Round-up

Hello again!

I'm back after an unplanned two-week break. There was no particular reason, I've just been busy with my new job.

1. Anyway, last time I mentioned that the government was doing a review of the ID cards system.

Well it appears that it's already come up with one result: no compulsory ID cards for pilots and other staff at UK airports (the plans to keep ID cards for Johnny Foreigner seem to still be going ahead though).

All we need now is for the government to agree to scrap it. *holds breath*

In related news, Eurostar appear to be putting a big hole in the government's "e-borders" scheme, mainly because of the hassle it will cause passengers using their service. After all, one of the reasons people travel to Johnny-Foreigner-land via train is due to the relatively-simple passport procedures. Yay for them!

2. Back in October, in the run-up to the US Presidential election, I said that Al Franken could become a Senator for Minnesota. Well months later, he's finally been ruled as the winner by the MN Supreme Court and his opponent has conceded. This means that Obama's lot will now have 60 seats in the US Senate, assuming that nothing else happens to stop him being sworn in.

3. In a rare-for-me football post, Blackburn appear to be going on a spending spree: we've bought three players in the last week, but we need a striker seeing that Rocky Satan "Tom" Cruise left for Man City and we flogged-off Matt Derbyshire to Greece. Southampton FC appear to be on their last legs after a consortium headed by Matt Le Tissier have pulled out, after it was confirmed that they'll start with a crippling 10 point deduction due to their parent company going bust.

4. It appears that the government is going to spend a load of money on electrifying the train lines, starting with the ones from London to Bristol and Bedford to Sheffield. They must have got the idea from my campaign website...

5. The government won't being signing the first-ever treaty on Freedom of Information. I guess they've not learnt from the #mpexpenses scandal.

UPDATE:

6. The police suggested that Ian Tomlinson's death was due to a police imposter! (via @Pickledpolitics)

UPDATE:

It seemed to good to be true: the govt are planning to keep our passport details on the ID card database, i.e. ID cards in all-but-name and they're voluntary as long as you don't want to visit Johnny-Foreigner-land. Are the govt trying to destroy the airlines? I'm just glad I renewed mine before they started doing this. Tweet

Govt: NO2ID?

From the Sunday Times:

ALAN JOHNSON, the home secretary, has launched an urgent review of the £6 billion identity card (ID) scheme, paving the way for a possible U-turn on one of Labour’s flagship policies.

Johnson, who was promoted in Gordon Brown’s latest cabinet reshuffle, is understood to be “sympathetic” to critics who claim identity cards will undermine civil liberties.

The home secretary told officials that he wanted a “first principles” rethink of the plan, which was launched by Tony Blair following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and has since been championed by Brown as a way of fighting terrorism.

“Alan is more sympathetic to the civil liberties arguments than previous home secretaries,” said an insider.

While it's encouraging to see the government at least pay lip-service to getting rid of ID cards, I'm assuming that the report will come back saying that all is fine and they should be kept.

Of course, I'm more than happy to be proven wrong.

The Sunday Times carries on:

Ministers have shelved plans to push a series of regulations through the Commons that would allow the government to move forward with the next phase of the identity card scheme. The statutory instruments were due to be debated on Wednesday but the debate has been postponed until next month.

... which is promising...

Johnson said in a statement last night that ID cards remained a "manifesto commitment". He added: "We remain on course to bring in a policy that we believe has widespread public support."

but this is less so... Tweet

The Sun Lies: Dr. Keith v Medicine

Got a new article over on the Sun Lies.

This time I go about Dr. Keith complaining about the fact that various medical conditions have been re-named.

BTW, apologies for the lack of stuff on here over the past week; I've just started a new job and have been too busy to write stuff or take pictures for Daily Police Photo. Tweet

Lancashire uber Alles

You're probably all aware of the debacle of the European elections. If not, then #theBNParetwats managed to sneak into last place in both the North-West and Yorkshire & Humber regions ensuring that they'll have 2 MEPs.

I've managed to find a table of results for the north-west region (pdf) broken down by each local council.

I've not had a proper chance to look through it, but it appears the Nazis did well in Burnley (15% albeit 5th place) and the number of votes obtained in Wigan (7,500) pushed them over.

Is it possible to renounce my Lancastrianism? Tweet

#theBNParetwats: Fisked

Yesterday, Tim Bloggerheads asked if anyone would be interested in fisking the policies of #theBNParetwats.

Unfortunately I got in too late to make a contribution, but I think that the most succinct way would be to simply do the following:

[citation needed]

Take that ya racist bastards! Tweet

Billy Brit; the racist sh!t, pt III

Further to the other videos that Tim Bloggerheads has kindly produced for us all Billy Brit's grand finale (NSFW):



Remember, #theBNParetwats, especially given that they've removed their videos, apparently due to Tim's efforts. Yay! Tweet

You can't trust them with it

From the Inquirer:

A GLASGOW council worker was sacked and another resigned after they were caught snooping into the core database of the Government's Identity Card scheme.

The two Glasgow staff were caught snooping on people in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Customer Information Systems (CIS) database, which includes among its 85 million records the personal details about everyone in the UK, and which the Identity and Passport Service plans to use as the foundation of the national ID scheme.

"A member of staff tried to access stuff about famous figures," said a spokesman for Glasgow City Council. He said the DWP alerted the council about the breach. He refused to name the celebrity or say how the council dealt with the matter.

Another reason against ID cards and the National Identity Register - you can't trust the people who have access to it. Tweet

Help buy a Wedding Cake

Earlier today @uponnothing posted the following on Twitter:

Just been considering a wedding cake. Lovely cake, hefty price, wife-to-be loves it. I need a thousand people to click my google ads.

Given that I'm the caring sort, I've decided to help him out and would like my millions of readers to do the same.

In order to help pay for his wedding cake, people need to click on the Google Ads on the Angry Mob main page [about half-way down on the right-hand side] and also on the Daily Mail Dictionary section [a big list again on the right-hand side].

Let's show what the "blogosphere" can do. Tweet

Billy Brit; the racist sh!t, pt II

Further to last week's video, Tim Bloggerheads has done another one starring teh Internets' latest sensation, Billy Brit about the BNP's Euro election leaflet:



You should also check out Tory Troll's post on their threats to the media. Once again it has been shown that, well, #theBNParetwats. Tweet