, which omits any mention of the police and ‘intelligence services’, so I ran a Net search for “uk census confidentiality” and hit a terrific (in both senses) article written by a professor of International Law [1] which tears apart this seeming pledge of confidentiality. His long but detailed and readable article makes plain that, as census law stands, your data can be released to cops and spooks, within and outwith the UK, on request for pretty much any reason. Census data could also be used for Orwellian ‘profiling’:

All this may sound improbable. But will there really be an outcry when at some future date there is some atrocity, and the authorities say they believe they have a broad picture of the culprits, and may be able to identify them from the census database? Or perhaps not exactly them, but a smaller circle of (computer-identified) “group suspects”, against which the authorities can then take further, targetted action? If this happens, and the threshold slips lower and lower, we will end up with an effective surveillance database, ready-made for “fishing”- and “trawling”- and “profiling”-exercises that will only further stigmatise and alienate already marginalised communities.

This is not to mention the bleedin’ obvious dangers inherent in subcontracting census processing to the US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin: leaks, abuse by staff, and just plain incompetence, such as leaving CDs and USB sticks lying around. Private companies have shown themselves to be pretty incompetent in the recent past in the protection of confidential data (the TKMaxx hacking scandal comes immediately to mind), and a company that’s USA-based is under even less sanction than domestic blundering privateers (such as G4S). Grunts doing data entry are likely to be paid as little as the company can get away with, and are plainly open to being ‘suborned’ by large wads of cash – you can just imagine some private dick, say, approaching a data processor and offering a few hundred quid/dollars for a quiet printout of some suspect’s details and getting a result.

The article is pretty much mandatory reading for anyone concerned about liberty, and the threats to it from State and private surveillance and the Database State. It’s not been mentioned in the quality Press, unless I missed buying a paper the day it did get a mention, perhaps because it’s been published in a specialist IT publication, Computer Weekly [2].

I’ve no objection in principle to the census, as some folk have, if the data is truly anonymous and kept in a virtual Fort Knox with stringent legal safeguards, such that the cops and spooks have to do some serious legal work to get at it, but it’s not. According to the prof:

[census law] does not stand in the way of the UK police, or intelligence services, or indeed foreign law enforcement agencies and secret services, seeking access – not just in exceptional cases but for general “trawling” or “fishing” expeditions, or indeed to create and test “profiles” of “possible” or “probable” terrorists (or other types of miscreants).

We may not have much choice about filling in the census form unless we want to be fined up to a grand, but it would be wise to only provide the minimum legally necessary data, as whatever you put in the form could be used against you in the future.

References

[1] The UK Census Confidentiality. Douwe Korffe, Computer Weekly, 11/3/11. In case this link ‘goes off’ in the future, I’ve placed a copy of the article (PDF) in this blog’s file store for reference.

[2] I used to get CW on a freebie, as did most ‘IT professionals’, back in the days when it was packed full of recruitment ads which paid its way handsomely. Computing was another weekly I subbed to, and both were excellent and unexpected sources of stories on IT systems and the database state, in amongst all the Suitspeak and tech. Sadly, most IT jobs have been ‘offshored’ and these mags barely carry ten pages of job ads per issue, so have stopped giving out freebies. A shame, not least because of the funnies on the back page of Computing

States only fear the streets

The ongoing, and highly encouraging, revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, illustrate one simple, fundamental fact: the only thing that makes States fear for their existence is people on the streets. External threats, even when existential, just bolster the State and allow it to strengthen its internal grip along the lines of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us”. An external threat, real or imagined, is a handy pretext to suppress or marginalise internal dissent, as was so amply illustrated in the Cold War. Even if hot war breaks out, the State is in its element – as Randolph Bourne so famously said, “War is the health of the State”.

Amateur terrorism (to distinguish it from the professional, industrial terrorism practiced by States) is an irrelevance to the State, a pinprick at best. All of the efforts of Irish Republican guerrilla organisations failed to make more than a dent in the British State. They succeeded in bumping off a few of the ruling class (though a hell of a lot of the working class – thanks a feckin’ bundle, guys) and causing physical damage, but even if they’d managed to whack the full Cabinet in the Brighton bomb another would have emerged rapidly and the State would have been emboldened into declaring a state of emergency. As for destroying buildings, this was just accidental Keynesianism, a boost to the construction industry and urban regeneration. The jihadists are bungling amateurs in comparison and present no threat at all to the State.

Even when seriously dangerous urban guerrilla groups have been ‘effective’, in the sense of killing cops and members of the ruling class (the Red Brigade in Italy and Red Army Fraction in Germany come immediately to mind), they themselves haven’t threatened the State’s existence. In the case of Italy, of which I know a fair bit of recent history and speak the language, the Left urban guerrillas were more than matched by neo-fascist paramilitaries, shadowy groups in the State itself (Gladio, P2), and external forces (CIA). In terms of bombings, shootings and killings, the Brigate Rosse and other Left guerrillas were the most ‘successful’ such groups in Europe in the 70s and early 80s, but they still strengthened the State and provoked it (though this is a bit chicken and egg) into covert terrorism (the ‘strategy of tension‘). What did scare the living daylights out of the Italian State during the anni di piombo wasn’t the piombo but the workers, as Italy was experiencing very sharp class struggle in the 70s and early 80s, in the form of strikes and factory occupations, and revolution seemed imminent. The urban terrorists were an extreme outcome of class warfare but were really just a side-effect. It was revolting workers that put the shits up the ruling classes, not a few extremists with bombs. As anarchists often say: you can’t blow up a social relation.

Only when people get on the street en masse and get involved in direct action does the State really get scared, and a smart ‘modern’ State does its best to prevent this happening in the first place. The strategies – bread and circuses, divide and rule, distraction, external threats – are millennia-old, and change only in form over the ages. All of these are evident today in the actions of the UK State, distraction in particular. Many of the chatterati sing the praises of the Internet as a vehicle for ‘democratic change’, and listening to them you’d think that you could make a revolution by forming a Facebook group, writing blog posts and Twittering. That the Internet has added new dimensions to, and opportunities for, organisation is undoubted – it’s been an important organisational method in Tunisia and Egypt – but without action, literally, on the ground, a plethora of blogs and Twitter feeds and Facebook groups is not just an irrelevance to the State, it’s a positive aid. It gives the impression of pluralism and democracy in action, but a ‘blogsphere’ fragmented into hundreds of thousands of personal ranting boards actually aids power by diffusing any opposition into egocentric masturbation (this blog included!). The Internet fragments opposition, not coalesces it. Even if the ‘blogsphere’ were to speak with one voice, the State wouldn’t give a monkey’s. It might tweak and tack a bit, and one faction might gain ascendancy over another, but the status quo would be under no threat at all.

And States encourage this fragmentation. The UK State has, over the last two decades, gradually removed the space for public flesh-and-blood protest, offering ‘virtual’ online protest as a weak substitute. Once, you could, and people often did, just march off down the street to demonstrate, as I remember happening a few times in my youth. It’s a natural human tendency – you want to protest about something, you go ahead and do it. Now, you have to notify the cops weeks in advance, let them determine your route, have hundreds of stewards to keep protesters under order, be surveilled six ways from Sunday by CCTV and forward intelligence teams (FIT) [1], and make sure no-one says anything nasty that could be classed as ‘incitement’. Even then you end up being interned – sorry, ‘kettled’. Once, trades unions would hold mass meetings to make decisions. Now, all decisions have to be taken by secret postal ballot.

The aim of the State is: isolate, fragment, render irrelevant. The more people work in concert, and discuss and debate and argue face-to-face, and experience real direct action, the more their consciousness changes and the greater the threat they pose to our rulers. The more they’re isolated and individualised and gulled into passivity, the more they’re prone to fear, self-centredness, and acceptance of dominant realities as manufactured by the media. Action radicalises, inaction paralyses [2]. This has been known to rulers and ruled throughout history, and rulers have done their damnedest to keep people from acting together, either bluntly through repression and fear, or more subtly through distraction.

Once feet hit the street, and workers come out on strike, the State shits itself. Because when it comes down to it, there are a lot more of us plebs than there are rulers, and a lot more people than there are cops and soldiers.

One other thing that’s encouraging about the ongoing revolutions, and which befuddles the Western media and ruling classes: the revolutions have no leaders. They’ve been triumphs of spontaneity and self-organisation. What the Western media call “vigilantes” in Egypt are what would have been known as street councils in earlier revolutions (or even – gasp! – soviets). People acting together generate their own order. This has been a feature of pretty much all successful revolutions. What has also, sadly, been a regular feature has been the hijacking of revolutions by opportunists and chancers seeking power, and it’s my fervent hope that this doesn’t happen in Tunisia and Egypt. Perhaps this is where the Internet might be useful, in exposing such chancers and the lies that they use to gain power. Had such a worldwide instant web of knowledge and communication existed in 1917, there’s no way that the Bolsheviks would have got away with the absolute whopping and lethal lies that they told to cling on to power. The Internet can have its uses, but it can only ever be an aid to, not a cause of, revolutionary change.

[1] See also the excellent FIT Watch blog, exposing the Orwellian behaviour of FITs.

[2] This is the essence of the seemingly abstruse and niche, but highly influential, Situationist theory of the ‘Society of the Spectacle‘.