'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
Yes, that's my recollection. And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
Yes, that's my recollection. And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
You're not thinking dynamically enough - add an implant to incapacity the possessor with an electric shock if they do something naughty.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
If most adverts are shot in cities, and particular in London, then that may not be the case. Likewise, it will depend on the ethnic breakdown of actors. Do you have any stats on that?
Well those are both good points. (Though the ethnic breakdown of actors thing is slightly circular - if black actors are more in demand, there will be more black actors - hard to separate cause and effect there). And it is certainly the case that you rarely see an explicitly rural advert with non-white actors. And there will be many cases in adverts where an urban advert is explicitly what the ad exec required - a feelgoody Jamaican family making Jamaican food with Sainsbury's ingredients, for example. The mix, though - the ubiquity of mixed race couples, the never all-white panels - still suggests, statistically, that casting must be done on the basis of what ethnicity of actor is required. And again, I'm stressing, this is, to me, mostly of mathematical rather than political interest.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
Yes, that's my recollection. And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.
Labour are fundamentally thick.
Okay, but will you vote for us or not?
Almost certainly not. Whilst I like and admire many on the left I'll almost certainly never defeat my inner Tory.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
Not as much as you might think. I used linked health and social care data sometimes (research, day job) and the linkage is done (by NHS Digital, generally) probabilisticaly based on name, address, date of birth etc. There's no pre-existing linkage.
For all of us, isn’t the basic link the NI number and NHS number? Each of those is well defined and links into the rest (directly or indirectly).
In theory. In the data, at least, NHS numbers are not unique. Some people have more than one. Anyone officially changing gender gets a new NHS number, for example. Similar issues with NI number, I think, but I have't really got involved with that.
I often use linked hospital and primary care data. Even that doesn't rely on NHS number alone for matching.
All the above is England-centric. Scotland has better health data linkage through the CHI Number.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
Objections to them include: 1) the cost and beaurocracy involved and 2) the suspicion that they will be accompanied with a mandate to carry them at some point in the future.
If you are assuming that I.D. cards are OK and they must by law be carried then I completely disagree with you.
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
"I remember when all this was fields"
There is a very good motion capture sequence (on Youtube perhaps?) of the development of Pudong, in Shanghai.
The sad thing is the urban planners of all these new cities being built from the ground up are repeating exactly the same mistakes as the mid 20th century urban planners. Isolated high rise, vast windswept plazas, everything built for and around the car, strict zoning meaning most residential areas have little life during the day and most commercial areas empty out at night. Pudong and the new bits of Dubai are both classic examples but so are most American towns and quite a few British ones.
There are more than enough examples of cities that work well, are walkable (and cyclable), mixed use, lively, green - and they are almost all in Europe, North Africa and the Levant. Whether the model is somewhere like Ghent, or Barcelona, or Marrakech or Tunis, they all work by being the complete opposite of this.
It's not really about architecture because the Netherlands shows it's perfectly possible to combine contemporary design with liveable and walkable communities. It's just about putting humans first.
Actually one of the better things about Canary Wharf is that it's not beholden to the automobile. It fails on some of the other metrics though.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
They're a really "depending on purpose and implementation" idea.
They start off relatively benign and mission creep comes along…..
Thing is they have them in most European countries where they are quite often used in lieu of passports. S it's clearly possible to have ID cards without turning into a police state. But the risk is probably higher in Britain because they would be a shiny new toy for creative types at the home office or the Met Police to play with.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
Yes, that's my recollection. And while it's possible to believe that the government didn't want the many bad things which would have been enabled by this, it's such a short step from what was openly proposed to 'many bad things will be enabled by this' that it was worth opposing vigorously.
It's odd, though, in retrospect, that Labour were so wedded to this, at the expense of both popularity and, ultimately, a potential coalition with the Lib Dems. It was the hill which they chose to die on. It's hard to see what fundamental leftist tenet was being advanced to make it worthwhile.
Labour are fundamentally thick.
No, it's that they have a hard time time believing that someone working for the state could have bad intentions.
Despite all the efforts of various people working for the state.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
You're not thinking dynamically enough - add an implant to incapacity the possessor with an electric shock if they do something naughty.
They're a really "depending on purpose and implementation" idea.
They start off relatively benign and mission creep comes along…..
Thing is they have them in most European countries where they are quite often used in lieu of passports. S it's clearly possible to have ID cards without turning into a police state. But the risk is probably higher in Britain because they would be a shiny new toy for creative types at the home office or the Met Police to play with.
More that the ID cards turned up long before the IT revolution put everything on line.
So the ID card numbers are used as database keys, but linkage between the systems didn't get added to the mix.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
You're not thinking dynamically enough - add an implant to incapacity the possessor with an electric shock if they do something naughty.
I clearly don't get invited to the best parties.
Or go all the way to Diamond Age and implant some small explosive charges around your carotid artery.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
Michael Howard and other Home Secretaries have described, in some detail, the proposals which the department puts forward to them, repeatedly. Detention without trial is an old one.
Another one was the idea of having a processing centre for refugees, somewhere a long way from the UK.
This is why it's important to have a politician with a healthy regard for civil liberties in that position. We haven't been so blessed for quite some time.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
You're not thinking dynamically enough - add an implant to incapacity the possessor with an electric shock if they do something naughty.
I clearly don't get invited to the best parties.
Or go all the way to Diamond Age and implant some small explosive charges around your carotid artery.
All us time-travellers long ago adopted a small charge in the brain. You're well out of date-date!
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
Not happening, obvs, but to just idly chat - It'd be fine so long as EVERYONE is chipped and monitored. Because if everybody is being watched that's the same as nobody being watched. It's just noise. But I'd freak out if it were just me. The Truman Show was a warning not an instruction manual.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
You might be correct, but:
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
Advertising revenue was the monetisation prior to purchase I think ?
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Twitter is a disaster in so many ways and I for one would not miss oit although this site would lose around maybe 20% of its posts, which would relieve much of the ennui from the endless mindnumbing repeatedness of them.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
The linking of the databases way publicly planned. Officially signed off on. Contracts let with the usual big outfits.
The system of accessing the data was also publicly planned.
There was a very considerable discussion of this at the time - in the IT press and elsewhere.
Not sure why you are trying to die on this hill.
I'm sorry, Malmesbury, but I'm not able to elevate your take into a definitive assessment of what the planned system was or what it would have led to. This is not to say I think it was a big shame it never happened or that there are zero risks of misuse, accidental or sinister, in such systems. So there's no hill and I'm not dying.
They were, quite literally, linking the databases together. That was the whole point of what they were doing.
Why do you think we have legal limits on what the state can do?
You seem surprised I won't accept your take on this complex nuanced area as gospel.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
tbf David Jason as Nelson Mandela would be worth watching ("this time next year Rodders...")
the Sir and CBE and middle names do somehow make Agatha Christie's husband seem even whiter, don't they?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We often need our Residence card for banks, , etc. Not sure Ive ever been asked for mine by the Police. More likley the Driving licence.
It seems some people are forgetting about ID Cards, the actual sales pitch from the government at the time was it will make your life easier, we will tie together everything, so that if you are knocked down the ambulance crew come along and can read your card and get your medical records, while if you want to claim benefits, the benefits office can read your card and see your details etc etc etc.
The only claim was that at the front end, the blue lighters on the ambulance wouldn't be able to see your benefits records etc (presuming the IT worked properly).
This would only be possible because all your data would be stored in a huge centralised database. The objections had nothing to do with the plastic card (and if it was just about that, your passport does the same thing).
This wasn't conspiracy theory tin hatery, this was what the government were actually telling everybody. Came on the back Tony similar idea for the massive NHS computer system. The thought that technology could improve the lives of everybody, but at the price of personal privacy.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
Not happening, obvs, but to just idly chat - It'd be fine so long as EVERYONE is chipped and monitored. Because if everybody is being watched that's the same as nobody being watched. It's just noise. But I'd freak out if it were just me. The Truman Show was a warning not an instruction manual.
Yes.
Of course the being watched thing is pretty awful - a record of everything in your life.... run away!
The bad things about such a thing are far, far worse for people that have something to hide though. I'm sure we all have things we're embarassed about of course, but a need to hide - less so.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
It's saying if we have more black actors/participants then perhaps the UK will become ever so slightly less racist. Yes we are much less racist than we used to be but we are not there yet, despite what Driver thinks.
We are very close. We are certainly much closer than the diversity industry would have us believe.
I used to believe in an end state where nobody cared about skin colour. I now doubt that can be achieved because the diversity industry has a vested interest in the problem not being solved.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
Yes it was dreadful that Jamie Foxx played Ray Charles despite not being blind.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
Objections to them include: 1) the cost and beaurocracy involved and 2) the suspicion that they will be accompanied with a mandate to carry them at some point in the future.
If you are assuming that I.D. cards are OK and they must by law be carried then I completely disagree with you.
We're fine then since I'm not. Eg it being a criminal offence to not carry ID around? No thank you.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
You might be correct, but:
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
The only thing that counts is the end result. It doesn't matter whether the route to get there is coherent or not.
Biden 8.2 for the presidency - geez louise. Massive.
I presume because every time he does any public speaking it is a car crash, where it is clear he isn't full there...and that doesn't mean Trump / DeSantis wins.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We often need our Residence card for banks, , etc. Not sure Ive ever been asked for mine by the Police. More likley the Driving licence.
You pretty much need ID here in the same kind of situations you'd need ID in the UK, I think. Opening a bank account, for sure. Picking up a parcel from the post office, they usually insist - but can also use driving licence. Never been asked for ID when voting, although they can ask to see some. If you get stopped by the police for anything, they will ask to see it, if you don't have it with you they might accompany you home to see it. For travelling I tend to use a passport. I've definitely used my health insurance card more often than my ID card in the last years - getting old!
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
A black Ann Boleyn or the chap whose name escapes me from 80 days around the world, can’t say I care.
Harry Enfield is cancelled for playing Mandela 😂😂😂
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
What happens if a large enough grouping within the majority figures out which way the wind is blowing, and realises that a) they have the votes to stop it, and b) they are slowly running out of time if they want to stop it?
This is effectively what's happened in the US: a big chunk of white Middle America has determined (rightly or wrongly) that their society is overly focused on the needs and wants of minorities, and that it's in their interests to simply vote for anyone who's committed to reversing that trend. The best way of ensuring it doesn't happen here is to have society work for everyone; and in the absence of that, to find the best balance between all the different groupings such that no-one group feels like they're losing the game to the extent that it's worth turning the table over.
The point being, it's bad when a minority group feels that way, but it's catastrophic when the majority do.
Yes, like everything else in a democracy, it has to be done with consent of the people, lest the majority population think that the aim is to “rub the noses of people in diversity”, as famously said by Mr Campbell.
One of the highlights of the US election analysis, is likely to be large swings among Latinos towards the Republicans, driven by economic concerns, and very opposed to open-borders illegal immigration that undercuts the pay of legitimate immigrants and 2nd generation Latinos.
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My ancestry is split between British and Irish. There is no option for "white mixed", so am I white British or white other? My wife is of Midwestern German extraction, so are my kids white British or white other?
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
All ethnic classification are “absurd”, because they’re all a complex mix of historical and social factors, with a tablespoon of pseudo-science thrown in.
But the thing is, “race” is just the same. Races don’t exist (in humans): it’s a hangover from 19th century pseudo-science. There is a continuum of genetic variation, but overall we are a fairly genetically homogenous species. Genetic variation is much higher in people from sub-Saharan Africa: so, a person of European heritage and a person of South Asian heritage are, on average, more genetically alike than the person of South Asian heritage and a person of East Asian heritage, but all three are more genetically alike than someone of west Africa pen heritage versus someone of south-west African heritage.
Domestic cats are much more genetically diverse than humans. They’re more genetically diverse than domestic dogs, even though dogs often look very different and cats all look much the same.
Which is fine, and I am certain you are right on the science, but why then do we have black history month, and have to fill in forms about ethnicity? Etc etc etc. Either we have no races (correct in a scientific sense) or we have to be really careful on 'race'.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
I own Max Mallowan's archaeology library. Bought it at auction many years ago after his second wife Barbara Parker died. As well as his reference books it includes many of his notebooks from his excavations at Ninevah and a series of magic lantern slides from when he was assistant to Sir Leonard Wooley during the excavations at Ur in the 1920s.
All of these laws were brought in for our supposed benefit and all ended up being abused.
The same with the harvesting of peoples DNA by police forces.
You can make all the snide comments you want. History shows caution is right.
When I asked a policeman why they used the Prevention of Terrorism Act to arrest black teenagers (notoriously, 98% of those arrested under the PTA were black, back when the IRA were the Fun People), he was incredulous - they had been given a power, they *had* to use it.
Well contrary to the run of most opinions here I quite like Labour's ID idea tbh. Unless the Tories have the boats and hotels sorted (They probably won't) it's another tick for Starmer for me.
I think I saw something from labour about building nurseries - I am on board with that too (esp as expecting first child in Feb...)
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
IIRC, one of the features of the New Labour ID card scheme, was a “VIP” list, so that the MPs and senior officials didn’t have to submit to the state surveillance they imposed on everyone else.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
Twitter made 1.4 billion dollars in profit off of 3.4 billion in revenue in 2019.
If that's what they do with no monetisation plan then I am agog to see what they do when they focus on making cash.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
That sounds like cliche and paranoia to me.
It really wouldn't be so awful to be compulsarily micro-chipped and monitored. The big problem is the people at the top. If they had the information from such a thing they'd use it in bad ways, and also find a way to not be monitored themselves.
IIRC, one of the features of the New Labour ID card scheme, was a “VIP” list, so that the MPs and senior officials didn’t have to submit to the state surveillance they imposed on everyone else.
Indeed.
Do you remember the attempt to rollout "Zil lanes" ?
They're a really "depending on purpose and implementation" idea.
They start off relatively benign and mission creep comes along…..
This is one of those things about ID cards that people just say because it sounds seasoned and worldly wise.
Mission creep is a danger to be alert to in all systems.
The difference with ID cards, is that the invasive surveillance was the whole reason behind it - everything else was politely filler to try and get people to vote for it.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Well your opinion is rubbish then. Forget the Englishman bit, its something no one, anywhere should stomach as a fact of life.
Just back from doing the family's various advance meat orders for Christmas...... even without a turkey the approx cost is officially shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit bro. Cost of Living has moved to intensely irritating. Next stop, concerned.
To be honest I've found Christmas birds extremely expensive for several years, geese more so than Turkeys or Roosters. I remember being shocked at paying about £70 for a goose over a decade ago.
Couple of ducks and a large chicken is a cheaper way to achieve the same effect but having said that we've bought a goose again (because the butcher called us up and asked if we wanted to order).
Good shout, as discussed the other day, turkey is a poor meat. We never eat it outside Christmas for good reason, and it's not even traditional. Go goose, or sack the birds off entirely and eat beef.
We've found that Turkey mince is delicious when used to make meatballs. My Christmas meat of choice is a roast ham.
The trimmings are the key to it all tasting Christmassy anyway, which is why I wouldn't go with beef - somehow Yorkshire puddings don't feel very festive. Stuffing (very cheap to make), bread sauce (likewise), pigs in blankets. Those are the 3 guarantors of festivity (and Cranberry sauce if you like it).
How long before the weekend newspapers start devoting special supplements to affordable family Christmas - "10 delicious ways to beat the cost of living crisis", with recommendations starting with "ditch the Turkey - chicken is tastier and better value" moving on to "leftovers are one of the joys of the festive season: here's [celebrity chef's] guide to creative ways to use all that excess turkey" (forgetting they'd just advised you to move to chicken), and a special wine section advising Cava or Cremant de [region] as an affordable and delicious alternative to Champagne.
I don't know whether it is much cheaper, but I would heartily advocate capon over turkey. Tastes like you imagine a Christmas dinner should taste, rather than how it actually does taste. That said, as Tim says, the trimmings are the key. Gravy. (You get a ton of gravy off a capon.) Bramble jelly. Roast potatoes - as many as you can fit in the oven - cooked in goose fat. Roast parsnips. Carrots, soaked in a sugar and butter glaze. Leek and/or cauli in a cheese sauce. Roast red peppers with shallots. Sprouts, if you must (I dislike them but I like that they taste of Chistmas. I prefer them shredded and fried with pancetta and pine nuts.) Sausages. Sausagemeat. Pigs in blankets. Stuffing. My culinary highlight of the year. In all honesty I wouldn't particularly notice the lack if the turkey wasn't there at all.
Spot on. Capon/rooster/large organic herb-fed chuck beats turkey into a cocked hat for flavour and feeds a LOT of folk
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
Why in any case is it a bad thing if Twitter doesn't squeeze maximum profit out of the platform?
On over-estimating the proportions of different groups. Back in the 1980s, when I was teaching sixth formers in a predominantly white British area, I used to ask them: 'What percentage of people in this country do you think are from minority ethnic backgrounds?". The answers, over many years and many students, ranged from 10% to 60%, with around 33% the average. At that time, the answer was around 6-7%.
At that time, the representation of ethnic minorities on TV etc. was very low. The idea that people exaggerate now because of 'positive discrimination' on TV is absurd. I suspect the poor estimates were more to do with tabloid coverage of so many 'foreigners' in our country.
I don't think it's absurd. It's part of the answer, along with news reporting, the papers, and a host of other things. There was a post much earlier which said that the country is very heterogeneous, and this is absoutely true. I grew up in a rural Wiltshire village (nothing other than white), attended a grammar school in Salisbury which had as many black students as students with only one hand. The village has barely changed, the school more so I think. And yet some cities in the UK are majority non-white.
White British though only 43% of the London population now
It's overblown though.
Hospital and NHS, and registry office, *insisted* on categorising our children as 'white other' because I am white British and my wife's origin is 'white European'.
She's actually a massive anglophile and wholly naturalised over 20+ years so now describes herself as white British. We consider our children born and raised her as white British, and our children will almost certainly identify as white British.
Yet, in the stats, we're a different category.
My ancestry is split between British and Irish. There is no option for "white mixed", so am I white British or white other? My wife is of Midwestern German extraction, so are my kids white British or white other?
The whole ethnic classifications in the UK are absurd. We should have one question for race, which should be European/Middle Eastern/African/native American/South Asian/East Asian plus the mixed options. Then another one for cultural identity which could be English, Welsh, Punjabi, Somali, Jamaican, American or whatever.
All ethnic classification are “absurd”, because they’re all a complex mix of historical and social factors, with a tablespoon of pseudo-science thrown in.
But the thing is, “race” is just the same. Races don’t exist (in humans): it’s a hangover from 19th century pseudo-science. There is a continuum of genetic variation, but overall we are a fairly genetically homogenous species. Genetic variation is much higher in people from sub-Saharan Africa: so, a person of European heritage and a person of South Asian heritage are, on average, more genetically alike than the person of South Asian heritage and a person of East Asian heritage, but all three are more genetically alike than someone of west Africa pen heritage versus someone of south-west African heritage.
Domestic cats are much more genetically diverse than humans. They’re more genetically diverse than domestic dogs, even though dogs often look very different and cats all look much the same.
Which is fine, and I am certain you are right on the science, but why then do we have black history month, and have to fill in forms about ethnicity? Etc etc etc. Either we have no races (correct in a scientific sense) or we have to be really careful on 'race'.
Its not simple.
It's not simple, no. It's racism that made it complicated. "Races" don't exist biologically. They were a social invention. But lots of social inventions are still dangerous and harmful!
We have a legacy of centuries of racism. To get to a "colour blind" society hasn't proven easy, so we collect data on ethnicity to help us deal with racism by finding out where the problem areas are. We have Black history month to reverse the centuries of discrimination in society and specifically in how history was done.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
I get asked for my German ID card fairly often, maybe 10 times a year, but the vast majority of these are simply 'I need to enter your name and address into our system and that is much quicker for both of us if you have your ID card to hand', and I got asked for this Info much more often in the UK than I do in Germany. Before I had German ID it was rarely a problem that I didn't have my UK passport with me.
I feel as a lib-lab-lib-lib I should necessarily be against ID cards, but I struggle to see the philosophical difference between them and driving licences / passports – which are de facto ID cards absent, er, ID cards.
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
This being a home for the pedantic - you can't take a picture of the rising moon and the setting sun without a very wide angle. I'm only seeing an internal reflection? A moon near to the sun in the sky would be a sliver anyway.
Unless there's some building called the Rising Moon or something.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
The linked databases were the whole problem - that and giving access to everything to everyone using the system. Hence the LIbDems vocal opposition, and the David Davis etc.
Just imagine the fun the police could have when investigating people with loud shirts in built up areas, possessing an offensive wife etc etc
I work in IT and I know what was being implemented. It was utterly insane - unless you were a government bureaucrat who wanted to be able to identify and track people as they do in bad TV/films.
That's jaundiced and inaccurate imo.
Ah.
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
Ok, you "work in IT" so you know exactly what they were planning and it was the Surveillance Society.
Meanwhile I continue to try and separate reasonable concerns from paranoia in the matter of ID cards.
Every new Home Secretary gets the ID cards talk from the senior civil service, on their first day in the job. The bureaucrats would love to have it implemented, because it would make their lives so much easier - at the cost of privacy to the citizenry.
The reality of course is that the technology has outpaced the need. The aggregation of making tax digital, the NHS app, and a few other bits and pieces, mean we all have a “virtual ID card” already. We just don’t have to carry a bit of plastic around.
Not as much as you might think. I used linked health and social care data sometimes (research, day job) and the linkage is done (by NHS Digital, generally) probabilisticaly based on name, address, date of birth etc. There's no pre-existing linkage.
For all of us, isn’t the basic link the NI number and NHS number? Each of those is well defined and links into the rest (directly or indirectly).
In theory. In the data, at least, NHS numbers are not unique. Some people have more than one. Anyone officially changing gender gets a new NHS number, for example. Similar issues with NI number, I think, but I have't really got involved with that.
I often use linked hospital and primary care data. Even that doesn't rely on NHS number alone for matching.
All the above is England-centric. Scotland has better health data linkage through the CHI Number.
A new NHS number when you change gender? Why? Isn’t that just inviting a dangerous discontinuity In the medical records of someone who, by definition, has a complex history?
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Well your opinion is rubbish then. Forget the Englishman bit, its something no one, anywhere should stomach as a fact of life.
No, I'd oppose having to carry ID around. My point about the phrase is how it's used and by whom. It's a Farage type thing.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
You might be correct, but:
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
The only thing that counts is the end result. It doesn't matter whether the route to get there is coherent or not.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Well your opinion is rubbish then. Forget the Englishman bit, its something no one, anywhere should stomach as a fact of life.
No, I'd oppose having to carry ID around. My point about the phrase is how it's used and by whom. It's a Farage type thing.
Fair enough then. I withdraw my rather crass comment with all due apologies.
I feel as a lib-lab-lib-lib I should necessarily be against ID cards, but I struggle to see the philosophical difference between them and driving licences / passports – which are de facto ID cards absent, er, ID cards.
There isn't a difference between ID cards and passports etc.
It's the other rubbish that gets added on that is the problem.
Apparently it hurts the souls of Home Office officials if you introduce ID cards and they don't link everything to everything...
They're a really "depending on purpose and implementation" idea.
They start off relatively benign and mission creep comes along…..
This is one of those things about ID cards that people just say because it sounds seasoned and worldly wise.
Mission creep is a danger to be alert to in all systems.
The difference with ID cards, is that the invasive surveillance was the whole reason behind it - everything else was politely filler to try and get people to vote for it.
Just not necessarily the case. There are dangers - and caution is warranted - but it's perfectly possible to implement ID cards in a manner compatible with civil liberties. Several countries have done so.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
You might be correct, but:
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
The only thing that counts is the end result. It doesn't matter whether the route to get there is coherent or not.
Why do you have such confidence in the deal?
Blind faith, apparently.
Paywall it, and it's effectively dead in its current form. Musk would be effectively starting a new service from scratch, having paid $44bn for an asset that was probably worth half that at best, and the having destroyed the majority of the inherent value.
The route might not matter if you get there in the end, but if you start by reversing off a cliff, the chances of that ever happening are somewhat diminished.
It's becoming quite clear that Musky baby has no idea what to do with Twitter, and he's just throwing ideas into the wind. God knows what sort of business plan the 'investors' who gave him a lot of the money were sold on; but it certainly was not this car crash.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Talk of a car crash seems incredibly premature. For a long time Twitter had no real monetisation plan at all, and Musk has not caused any drop off in the usage of the platform. I would tend to bet on him succeeding with it.
You might be correct, but:
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
The only thing that counts is the end result. It doesn't matter whether the route to get there is coherent or not.
Why do you have such confidence in the deal?
Blind faith, apparently.
Paywall it, and it's effectively dead in its current form. Musk would be effectively starting a new service from scratch, having paid $44bn for an asset that was probably worth half that at best, and the having destroyed the majority of the inherent value.
The route might not matter if you get there in the end, but if you start by reversing off a cliff, the chances of that ever happening are somewhat diminished.
Ratner, Truss, Musk. Their names will go down in history.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Not at all. It goes to the very heart of how rights in England and then Britain were won, and it's a rare example where we differ quite fundamentally from continental Europeans, in a way it would be useful to sort out before we form a future Union with the EU.
Generally speaking, over many centuries, royal (and by extension state) power in England/Britain has been constrained by placing a series of obligations upon the state, some of these in respect of individual freedom - e.g. Habeus Corpus.
In principle, until quite recently with some of the immigration-related crap and other changes, a British subject was free to live their life with very little obligation to the state (obliged to register births and deaths, obliged to pay taxes, planning permission - although that too would be relatively recent I guess.)
Sure, you had to prove who you were if you wanted something from the state (social security, say), but that was fundamentally at your discretion. The relatively recent requirements to prove who you are when renting property, or opening a bank account, or being employed, are quite intrusive changes to the fundamental relationship between individual and state which go against many centuries of English and British tradition, and an ID card (and associated database system) would be one more regrettable step along that path.
It's now the case that if I do not possess the correct state papers that I am denied work, housing and financial services - where formerly none of those would necessarily involve the state (except as related to the payment of taxes).
There's an extent whereby I cease to exist as an actual real person independent of my existence in government records. Occasionally one hears of a story about an individual who has fallen between the cracks of the official systems and is deemed not to exist, and the Kafkaesque nightmare they consequently have to endure.
Imagine the trouble you would be in if, the next time you renewed your passport you found your application was rejected, because they could find no record of you in the system?
All this guff from politicians over recent decades about patriotism, and British values, while at the same time they've worked to undermine one of the key foundation stones of what it meant to be a free person in British society.
It's enough to make one want to burn the Home Office to the ground - except there would go my record of existing as a person and I would cease to be.
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Not at all. It goes to the very heart of how rights in England and then Britain were won, and it's a rare example where we differ quite fundamentally from continental Europeans, in a way it would be useful to sort out before we form a future Union with the EU.
Generally speaking, over many centuries, royal (and by extension state) power in England/Britain has been constrained by placing a series of obligations upon the state, done of these in respect of individual freedom - e.g. Habeus Corpus.
In principle, until quite recently with some of the immigration-related crap, a British subject was free to live their life with very little obligation to the state (obliged to register births and deaths, obliged to pay taxes, planning permission?)
Sure, you had to prove who you were if you wanted something from the state (social security, say), but that was fundamentally at your discretion. The relatively recent requirements to prove who you are when renting property, or opening a bank account, or being employed, are quite intrusive changes to the fundamental relationship between individual and state which go against many centuries of English and British tradition, and an ID card (and associated database system) would be one more regrettable step along that path.
It's now the case that if I do not possess the correct state papers that I am denied work, housing and financial services - where formerly none of those would necessarily involve the state (except as related to the payment of taxes).
There's an extent whereby I cease to exist as an actual real person independent of my existence in government records. Occasionally one hears of a story about an individual who has fallen between the cracks of the official systems and is deemed not to exist, and the Kafkaesque nightmare they consequently have to endure.
Imagine the trouble you would be in if, the next time you renewed your passport you found your application was rejected, because they could find no record of you in the system?
All this guff from politicians over recent decades about patriotism, and British values, while at the same time they've worked to undermine one of the key foundation stones of what it meant to be a free person in British society.
It's enough to make one want to burn the Home Office to the ground - except there would go my record of existing as a person and I would cease to be.
Too good an exposition - although of the opposite brain chemistry to me - to have at the fag end of a thread.
Recommend transfer to the new one. You'll get lots of likes.
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
I feel as a lib-lab-lib-lib I should necessarily be against ID cards, but I struggle to see the philosophical difference between them and driving licences / passports – which are de facto ID cards absent, er, ID cards.
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Not at all. It goes to the very heart of how rights in England and then Britain were won, and it's a rare example where we differ quite fundamentally from continental Europeans, in a way it would be useful to sort out before we form a future Union with the EU.
Generally speaking, over many centuries, royal (and by extension state) power in England/Britain has been constrained by placing a series of obligations upon the state, done of these in respect of individual freedom - e.g. Habeus Corpus.
In principle, until quite recently with some of the immigration-related crap, a British subject was free to live their life with very little obligation to the state (obliged to register births and deaths, obliged to pay taxes, planning permission?)
Sure, you had to prove who you were if you wanted something from the state (social security, say), but that was fundamentally at your discretion. The relatively recent requirements to prove who you are when renting property, or opening a bank account, or being employed, are quite intrusive changes to the fundamental relationship between individual and state which go against many centuries of English and British tradition, and an ID card (and associated database system) would be one more regrettable step along that path.
It's now the case that if I do not possess the correct state papers that I am denied work, housing and financial services - where formerly none of those would necessarily involve the state (except as related to the payment of taxes).
There's an extent whereby I cease to exist as an actual real person independent of my existence in government records. Occasionally one hears of a story about an individual who has fallen between the cracks of the official systems and is deemed not to exist, and the Kafkaesque nightmare they consequently have to endure.
Imagine the trouble you would be in if, the next time you renewed your passport you found your application was rejected, because they could find no record of you in the system?
All this guff from politicians over recent decades about patriotism, and British values, while at the same time they've worked to undermine one of the key foundation stones of what it meant to be a free person in British society.
It's enough to make one want to burn the Home Office to the ground - except there would go my record of existing as a person and I would cease to be.
Too good an exposition - although of the opposite brain chemistry to me - to have at the fag end of a thread.
Recommend transfer to the new one. You'll get lots of likes.
Simply not my idiom I'm afraid. Mr Dancer avoids using the quote button, and I try not to replicate comments across threads.
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
I see the hosts are charming describing homosexuality as 'haram' and 'something broken in the mind'.
I wonder what might have changed his mind these last 12 years. I don't think Qatar has changed its ways, so maybe the bribes have stopped coming his way?
I feel as a lib-lab-lib-lib I should necessarily be against ID cards, but I struggle to see the philosophical difference between them and driving licences / passports – which are de facto ID cards absent, er, ID cards.
A driving licence is a licence to drive.
An ID card is - or can be - a licence to exist.
A passport-driving licence-bill-from-the-gas-board is effectively a licence to exist nowadays
(not that I'm pro ID cards, partic, just can't really see much difference)
My entry for today’s picture competition. Setting sun and rising moon, hanging off the top of the world’s tallest building. View from my office window.
This being a home for the pedantic - you can't take a picture of the rising moon and the setting sun without a very wide angle. I'm only seeing an internal reflection? A moon near to the sun in the sky would be a sliver anyway.
Unless there's some building called the Rising Moon or something.
Still, more interesting than my view...
Dammit you pedant, I thought I’d got away with that! It did look very real with the eyes for a few minutes, but it was indeed some sort of reflection or optical illusion.
The Muslim one extends even to very smart people on this board.
I had a bet on the percentage of Muslims in the UK when the census is released with a former PBer. Sadly, they have said that they don't intend to honour the bet.
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
I see the hosts are charming describing homosexuality as 'haram' and 'something broken in the mind'.
I wonder what might have changed his mind these last 12 years. I don't think Qatar has changed its ways, so maybe the bribes have stopped coming his way?
Buying officials rarely succeeds. You can rent them, though....
'Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, revealed that an identity scheme was being looked at “very, very carefully indeed”, arguing it would be “so helpful” in reassuring the public that “we have control of our borders”.'
Please don't, tud.
That dreadful mug, I mean. I'm not massively anti having some sort of ID card.
The problem with ID cards is never the ID cards. The last time round the problem was that they wanted to link all state held records together and make them accessible to any state official who claimed to need them. So anyone with access to the system would access to your entire life. Given that the sale of police records is a thing, what could possibly go wrong?
For extra laughs, the problem was acknowledged - records for "important" people would be sequestered in a special, hard to access sub-system.
I don't feel threatened by the idea - and I can see the benefits - but it wouldn't be a priority in my mind. We muddle along ok without them.
You should feel threatened by the idea that the chap investigating waste dumping for the local council would have access to peoples medical and tax and legal records.....
The concept was that demented. A fraudsters charter, for a start - one stop shopping for identity theft.
A single ID code that can be used to verify your identity on/off line is quite sensible. It's the other stuff that accreates around it, each time it is proposed.
That SuperLinked Card was never happening imo. But I'd oppose such a proposal if it ever looked like it might.
There's a balance here. Benefits vs Cost + Risk. And with the Risk you have to decide what is reasonable concern vs what is paranoia.
As I say, I'm agnostic on it. Maybe very marginally in favour but no way a priority what with all the other issues we face.
Very blasé to say something was never happening when it is exactly what was proposed. Not even slippery slope, it was being sold as the proposal.
You're being very "leopards eating faces" here.
My judgement - based on the parameters/constraints of politics, legal framework, behavioural science and technology - is that the sort of ID Card you're talking about here is not a realistic prospect. It's not blase, it's about "worry management" - ie allocating my worry resource according to assessed size of the threat. If I didn't do this I'd be a ball of angst and unable to function properly.
Under the Brown government exactly this thing was proposed, planned and budgeted. The contracts to implement it were being tendered. The first, trial, ID cards were actually issued.
The Coalition government cancelled it.
It came up in the negotiations that led to the Coalition government. The Labour team, when they met the LibDems, included carrying on with the ID cards as one of their red line policies. Which, given the Lib Dems were opposed to the system was a bit... interesting.
A SuperCard to be carried at all times, produced on demand, giving access to all aspects of your personal data inc tax and medical records? - That isn't my recall of what was planned. Don't misunderstand, I know there are risks with an ID Card. But I also know you need to distinguish reasonable concern from paranoia. If it ever comes up again that's what I'll aim to do.
I simply don't get the hostility to ID Cards. Spanish citizens have one and it is really useful for accessing all sorts of services easily. Sadly as a mere resident our card is less useful.
I don't either. I'm not a strong supporter of doing it here - we get along ok and it's hardly a priority - but I don't immediately bridle up and reject it on civil liberty grounds. I just don't share that brain chemistry. It's interesting to look back at the debate during the pandemic about vaccine passes. I opposed those on cost benefit grounds but there were many who genuinely feared they were slippery slope to being tracked 24/7 by the Authorities and morphing into a Card with all your bits & bobs on. That's paranoid irrational thinking imo. But, as I say, it's a brain chemistry thing. They'd say I'm "blase" or "naive". Ah well. Difference makes the world go round.
It's interesting though. I used to be dead against ID cards, but having had to have one in 3 different countries I'm no longer bothered. I think the only time I have had to produce my German ID was a handful of times last winter when 3g covid distancing regulations were being enforced (apart from using it for things like applying for other documents). And now those regulations are gone, it turns out they weren't a slippery slope to being tracked 24/7, despite the predictions of the Querdenker (although you could argue it set a dangerous precedent)
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
We have this phrase of the "show your papers society" - which is something no freeborn Englishman could stomach.
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
Not at all. It goes to the very heart of how rights in England and then Britain were won, and it's a rare example where we differ quite fundamentally from continental Europeans, in a way it would be useful to sort out before we form a future Union with the EU.
Generally speaking, over many centuries, royal (and by extension state) power in England/Britain has been constrained by placing a series of obligations upon the state, done of these in respect of individual freedom - e.g. Habeus Corpus.
In principle, until quite recently with some of the immigration-related crap, a British subject was free to live their life with very little obligation to the state (obliged to register births and deaths, obliged to pay taxes, planning permission?)
Sure, you had to prove who you were if you wanted something from the state (social security, say), but that was fundamentally at your discretion. The relatively recent requirements to prove who you are when renting property, or opening a bank account, or being employed, are quite intrusive changes to the fundamental relationship between individual and state which go against many centuries of English and British tradition, and an ID card (and associated database system) would be one more regrettable step along that path.
It's now the case that if I do not possess the correct state papers that I am denied work, housing and financial services - where formerly none of those would necessarily involve the state (except as related to the payment of taxes).
There's an extent whereby I cease to exist as an actual real person independent of my existence in government records. Occasionally one hears of a story about an individual who has fallen between the cracks of the official systems and is deemed not to exist, and the Kafkaesque nightmare they consequently have to endure.
Imagine the trouble you would be in if, the next time you renewed your passport you found your application was rejected, because they could find no record of you in the system?
All this guff from politicians over recent decades about patriotism, and British values, while at the same time they've worked to undermine one of the key foundation stones of what it meant to be a free person in British society.
It's enough to make one want to burn the Home Office to the ground - except there would go my record of existing as a person and I would cease to be.
Too good an exposition - although of the opposite brain chemistry to me - to have at the fag end of a thread.
Recommend transfer to the new one. You'll get lots of likes.
Simply not my idiom I'm afraid. Mr Dancer avoids using the quote button, and I try not to replicate comments across threads.
With you on that, in fact, if not on the charms of a life uncoupled from formal ID.
Many adverts do include improbably (according to the stats I have no doubt) diverse family groupings.
However, as with many things it may be that we are seeing an overshoot. From decades of few, or no, or comic non-white faces (I also understand that the non-white population was smaller) to plenty.
It is normalising by exposure a diverse population. So that if you live for example in an all-white village in Wiltshire you are not going to have a heart attack if you come up on a day trip to London and see non-white faces, many of them, on the tube.
One day, I hope not too far but I suspect very far into the future we will all be colour blind and the characters in adverts will be wholly random. But we are not there yet so I see no harm and a great deal of benefit in this activity.
You can normalise by exposure without such an egregious "overshoot".
Are you in favour of government regulation of who appears in adverts?
Why would you think I might be?
You’re complaining about the matter as if it’s something that should be controlled.
No, not at all. I dont think the government can do everything - nor do I think it should do everything that it can do.
I mean do you watch all TV adverts with such a keen critical eye. Where do you stand on the 8 out of 10 cats prefer Whiskas issue?
I don't think it should be used to divert the conversation.
The serious point being why mixed race couples? Why not improbably white sheets, or the reality of vehicle leasing schemes, or the misrepresentation of just about any foodstuff compared with what you end up with if you buy it yourself.
If you are going to watch ads with your critical analyst hat on this is but one of many elements of the genre that you should be wondering about.
It's not just mixed race couples - I barely noticed it myself but when someone pointed it out it became obvious.
The problem (I've already said this) is that it gives a false picture of what the country is. It's not a significant problem in its own right, but if people have a false picture of what the country is, how can they ever understand its problems and potential solutions?
I think it is more normalising a view of what society could look like in the future. You are saying if it says we already are a melting pot why worry about race equality; I am saying it shows an end state which is normal and which we are on a non-threatening road to.
You are in fact counselling more and more active work to stamp out racially-motivated bias. Which I applaud. But I'm not thinking of those who are worried that we aren't doing enough about this, I am thinking of those for whom a role model of a mixed race family might alter or assuage their thinking.
I think the point with adverts and panel shows is that they clearly are discriminating - they are starting from a position of 'we need a black actor for this' or 'we need an ethnic minority in this line up'. Now you might be able to justify that on artistic merits, and under some circumstances I'd agree. If the advert called, for example, for someone playing Nelson Mandela - then yes, you'd want a black actor, just as you'd want a white actor for someone playing, say, Nelson. But the number of times when artistic circumstances call for someone of a specific ethnicity seem to fall far short of the number of times where we can infer that ethnicity has been the key factor in casting. We can't know which those occasions are, of course, but we know that it must happen a lot.
Watched "See How They Run", loosely based around The Mousetrap. Set in the 50's, there were more ethnic minority actors appearing than would have been in the population back then, but hey, no biggy.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
Yes it was dreadful that Jamie Foxx played Ray Charles despite not being blind.
Its interesting. Take the Cromwell series (based) on the Mantell books. That was obviously designed to look as much as possible as if it had been filmed. So no black Henry VIIIth then. But we don't really know what any of the historical figures looked like, other than the interpretations in paintings (which were never going to be as good as photos). But what about the RSC productions of the Hollow Crown? With a very black French princess? I'd argue it is different to what was being attempted in Wolf Hall.
Quite right too. If Opinion polls are biased it can be used to distort democratic elections. But if you are going to have rules, then you are going down the road of monitoring and policing.
Are the rules, and monitoring and policing, across the pond robust enough? Put another way, are views and political bets being shaped by tracking successive polls from more highly and trusted pollsters, or is the head being turned by “interesting” polls from less highly and trusted and experienced pollsters? I’m suspicious of the small amount of polling in these mid terms from respected pollsters, and the large amount from, ahem, can we call them cowboys?
On this basis I have a feeling the current balance in the Senate won’t go anywhere - 1 pick up for each side. Nor will the defeat for Democrats in the house be a large one - if red wave was ever on, Roe v Wade announcement in June aborted it prematurely.
Despite the no change senate, I’m also predicting, because of so many obvious close races, another bout of the old Red Mirage - red leads with blue votes counted later.
This is not to say it won’t be a concerning night for the democrats - Stacey Abrams has crashed and burned in her own fight, and Latino voting GOP will again be a thing - this will have to be analysed and correct lessons learned.
And then the big one in two years. Should we presume the Republican Nomination is Trumps for the taking? With ever decreasing circles of problematic expensive legal proceedings getting closer to Trump, what about strong, ambitious challengers appealing to primary voters for a fresh start from it all?
Nikki Haley. If she ran against him, how exactly would Trump and his fan club tackle her? She sounds like him, only without his baggage.
The Man Mountain Kinabalu asked: So did any PBers call this Dem overperformance?
How’s my pre election predictions going as replicated here? With Dems losing Nevada (she has lost as she has drunk almost all her blue pool so can’t recover) and GOP just edged out in Georgia, I was spot on.
More importantly I explained yesterday it is not a surprise or an over-performance (on history yes, on polls no) because there were not enough polls from reputable firms and too many “Cowboy Polls” in this election.
I don’t just think I called it spot on, but my reason for it apparently a surprise to some is spot on as well.
As regards Florida, which came in early, but a bit of a Red Mirage, my call is it’s getting a bounce because Ron is popular, but it’s the nearest thing to Trumps home state too. Also, correct me where wrong, there’s different types of Latino voter, Dems are struggling with all of them, but more so the Florida type from the Cuba connection.
Comments
The mix, though - the ubiquity of mixed race couples, the never all-white panels - still suggests, statistically, that casting must be done on the basis of what ethnicity of actor is required.
And again, I'm stressing, this is, to me, mostly of mathematical rather than political interest.
I often use linked hospital and primary care data. Even that doesn't rely on NHS number alone for matching.
All the above is England-centric. Scotland has better health data linkage through the CHI Number.
If you are assuming that I.D. cards are OK and they must by law be carried then I completely disagree with you.
There are more than enough examples of cities that work well, are walkable (and cyclable), mixed use, lively, green - and they are almost all in Europe, North Africa and the Levant. Whether the model is somewhere like Ghent, or Barcelona, or Marrakech or Tunis, they all work by being the complete opposite of this.
It's not really about architecture because the Netherlands shows it's perfectly possible to combine contemporary design with liveable and walkable communities. It's just about putting humans first.
Actually one of the better things about Canary Wharf is that it's not beholden to the automobile. It fails on some of the other metrics though.
Sometimes I get the impression these big-deal investors are just stupidly dumb. Or corrupt.
Despite all the efforts of various people working for the state.
So the ID card numbers are used as database keys, but linkage between the systems didn't get added to the mix.
Mission creep is a danger to be alert to in all systems.
Maybe you could make a case for being more worried in the UK, which lacks some of the explicit constitutional protections that Germany has, but I wouldn't really buy it.
However, when Agatha Christie's husband, Sir Max Edgar Lucien Mallowan CBE, a man as white as the driven snow, is portrayed by an actor whose parents were both Tanzanian, you do kinda ask "Why would you take liberties with the ethnicity of an actual person?" We all accept that blacking up isn't acceptable today. We can all agree that casting David Jason as Nelson Mandela would a line that would never be crossed. So why doesn't that respect go both ways?
What signs have you seen of a coherent plan for the platform? He's just spouting a load of stuff, some of which appears to be outright contradictory.
the Sir and CBE and middle names do somehow make Agatha Christie's husband seem even whiter, don't they?
The only claim was that at the front end, the blue lighters on the ambulance wouldn't be able to see your benefits records etc (presuming the IT worked properly).
This would only be possible because all your data would be stored in a huge centralised database. The objections had nothing to do with the plastic card (and if it was just about that, your passport does the same thing).
This wasn't conspiracy theory tin hatery, this was what the government were actually telling everybody. Came on the back Tony similar idea for the massive NHS computer system. The thought that technology could improve the lives of everybody, but at the price of personal privacy.
Of course the being watched thing is pretty awful - a record of everything in your life.... run away!
The bad things about such a thing are far, far worse for people that have something to hide though. I'm sure we all have things we're embarassed about of course, but a need to hide - less so.
I used to believe in an end state where nobody cared about skin colour. I now doubt that can be achieved because the diversity industry has a vested interest in the problem not being solved.
https://www.ft.com/content/abf583de-9546-11dd-aedd-000077b07658
https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/07/04/without-suspicion/stop-and-search-under-terrorism-act-2000
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/dec/25/british-councils-used-investigatory-powers-ripa-to-secretly-spy-on-public
All of these laws were brought in for our supposed benefit and all ended up being abused.
The same with the harvesting of peoples DNA by police forces.
You can make all the snide comments you want. History shows caution is right.
For travelling I tend to use a passport.
I've definitely used my health insurance card more often than my ID card in the last years - getting old!
Harry Enfield is cancelled for playing Mandela 😂😂😂
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/13/comedian-harry-enfield-no-platformed-black-face-nelson-mandela/
It's impressionistic virtue-signalling imo.
One of the highlights of the US election analysis, is likely to be large swings among Latinos towards the Republicans, driven by economic concerns, and very opposed to open-borders illegal immigration that undercuts the pay of legitimate immigrants and 2nd generation Latinos.
Its not simple.
https://sites.google.com/site/themallowanarchive/home
If that's what they do with no monetisation plan then I am agog to see what they do when they focus on making cash.
Do you remember the attempt to rollout "Zil lanes" ?
AZ: Kelly +30.02/Masters -38
NV: Masto +35/Laxalt -19.95
GA: Warnock +32.26/Walker -20
Senate Maj
GOP +82.32/Dem or NOM: -41.40
I think there's value in the Democrats but wary to stake huge amounts on it.
We have a legacy of centuries of racism. To get to a "colour blind" society hasn't proven easy, so we collect data on ethnicity to help us deal with racism by finding out where the problem areas are. We have Black history month to reverse the centuries of discrimination in society and specifically in how history was done.
Unless there's some building called the Rising Moon or something.
Still, more interesting than my view...
It's the other rubbish that gets added on that is the problem.
Apparently it hurts the souls of Home Office officials if you introduce ID cards and they don't link everything to everything...
Paywall it, and it's effectively dead in its current form. Musk would be effectively starting a new service from scratch, having paid $44bn for an asset that was probably worth half that at best, and the having destroyed the majority of the inherent value.
The route might not matter if you get there in the end, but if you start by reversing off a cliff, the chances of that ever happening are somewhat diminished.
Generally speaking, over many centuries, royal (and by extension state) power in England/Britain has been constrained by placing a series of obligations upon the state, some of these in respect of individual freedom - e.g. Habeus Corpus.
In principle, until quite recently with some of the immigration-related crap and other changes, a British subject was free to live their life with very little obligation to the state (obliged to register births and deaths, obliged to pay taxes, planning permission - although that too would be relatively recent I guess.)
Sure, you had to prove who you were if you wanted something from the state (social security, say), but that was fundamentally at your discretion. The relatively recent requirements to prove who you are when renting property, or opening a bank account, or being employed, are quite intrusive changes to the fundamental relationship between individual and state which go against many centuries of English and British tradition, and an ID card (and associated database system) would be one more regrettable step along that path.
It's now the case that if I do not possess the correct state papers that I am denied work, housing and financial services - where formerly none of those would necessarily involve the state (except as related to the payment of taxes).
There's an extent whereby I cease to exist as an actual real person independent of my existence in government records. Occasionally one hears of a story about an individual who has fallen between the cracks of the official systems and is deemed not to exist, and the Kafkaesque nightmare they consequently have to endure.
Imagine the trouble you would be in if, the next time you renewed your passport you found your application was rejected, because they could find no record of you in the system?
All this guff from politicians over recent decades about patriotism, and British values, while at the same time they've worked to undermine one of the key foundation stones of what it meant to be a free person in British society.
It's enough to make one want to burn the Home Office to the ground - except there would go my record of existing as a person and I would cease to be.
He says French president Sarkozy personally pressured FIFA to support the Qataris, who bought $14.6bn worth of Mirage Fighter Jets shortly after they won the bid 👀
First interview since his acquittal
https://twitter.com/samgadjones/status/1589887954889375744
I see the hosts are charming describing homosexuality as 'haram' and 'something broken in the mind'.
Recommend transfer to the new one. You'll get lots of likes.
An ID card is - or can be - a licence to exist.
(not that I'm pro ID cards, partic, just can't really see much difference)
I had a bet on the percentage of Muslims in the UK when the census is released with a former PBer. Sadly, they have said that they don't intend to honour the bet.
How’s my pre election predictions going as replicated here? With Dems losing Nevada (she has lost as she has drunk almost all her blue pool so can’t recover) and GOP just edged out in Georgia, I was spot on.
More importantly I explained yesterday it is not a surprise or an over-performance (on history yes, on polls no) because there were not enough polls from reputable firms and too many “Cowboy Polls” in this election.
I don’t just think I called it spot on, but my reason for it apparently a surprise to some is spot on as well.
As regards Florida, which came in early, but a bit of a Red Mirage, my call is it’s getting a bounce because Ron is popular, but it’s the nearest thing to Trumps home state too. Also, correct me where wrong, there’s different types of Latino voter, Dems are struggling with all of them, but more so the Florida type from the Cuba connection.
(but yes top notch punditry there)