If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The point being that the social credit system in China cannot work without digital ID.
No we are not now going to start doing that sort of thing. Probably not even under a more right wing Government like Reform. But do you really think that we will always have the luxury of Governments that are either so incompetant or benign that they won't think about imposing restrictions.
As others have aready mentioned, look at what happened during Covid lockdowns. How much easier would it have been for the authorities (and more dangerous for the public) if we had all been forced to carry digital ID at that point?
Mission creep and the abuse of power is a real thing in the British State. As I said yesterday just look at the abuses of the RIPA law under Blair and Brown - and continuing even to today. Despite the law supposedly being for the protection of National Security and serious crimes like People trafficing, local councils used RIPA laws 8,500 times last year to allow for covert surveillance.
The fact that we've tended to avoid giving too much power to the state has almost certainly saved us from massive death and destruction during revolutions, the like of which tend to occur in opposition to statist systems.....
Eh? It’s estimated that 3.5% to 5% of the English population died in the English revolution against the very statist Charles I. That Whiggish history sanitises it as a “Civil War” doesn’t mean it was not a revolution. The English Revolution anticipated the French Revolution in the field of administrative and economic gains for the bourgeois classes. That a much weakened monarchy was restored did not overturn those advances.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
It is mad situation that Starmer has dragged us to, that Lowe is the voice of reason.
Why is the last roll of the dice from the process state always sodding ID cards?
I suggest we have a piLot scheme. Anyone working for the govt needs a BritCard.
If after 25 years there have been no data leaks, nothing untoward happen, expand it to NHS workers.
Then in about 50 years time, maybe see how it has worked?
In the original, beginning to be implemented, system under Gordon Brown, the data for senior civil servants, politicians and other Important People was going to be segregated into a separate, specially secure database.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The point being that the social credit system in China cannot work without digital ID.
No we are not now going to start doing that sort of thing. Probably not even under a more right wing Government like Reform. But do you really think that we will always have the luxury of Governments that are either so incompetant or benign that they won't think about imposing restrictions.
As others have aready mentioned, look at what happened during Covid lockdowns. How much easier would it have been for the authorities (and more dangerous for the public) if we had all been forced to carry digital ID at that point?
Mission creep and the abuse of power is a real thing in the British State. As I said yesterday just look at the abuses of the RIPA law under Blair and Brown - and continuing even to today. Despite the law supposedly being for the protection of National Security and serious crimes like People trafficing, local councils used RIPA laws 8,500 times last year to allow for covert surveillance.
The fact that we've tended to avoid giving too much power to the state has almost certainly saved us from massive death and destruction during revolutions, the like of which tend to occur in opposition to statist systems.....
Eh? It’s estimated that 3.5% to 5% of the English population died in the English revolution against the very statist Charles I. That Whiggish history sanitises it as a “Civil War” doesn’t mean it was not a revolution. The English Revolution anticipated the French Revolution in the field of administrative and economic gains for the bourgeois classes. That a much weakened monarchy was restored did not overturn those advances.
The fatal flaw in said revolution was that they forgot to extend the franchise to Pinnipeds.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The point being that the social credit system in China cannot work without digital ID.
No we are not now going to start doing that sort of thing. Probably not even under a more right wing Government like Reform. But do you really think that we will always have the luxury of Governments that are either so incompetant or benign that they won't think about imposing restrictions.
As others have aready mentioned, look at what happened during Covid lockdowns. How much easier would it have been for the authorities (and more dangerous for the public) if we had all been forced to carry digital ID at that point?
Mission creep and the abuse of power is a real thing in the British State. As I said yesterday just look at the abuses of the RIPA law under Blair and Brown - and continuing even to today. Despite the law supposedly being for the protection of National Security and serious crimes like People trafficing, local councils used RIPA laws 8,500 times last year to allow for covert surveillance.
The fact that we've tended to avoid giving too much power to the state has almost certainly saved us from massive death and destruction during revolutions, the like of which tend to occur in opposition to statist systems.....
Eh? It’s estimated that 3.5% to 5% of the English population died in the English revolution against the very statist Charles I. That Whiggish history sanitises it as a “Civil War” doesn’t mean it was not a revolution. The English Revolution anticipated the French Revolution in the field of administrative and economic gains for the bourgeois classes. That a much weakened monarchy was restored did not overturn those advances.
The fatal flaw in said revolution was that they forgot to extend the franchise to Pinnipeds.
As someone living in a country with ID cards, let’s just say that the big database is entirely the point, and that something intended for very limited use quickly becomes ubiquitous for every interaction with the both the State, and any number of private companies.
Yes, if I lived in the UK I’d be signing the petition opposing them.
I posted this last night.
Good thread on ID cards. Why don't we have legislators/civil servants who can understand and explain this, and legislate accordingly ?
1/ I don’t instinctively like the idea of ID cards. It offends my liberal sensibilities. But Digital IDs aren’t the privacy catastrophe they would have been in the 2000s... https://x.com/LawrenceLundy/status/1971543613868998952
7/ “Done right” is doing a lot of heavy lifting yes. Of course, the devil is in design. A “canonical event log” of every check could easily tip into surveillance. Guardrails are needed around logs, retention, transparency reports.
8/ Citizens need three guarantees: – Share less, prove more. – No new central database. – Errors are visible and appealable...
That means NOT giving the contract to Palantir, of course.
I don't have much confidence that we'll follow those principles.
Agreed, but if those guarantees were in place I would accept ID cards. That's why I won't sign the petition - it's too blanket anti.
I suspect that the government is trying to do too many things at once with this (dead cat, performative action on the boats, backroom deals with Palantir to try to curry favour on AI) and that's why they won't put these guarantees in place.
If ID cards really were about the right to work, it would be easy to put guardrails in place to stop them being just another way that our data gets forcibly transferred into the hands of billionaires.
They don't want to put the guardrails in place because they want to access all the data and share it and be able to transfer it to whoever the hell they like and they like the idea that they will be able to control the population more easily.
The argument about ID cards is an argument between (a) those who believe governments and bureaucracies are essentially benevolent, get things wrong by mistake and will try to correct their mistakes and (b) those who look at the reality and believe that governments and bureaucracies are much more capable of malice and much less benevolent than we like to believe and do not much care about making mistakes or the harm they will cause because they calculate, rightly, that they can get away with this.
There is lots of evidence for the latter and, frankly, not much evidence for the former. Digital ID should be voluntary so that the trusting and naive (group a) can take their chances. If they work without the downsides that others fear they will be adopted soon enough.
The argument about ID cards is a near total distraction from the real one we should be having over the principles which constrain (or fail to) government's use of personal data.
All the bad stuff will happen, irrespective of ID cards, if that argument is abandoned. Which it largely will be if and when the ID card scheme is blocked.
Yes, exactly - ID cards are a totem but the reality is the government has all our personal data anyway, and I suspect access to real-time tracking via our smartphones.
You want privacy? Leave your phone at home, and walk out with a wallet and cash.
Yes, I used to be bothered by ID cards, but really dont care much either way now.
Between smartphones (which are now effectively compulsory at work, as much is done via apps) and the ubiquity of CCTV in the UK we long since abolished privacy. Previously it wasn't practicable to follow everyone because of the vast sea of data, but now with AI and facial recognition it is already possible to track anyone and everyone.
We live in the presence of an omniscient state.
Interesting you say smartphones are compulsory for work. I have one only because it used to be essential for work, but now technology has moved on to the point where I don't need it again. In my current project all calls now are via Teams or Slack, my own phone number isn't published and I haven't made a single work-related call on it. My only use was to text a colleague (the only one who had my number) when I was running late on my way in to a training session.
So I'm thinking I might give it up again, annoyingly I now need it for home use because I gave up the land line at my last broadband contract renewal. Perhaps I'll get a brick, and leave it at home.
My personal phone is essential for work only because of two-factor authorisation, where a code is sent to my phone to allow me to log in to secure work applications.
Yes, that's a large part of why mine is essential, but also the rota is published on an App, consent forms are done via an app, on call is via mobile numbers as we long since got rid of pagers etc.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The point being that the social credit system in China cannot work without digital ID.
No we are not now going to start doing that sort of thing. Probably not even under a more right wing Government like Reform. But do you really think that we will always have the luxury of Governments that are either so incompetant or benign that they won't think about imposing restrictions.
As others have aready mentioned, look at what happened during Covid lockdowns. How much easier would it have been for the authorities (and more dangerous for the public) if we had all been forced to carry digital ID at that point?
Mission creep and the abuse of power is a real thing in the British State. As I said yesterday just look at the abuses of the RIPA law under Blair and Brown - and continuing even to today. Despite the law supposedly being for the protection of National Security and serious crimes like People trafficing, local councils used RIPA laws 8,500 times last year to allow for covert surveillance.
The fact that we've tended to avoid giving too much power to the state has almost certainly saved us from massive death and destruction during revolutions, the like of which tend to occur in opposition to statist systems.....
Eh? It’s estimated that 3.5% to 5% of the English population died in the English revolution against the very statist Charles I. That Whiggish history sanitises it as a “Civil War” doesn’t mean it was not a revolution. The English Revolution anticipated the French Revolution in the field of administrative and economic gains for the bourgeois classes. That a much weakened monarchy was restored did not overturn those advances.
It wasn't much weakened until the Glorious Revolution, though.
At times, Charles II did do some absolute monarch stuff - including overriding the wishes of Parliament- although he always knew where the absolute line was, and was broadly liked.
His brother didn't, and wasn't. And the rest is history.
I don’t want to be banished to whatever is the Scotch equivalent of Conhome (WoS?), but there seems to be quite a lot of blue on the Ryder Cup leaderboard.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
If you'd suggested 15 years ago that half the population would be okay with "privacy is dead" it would have sounded like hysterical nonsense.
Putin has been manipulating and buying our politicians for years with his dirty money and troll farms.
Nobody has cared before, so why should Gill matter?
So have India, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel and many more lower down the food chain.
This is a disgraceful story, and the person concerned should be banned for life from ever holding public office. But the extent to which our politics is controlled by overseas sponsors is a hornet's nest that nobody wants to poke.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The point being that the social credit system in China cannot work without digital ID.
No we are not now going to start doing that sort of thing. Probably not even under a more right wing Government like Reform. But do you really think that we will always have the luxury of Governments that are either so incompetant or benign that they won't think about imposing restrictions.
As others have aready mentioned, look at what happened during Covid lockdowns. How much easier would it have been for the authorities (and more dangerous for the public) if we had all been forced to carry digital ID at that point?
Mission creep and the abuse of power is a real thing in the British State. As I said yesterday just look at the abuses of the RIPA law under Blair and Brown - and continuing even to today. Despite the law supposedly being for the protection of National Security and serious crimes like People trafficing, local councils used RIPA laws 8,500 times last year to allow for covert surveillance.
The fact that we've tended to avoid giving too much power to the state has almost certainly saved us from massive death and destruction during revolutions, the like of which tend to occur in opposition to statist systems.....
Eh? It’s estimated that 3.5% to 5% of the English population died in the English revolution against the very statist Charles I. That Whiggish history sanitises it as a “Civil War” doesn’t mean it was not a revolution. The English Revolution anticipated the French Revolution in the field of administrative and economic gains for the bourgeois classes. That a much weakened monarchy was restored did not overturn those advances.
I'm well aware of the assertion you give but I am not aware of any rational justification for it, if there is please share it.
I guess it will all break down into those killed actually in battle, those killed as colateral damage, those who died because of inhuman conditions because of the war etc etc. Obviously a lot died in Ireland.
Certainly contemporaries considered the assertion of 5% to be very true, hence the vast efforts made by the Deliquency Processes.
There are plenty of works on the war and the characters of the war but there seems to have been less work done on the confiscations for deliquency and the fines. Those I have followed through seemed to have a heavy fine reduced repeatedly as the new regime became more assured with itself.
In Dent some houses were burnt by "The Common Enemy" in 1647 but I have yet to find any compelling description of who the Common Enemy were.
I don't generally like opening ceremonies and the like. But thoroughly enjoying that rugby seem to have elected to open the final of the WRWC with a single guitarist playing an instrumental "Living on a prayer", and then, improbably "Pipeline". Never goes amiss.
Putin has been manipulating and buying our politicians for years with his dirty money and troll farms.
Nobody has cared before, so why should Gill matter?
So have India, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel and many more lower down the food chain.
This is a disgraceful story, and the person concerned should be banned for life from ever holding public office. But the extent to which our politics is controlled by overseas sponsors is a hornet's nest that nobody wants to poke.
When CH4 did a trial of secretly trying to pay politicians to ask questions etc, only one responded by saying (approx) - what they were suggesting should be illegal if it wasn’t and to get out and never come back.
If everyone went back to wearing hats we wouldn’t have a lot of these problems
We would have entirely different problems. "My head is too hot." "Where did I put my hat?" And so on.
But if everyone put their name, date of birth and NI number along with a photo of themselves inside the hat not only would you be easily reunited with a lost hat but you would also no longer need ID cards.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
If you'd suggested 15 years ago that half the population would be okay with "privacy is dead" it would have sounded like hysterical nonsense.
There is also a big black hole where the answer to "how do we make the economy work again" should be.
And as much more knowledgeable folk than me such as @DavidL highlight, looking into that black hole for actual answers is likely to yield some less than optimal combinations of tax rises and further public service enshittification.
People don't like to be made to roll in poo whilst paying through the nose for it, or so I'm told.
'Social credit' or some similar scheme of social control might not seem so far fetched after a few years of angry rioting and a bit more social breakdown.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
If you'd suggested 15 years ago that half the population would be okay with "privacy is dead" it would have sounded like hysterical nonsense.
I dunno, I think there's always been a pretty large slice of the population in the "well if it doesn't inconvenience me and it fixes some problem I care about then who cares about abstract stuff like 'privacy'?" bucket. For instance Wikipedia has various polls giving 60% or so in favour of ID cards in 2005 and even as support fell in 2006 half the population was still for them.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
Hope it wasn’t a male commentator doing the ‘splaining.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
Hope it wasn’t a male commentator doing the ‘splaining.
Haha, Brian Moore is on top behaviour, was the female lead commentator.
Putin has been manipulating and buying our politicians for years with his dirty money and troll farms.
Nobody has cared before, so why should Gill matter?
So have India, China, Saudi Arabia, Israel and many more lower down the food chain.
This is a disgraceful story, and the person concerned should be banned for life from ever holding public office. But the extent to which our politics is controlled by overseas sponsors is a hornet's nest that nobody wants to poke.
When CH4 did a trial of secretly trying to pay politicians to ask questions etc, only one responded by saying (approx) - what they were suggesting should be illegal if it wasn’t and to get out and never come back.
DUP peer, IIRC
Quite. And that's before you even start on far more subtle means of preferment, persuasion, patronage, and other things beginning with a P.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
I went to get petrol earlier and the two female staff were talking about how they were finishing at 2 to go home and watch the rugby, a sport they were both new to.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
Hope it wasn’t a male commentator doing the ‘splaining.
Haha, Brian Moore is on top behaviour, was the female lead commentator.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
I went to get petrol earlier and the two female staff were talking about how they were finishing at 2 to go home and watch the rugby, a sport they were both new to.
I hope they give it a good try and end up being converted.
Quite a weird experience hearing the commentator on a sport’s World Cup final explaining how the scoring works in the sport. I know there might be a few people who watch for the very first time because it’s an England team in the final but very odd to hear all the same.
I went to get petrol earlier and the two female staff were talking about how they were finishing at 2 to go home and watch the rugby, a sport they were both new to.
I hope they give it a good try and end up being converted.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
If the law can't flex to give people what they want then I fear that's exactly where we're going.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
If the law can't flex to give people what they want then I fear that's exactly where we're going.
On one hand, that's a reasonable fear.
On the other, maybe the things we say we want aren't compatible with the other things we want, but don't say out loud. The whole 'European public services with American taxes' thing.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
Actually much of what he talks about has come about because of a flexible and evolving law rather than a rigid one and because that flexibility has been used to limit the scope of the State. From the Penn Trial in 1670 onwards it has been accepted that laws passed by Government are open to interpretation and challenge by the people. And as others have mentioned on here we abide by a system where what is not proscribed is allowed rather than anything not explicitely permitted being forbidden.
These are important principles worth holding on to and fighting for even if you don't personally understand or agree with them.
I've no idea if it will cause gridlock but the number of people who oppose ID cards but are happy to give up fingerprints, mugshots and their firstborn child in exchange for a trip to Disneyland Paris or Disney World Florida would make an interesting Venn diagram.
Why do you think that? I'm guessing people opposed to ID cards would also be opposed to fingerprints to visit countries.
People who are opposed to ID cards will largely still go through the EU process as they won’t give up their holidays on points of principle. They will cry that the UK gov can’t be trusted with our data but hand it over to an authority that that have no say in and manage to work out some justification for why one is ok and not the other.
Unless of course all the people signing the petition are going to refuse to go to Schengen countries anymore.
I'm opposed to compulsory ID cards and I'm also opposed to the new EU system requiring fingerprints. If necessary I will comply with each of them to achieve my personal objectives but I'll still oppose them. This is not inconsistent or hypocritical.
Hmm - somehow that requirement had passed me by. I'm not at all comfortable with giving the EU my fingerprints. I will be rethinking my holiday plans for next year. USA is already out of bounds - it will be increasingly difficult to go anywhere.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
If the law can't flex to give people what they want then I fear that's exactly where we're going.
I don't necessarily like how the unrelenting shitshow of leaks, breaches and cyber attacks is a "promise" on Re-?s part.
It's almost like they've had the nod from Uncle Vlad that all that is going to happen.
Just saying, if I were from this wing of MPs, I wouldn't accidentally be wording this as if it is a threat, rather than something that naturally falls out from a perception of incompetence.
I'm probably being picky, but that bit sat wrong with me.
Zelensky says that a Patriot system from Israel has been in Ukraine for a month, with two more expected later this year. Israel must be very confident that neither Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas will be in a position to launch an attack of any scale against them for some considerable time.
Israel has been upgrading from Patriot - to David's Sling and Iron Dome - so they are surplus to requirement.
Iron Dome is very short range interceptors.
Patriot is semi-strategic in reach and has some capability against MRBMs
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
It is mad situation that Starmer has dragged us to, that Lowe is the voice of reason.
Why is the last roll of the dice from the process state always sodding ID cards?
I suggest we have a piLot scheme. Anyone working for the govt needs a BritCard.
If after 25 years there have been no data leaks, nothing untoward happen, expand it to NHS workers.
Then in about 50 years time, maybe see how it has worked?
In the original, beginning to be implemented, system under Gordon Brown, the data for senior civil servants, politicians and other Important People was going to be segregated into a separate, specially secure database.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
I've no idea if it will cause gridlock but the number of people who oppose ID cards but are happy to give up fingerprints, mugshots and their firstborn child in exchange for a trip to Disneyland Paris or Disney World Florida would make an interesting Venn diagram.
Why do you think that? I'm guessing people opposed to ID cards would also be opposed to fingerprints to visit countries.
People who are opposed to ID cards will largely still go through the EU process as they won’t give up their holidays on points of principle. They will cry that the UK gov can’t be trusted with our data but hand it over to an authority that that have no say in and manage to work out some justification for why one is ok and not the other.
Unless of course all the people signing the petition are going to refuse to go to Schengen countries anymore.
I'm opposed to compulsory ID cards and I'm also opposed to the new EU system requiring fingerprints. If necessary I will comply with each of them to achieve my personal objectives but I'll still oppose them. This is not inconsistent or hypocritical.
Hmm - somehow that requirement had passed me by. I'm not at all comfortable with giving the EU my fingerprints. I will be rethinking my holiday plans for next year. USA is already out of bounds - it will be increasingly difficult to go anywhere.
I'm fairly sure I had to give my fingerprints and have a photo taken in Thailand and Cambodia last year. Fairly standard outside friendly mates-rates type arrangements
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
If the law can't flex to give people what they want then I fear that's exactly where we're going.
On one hand, that's a reasonable fear.
On the other, maybe the things we say we want aren't compatible with the other things we want, but don't say out loud. The whole 'European public services with American taxes' thing.
The idea that the Rule of Law means a playpen for lawyers to delay every action of government by a decade is clearly nonsense, historically.
The idea that the Rule of Law demands a surveillance state is equally insane.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
Lowe isn't even in Reform you loon.
His mission is to push the Overton window still further, so that the obscene nuttiness of mainstream Reform seems less obscene and nutty by comparison.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
Lowe isn't even in Reform you loon.
His mission is to push the Overton window still further, so that the obscene nuttiness of mainstream Reform seems less obscene and nutty by comparison.
That may be so, but nothing in his post is remotely nutty. Doing the UK's ID cards scheme now (ever frankly but especially now) is nutty.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
If people start suggesting UK ID cards will be used for social credits as in China then I’m calling it hysterical nonsense . I get some people don’t like ID cards but really the arguments against aren’t strengthened by these examples with China .
The ID card system and database provides the required platform for a social credit system. It comes down to your faith in the government - of whatever party, going forward - to resist the temptation to exert control by implementing such a system.
It's far from hysterical to believe it would be better to make sure the government is never in that position, that the tools for a social credit system are denied to them.
While that's true, there are a great many countries with ID cards, and only China has implemented a social credit type system.
So, I don't think there's anything inevitable about ID cards leading to government control.
My issue with ID cards is more... philosophical.
It if not the duty of citizens to identify themselves to the government.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
Lowe isn't even in Reform you loon.
Comma missing?
Sorry.
Lowe isn't even, in Reform you loon.
Off to the sidings for our most famous PB locomotive!?
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Interesting. In fact Lowe is simply embracing McSweeneyism: give us a go because we're nicer and more competent than the previous bunch of rotters. That's a shift because hitherto Reform claimed to have all the magic (albeit unsayable answers): all our problems are due to hoards of immigrants and PC government waste. Why the shift? Expectation management?
Lowe isn't even in Reform you loon.
I think we're dealing in trifles here. He was elected as a Reform MP and now isn't one only because Nigel got the hump. But I'm analysing (deeply and perspicaciously) the thrust of an entire political movement here (not the nuances of a few intra-party spats).
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
Actually much of what he talks about has come about because of a flexible and evolving law rather than a rigid one and because that flexibility has been used to limit the scope of the State. From the Penn Trial in 1670 onwards it has been accepted that laws passed by Government are open to interpretation and challenge by the people. And as others have mentioned on here we abide by a system where what is not proscribed is allowed rather than anything not explicitely permitted being forbidden.
These are important principles worth holding on to and fighting for even if you don't personally understand or agree with them.
Agreed; you have described more eloquently than I could two aspects of the system I am referring to. I'm not seeking to defend a rigid adherence to written laws, certainly not ones derived from eg the EU - as Casino highlights, that can de-legitimise the whole system if it goes against democratic will. However I am seeking to defend a system that, for example, sees the police largely police by consent and sees places at a 'solid school' accessible to (nearly) everyone not based on wealth or patronage. (Perhaps 'rule of law' wasn't quite the right phrase for what I'm talking about).
I don't believe for a minute that Lowe would respect your second principle were he to form part of the next government. I don't for a minute believe he would defend the rights of those he sees as lesser citizens to go about their day without undue interference from the police, or to have equal access to the best schools.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
That, in a nutshell, is why Labour and the Tories are going to get smashed at the next election unless Reform does something incredibly toxic in the meantime.
How have we reached the point where Rupert Lowe is the voice of reason?
Not quite.
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
Also, and somewhat tangentially, I take serious issues with "British people don't ask for much really." Lowe proceeds to list a bunch of facets of life in UK that are really quite wonderful and historically almost unique.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
If the law can't flex to give people what they want then I fear that's exactly where we're going.
I don't necessarily like how the unrelenting shitshow of leaks, breaches and cyber attacks is a "promise" on Re-?s part.
It's almost like they've had the nod from Uncle Vlad that all that is going to happen.
Just saying, if I were from this wing of MPs, I wouldn't accidentally be wording this as if it is a threat, rather than something that naturally falls out from a perception of incompetence.
I'm probably being picky, but that bit sat wrong with me.
What a silly post.
It should be assumed by all that we will be subject to all sorts of cyber-threats on a daily basis. To do otherwise and rely on people being nice to our ID cards scheme would be a complete dereliction of duty.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
It's about time England got its own government rather than being picked apart by the Imperial government in Westminster into penny packets, and into various sorts of stupid areas with various levels of powers. It can then delegate suitably, and consistently, to the regions. I'd support an English government that manages strategic things such as trunk roads and railways, maybe some health, Hampshire for example has a bigger population than some States of the USA (or German Länder) especially if you include Portsmouth and Soton, and can run the f***ing rest.
Zelensky says that a Patriot system from Israel has been in Ukraine for a month, with two more expected later this year. Israel must be very confident that neither Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas will be in a position to launch an attack of any scale against them for some considerable time.
Israel has been upgrading from Patriot - to David's Sling and Iron Dome - so they are surplus to requirement.
Iron Dome is very short range interceptors.
Patriot is semi-strategic in reach and has some capability against MRBMs
As does Israel's (probably superior) Arrow.
Patriot was deliberately limited by the US Congress.
A large part of ABM capability in a missile is burnout velocity.
After the ABM treaty in the 70s, there was a chunk of the Democrats in Congress who were convinced that the US Military was secretly trying to give Patriot ABM capability.
So they restricted the burn out velocity. The problem was that Aerojet, who were doing the solid motors, kept on improving the ISP. The burn out velocity kept creeping up. Raytheon kept on twiddling things to *slow* the missile down.
Initial deliveries were just under the limit. When ABM became the thing, again, under Reagan, Aerojet delivered some really really hot motors.
The equivalent Soviet missiles turned out to have much higher burn out velocities anyway - they just ignored concerns under the ABM treaty.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
That is straight out of Yes Minister - devolution of power to the lowest level.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
I had an outstanding homemade mushroom lasagna, two glasses of the excellent local white wine, a decent sized piece of grandmother’s lemon cake, and a coffee, plus a bottle of mineral water, all for €27. And made it back before the heavens opened. The dog is fine.
Google suggests you are in Arquà Petrarca and eating at Casa del Petrarca.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
I haven't digested the full thing, but even if one disagrees with the detailed plans, the principles behind it seem to me entirely laudable. And not ones which should be unique to Labour.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
What does Lowe think was the disaster during COVID-19?
The stay at home orders and then the COVID passport or whatever it was called, presumably.
The sight of people losing their jobs in care homes because they weren't vaccinated felt very un-British. (Not saying I had a better answer to the issue).
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
What does Lowe think was the disaster during COVID-19?
The stay at home orders and then the COVID passport or whatever it was called, presumably.
The sight of people losing their jobs in care homes because they weren't vaccinated felt very un-British. (Not saying I had a better answer to the issue).
And soon they'll be losing their job in care homes because they are un-British.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
I haven't digested the full thing, but even if one disagrees with the detailed plans, the principles behind it seem to me entirely laudable. And not ones which should be unique to Labour.
I just love how Labour think they're in a position to implement these grand schemes. There's a strong whiff of Adolph surveying scale models for the rebuilding of Berlin from the Fuhrerbunker. Just focus on getting through the next four years without destroying the country please, you utter collection of muppets.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
I haven't digested the full thing, but even if one disagrees with the detailed plans, the principles behind it seem to me entirely laudable. And not ones which should be unique to Labour.
I just love how Labour think they're in a position to implement these grand schemes. There's a strong whiff of Adolph surveying scale models for the rebuilding of Berlin from the Fuhrerbunker. Just focus on getting through the next four years without destroying the country please, you utter collection of muppets.
Someone mentioned a political comedy series that was like a documentary but Number 10 mistakenly watched The Thick of it instead of Yes Prime Minister.
I had an outstanding homemade mushroom lasagna, two glasses of the excellent local white wine, a decent sized piece of grandmother’s lemon cake, and a coffee, plus a bottle of mineral water, all for €27. And made it back before the heavens opened. The dog is fine.
Google suggests you are in Arquà Petrarca and eating at Casa del Petrarca.
Close. Right village, but after the photo I went down just out of shot to eat at the Enoteca.
I am actually staying down on the plain, south of Vicenza in a nice apartment on the edge of the Berici. With a garden, great for the dog. Just a shame that whenever we venture outside, and regardless of the repellent I put on, the fearsome mozzies down here always find my weak spot, and I currently have bite lumps on forehead, earlobe, and both wrists.
Tomorrow, we relocate to one of my top Italian cities, Bergamo.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
I had an outstanding homemade mushroom lasagna, two glasses of the excellent local white wine, a decent sized piece of grandmother’s lemon cake, and a coffee, plus a bottle of mineral water, all for €27. And made it back before the heavens opened. The dog is fine.
Google suggests you are in Arquà Petrarca and eating at Casa del Petrarca.
Close. Right village, but after the photo I went down just out of shot to eat at the Enoteca.
I am actually staying down on the plain, south of Vicenza in a nice apartment on the edge of the Berici. With a garden, great for the dog. Just a shame that whenever we venture outside, and regardless of the repellent I put on, the fearsome mozzies down here always find my weak spot, and I currently have bite lumps on forehead, earlobe, and both wrists.
Tomorrow, we relocate to one of my top Italian cities, Bergamo.
I had an outstanding homemade mushroom lasagna, two glasses of the excellent local white wine, a decent sized piece of grandmother’s lemon cake, and a coffee, plus a bottle of mineral water, all for €27. And made it back before the heavens opened. The dog is fine.
Google suggests you are in Arquà Petrarca and eating at Casa del Petrarca.
Close. Right village, but after the photo I went down just out of shot to eat at the Enoteca.
I am actually staying down on the plain, south of Vicenza in a nice apartment on the edge of the Berici. With a garden, great for the dog. Just a shame that whenever we venture outside, and regardless of the repellent I put on, the fearsome mozzies down here always find my weak spot, and I currently have bite lumps on forehead, earlobe, and both wrists.
Tomorrow, we relocate to one of my top Italian cities, Bergamo.
I absolutely love Bergamo, it is so underrated. Just planning a trip for next month, October was very pleasant there last year.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
The question is whether it runs out of steam after 2 million.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
The question is whether it runs out of steam after 2 million.
Perhaps not - I've got one friend working on some code that will fill it out using bogus details at a "inconspicuous rate", and another digging into whether that is a crime or not.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
...and if we had digital IDs we'd know if that was a genuine 2 million.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
The question is whether it runs out of steam after 2 million.
Perhaps not - I've got one friend working on some code that will fill it out using bogus details at a "inconspicuous rate", and another digging into whether that is a crime or not.
An interesting test would be to see how it increases by hour during the day/night; I would expect to see few signatories between (say) 23.00 and 06.00, and perhaps lots in the early evening. If the number of signatories continues to be high in the early hours, that would signal suspicious traffic patterns.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
...and if we had digital IDs we'd know if that was a genuine 2 million.
The last thing I'd ever want is the state to be able to tie our politics to our identity.
I've signed the petition once and only once, but the state gets no more than an email address and name to link to that . . . if I had to use a digital ID, I wouldn't sign it.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
...and if we had digital IDs we'd know if that was a genuine 2 million.
The last thing I'd ever want is the state to be able to tie our politics to our identity.
I've signed the petition once and only once, but the state gets no more than an email address and name to link to that . . . if I had to use a digital ID, I wouldn't sign it.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want ID cards either. I just liked the irony.
Congrats to the English ladies Rugby. I’m thinking it must be a “me” problem but I have more enjoyment for this than the Lionesses efforts and I think it’s down to the lack of hype about them. I do look forward to hearing which tube line Khan is naming after them having won the World Cup three times. Only fair and all that.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
Not really, since our opposition isn't linked to a state issued ID, thank goodness!
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
The question is whether it runs out of steam after 2 million.
It's already ~halved in pace from yesterday. My assumption is that continues.
I guess it peaks at 3 million or so. But will take significantly longer to get there.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
Keir Starmer has tasked a Conservative peer with writing a new planning bill to remove the ability for environmental groups to delay projects such as Heathrow’s third runway with judicial reviews.
The Guardian understands that leaving the Aarhus convention is being discussed as an option. This is an international treaty signed up to by the EU and other countries in Europe, which protects the right for campaigners to bring legal claims against large infrastructure projects such as waste plants, nuclear power stations and motorways.
Doing this would “destabilise Britain’s constitution” and silence legitimate objections, leading planning lawyers have warned.
Planning lawyers being those that make a living from multiple planning appeals, right?
If they want to remove the ability of anyone to delay projects the pass a bill mandating the construction. That was how railways were built in the 19th century. Primary legislation can’t be judicially reviewed.
Congrats to the English ladies Rugby. I’m thinking it must be a “me” problem but I have more enjoyment for this than the Lionesses efforts and I think it’s down to the lack of hype about them. I do look forward to hearing which tube line Khan is naming after them having won the World Cup three times. Only fair and all that.
Crossrail 2 is meant to go through SW London, isn't it? (Though not the Twickenham line.)
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
Not really, since our opposition isn't linked to a state issued ID, thank goodness!
Long may it stay that way.
Not sure I get your meaning. Could you elaborate?
(Wow a huge prize gong went off there. Apparently in 475* years of PB history I was the first to ever ask another poster to elaborate)
*475 is an estimate, very little is known about the early exchange of letters than preceded PB. However the Penny Black soon became the Tuppeny Blue after a very heavy loading on their outgoing services by some bloke in Camden.
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
"Thank you for joining the National Libertarian Register..."
Congrats to the English ladies Rugby. I’m thinking it must be a “me” problem but I have more enjoyment for this than the Lionesses efforts and I think it’s down to the lack of hype about them. I do look forward to hearing which tube line Khan is naming after them having won the World Cup three times. Only fair and all that.
Agree about all that. It may just be that rugby is an inherently better sport. Even women's football isn't totally immune to the inherent shitness that infects football.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
What does Lowe think was the disaster during COVID-19?
The stay at home orders and then the COVID passport or whatever it was called, presumably.
The sight of people losing their jobs in care homes because they weren't vaccinated felt very un-British. (Not saying I had a better answer to the issue).
So, he was one of those people who just wanted to pretend that there wasn’t a problem? Stiff upper lip and let the bodies pile up?
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
I haven't digested the full thing, but even if one disagrees with the detailed plans, the principles behind it seem to me entirely laudable. And not ones which should be unique to Labour.
I just love how Labour think they're in a position to implement these grand schemes. There's a strong whiff of Adolph surveying scale models for the rebuilding of Berlin from the Fuhrerbunker. Just focus on getting through the next four years without destroying the country please, you utter collection of muppets.
Thanks, I was trying to remember what the rendering of Trumps ballroom reminded me of:
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
There's a bit of an odd thing with people that are against digital IDs going out of their way to register their digital ID opposition to digital IDs.
Not really, since our opposition isn't linked to a state issued ID, thank goodness!
Long may it stay that way.
Not sure I get your meaning. Could you elaborate?
(Wow a huge prize gong went off there. Apparently in 475* years of PB history I was the first to ever ask another poster to elaborate)
*475 is an estimate, very little is known about the early exchange of letters than preceded PB. However the Penny Black soon became the Tuppeny Blue after a very heavy loading on their outgoing services by some bloke in Camden.
LOL.
If your request for elaboration is serious, then if as many have suggested a state-issued digital ID were required for signing petitions then the state could get a register of people opposed to its policies, which would be a terrible thing for an authoritarian state to have in its power.
Currently signing this requires only an email address, thank goodness. An authoritarian state can't go round up anyone who signed this petition.
Congrats to the English ladies Rugby. I’m thinking it must be a “me” problem but I have more enjoyment for this than the Lionesses efforts and I think it’s down to the lack of hype about them. I do look forward to hearing which tube line Khan is naming after them having won the World Cup three times. Only fair and all that.
Agree about all that. It may just be that rugby is an inherently better sport. Even women's football isn't totally immune to the inherent shitness that infects football.
I’m not sure Rugby is a “better” sport, there are great things about both sports, and admittedly it’s always going to be a second level to football in the UK.
It might be to an extent because, in the nicest possible way, most of the rugby players today probably aren’t going to fill the Daily Mail and instagram with bikini pics from their Ibiza holidays and so not as media friendly as the footballers. It’s sad as they inevitably will train at least as hard and don’t get the same financial rewards as the female footballers do these days.
I do hope though that someone asks Khan about it as he has to do the same for the women surely as he did for the lionesses unless of course, and I’m sure it wasn’t this, he was going for cheap popularity points rather than rewarding on great merit.
This probably sums up how a lot of people opposed to ID cards feel.
"Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10 British people don’t ask for much, really. A chance to raise a family in a safe town, with a good job and an opportunity to build a bit of security for the future. A place for their children at a solid school, the odd GP appointment when they need one and a police force that will actually turn up if there is ever trouble.
In short - we just want to get on with our lives in peace, with as little interference from the state as possible.
That really isn’t too much to ask, is it?
Please just leave us alone. That’s the British way. I like it like that.
Instead, we are being dragged into a world where the Government wants to track, log, and verify every aspect of our existence. I don’t want that. The British people don’t want that. We certainly didn't vote for it.
Let’s be clear. This has got absolutely sod all to do with illegal immigration.
I’m not even going to discuss that.
It’s about control. That’s it. The slow creep of a surveillance state that says you cannot live, work, or travel without proving yourself to the system first.
It happened once, during COVID. It was a disaster, as many of us said at the time.
Putting aside the morality behind the scheme, the Government will NOT be able to do it. These people are incompetent, the state is incompetent, it is all incompetent.
Do you trust them to effectively run such a scheme? Without leaks, breaches and cyber attacks?
It will be an unrelenting shitshow - I promise you that.
And what? We don’t have anything else to be focusing on? The country is such a utopia that vast amounts of Government time, energy and resource will now be spent fighting to implement this scheme? Really?
When it is introduced, it will grow and grow. We will never get rid of it.
We must draw a line in the sand, now. Sign the petition, write to your MP, make your voice heard. It does matter.
As an MP, I will do everything in my power to fight this - in Parliament and through Restore Britain, where plans are already underway to expose and fight the plans."
What does Lowe think was the disaster during COVID-19?
The stay at home orders and then the COVID passport or whatever it was called, presumably.
The sight of people losing their jobs in care homes because they weren't vaccinated felt very un-British. (Not saying I had a better answer to the issue).
So, he was one of those people who just wanted to pretend that there wasn’t a problem? Stiff upper lip and let the bodies pile up?
It was possible to acknowledge there was a problem, without such a terrible infringement on our liberties. As Sweden did so much better than us.
I observed GHF’s relief operations firsthand. What I saw was not a textbook distribution — because no textbook exists for a war zone such as Gaza, where terrorist combatants hide among civilians. Instead, I saw GHF using unconventional means to successfully deliver food to civilians on a staggering scale under nearly impossible circumstances. It wasn’t perfect, but it was good.
Gary Geipel concluded that the UN has made precise claims -- for which it has no evidence:
The exquisite precision of “1,373” and “2,146” notwithstanding, the OHCHR has dispensed entirely with evidence and sources for its Gaza claims. Instead, it hung its entire late-July press release on the word “reportedly,” and offered no external attribution whatsoever in its subsequent updates. That was deemed sufficient by far too many people in today’s information environment, especially after the claims are laundered through credulous “news media.”
(For the record: I am "pro-Gazans", just as I would have been "pro-Germans" in the final battles in 1945. I think the people of Gaza should be freed from the Islamo-Nazis who rule them, just as Chancellor Merz thinks the Germans were freed from the Nazis. In 1945, the suffering was ended by the unconditional surrender of the Nazi regime; those who want to end the suffering in Gaza will urge Hamas to give up the hostages, and surrender, unconditionally.)
Comments
At times, Charles II did do some absolute monarch stuff - including overriding the wishes of Parliament- although he always knew where the absolute line was, and was broadly liked.
His brother didn't, and wasn't. And the rest is history.
Aaron Rupar
@atrupar.com
Trump says he’s authorized Hegseth to use “Full Force” against Antifa in “War ravaged” Portland
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lzt76aq5q22p
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx238pwwqg6o
"Starmerism has almost destroyed the Labour party, but I still have hope for renewal
Clive Lewis"
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/26/clive-lewis-labour-keir-starmer-party-conference
This is a disgraceful story, and the person concerned should be banned for life from ever holding public office. But the extent to which our politics is controlled by overseas sponsors is a hornet's nest that nobody wants to poke.
I guess it will all break down into those killed actually in battle, those killed as colateral damage, those who died because of inhuman conditions because of the war etc etc. Obviously a lot died in Ireland.
Certainly contemporaries considered the assertion of 5% to be very true, hence the vast efforts made by the Deliquency Processes.
There are plenty of works on the war and the characters of the war but there seems to have been less work done on the confiscations for deliquency and the fines. Those I have followed through seemed to have a heavy fine reduced repeatedly as the new regime became more assured with itself.
In Dent some houses were burnt by "The Common Enemy" in 1647 but I have yet to find any compelling description of who the Common Enemy were.
DUP peer, IIRC
Looking at that list- is there anything there that anyone in Britain would disagree with?
It's not happening, but the interesting question is- why? It could be malignacy, or incompetence. Or it could be that the simple things the British public wants aren't simple to deliver, because of the other tradeoffs involved.
And as much more knowledgeable folk than me such as @DavidL highlight, looking into that black hole for actual answers is likely to yield some less than optimal combinations of tax rises and further public service enshittification.
People don't like to be made to roll in poo whilst paying through the nose for it, or so I'm told.
'Social credit' or some similar scheme of social control might not seem so far fetched after a few years of angry rioting and a bit more social breakdown.
And with that, have a delightful afternoon, all.
We ask a huge amount, and take a huge amount for granted. We do so in large part because of a system that has been carefully constructed over a couple of hundred years. It's called the rule of law. A system that Lowe and his ilk are rather keen to dismantle.
So, frankly, he can do one.
*joking
The Moldovan PM claims that Russia is spending 1% of the Moldovan GDP in subverting the Moldovan elections.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c179z9d4vl1o
How much do we think Russia is spending over here?
On the other, maybe the things we say we want aren't compatible with the other things we want, but don't say out loud. The whole 'European public services with American taxes' thing.
These are important principles worth holding on to and fighting for even if you don't personally understand or agree with them.
It's almost like they've had the nod from Uncle Vlad that all that is going to happen.
Just saying, if I were from this wing of MPs, I wouldn't accidentally be wording this as if it is a threat, rather than something that naturally falls out from a perception of incompetence.
I'm probably being picky, but that bit sat wrong with me.
It certainly sounds like the President just authorized deadly force against American citizens.
When will enough be enough?
https://x.com/JoshEakle/status/1971954499645481017
@willbunch.bsky.social
War-ravaged Portland
https://bsky.app/profile/willbunch.bsky.social/post/3lzt7wsippc2s
The idea that the Rule of Law demands a surveillance state is equally insane.
Lowe isn't even, in Reform you loon.
So, I don't think there's anything inevitable about ID cards leading to government control.
My issue with ID cards is more... philosophical.
It if not the duty of citizens to identify themselves to the government.
I'm sure the much higher ranked Dallas is right around the corner...
I don't believe for a minute that Lowe would respect your second principle were he to form part of the next government. I don't for a minute believe he would defend the rights of those he sees as lesser citizens to go about their day without undue interference from the police, or to have equal access to the best schools.
Labour thinktank hopes Starmer will devolve more power to his potential rivals
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/sep/22/labour-thinktank-hopes-starmer-will-devolve-more-power-to-his-potential-rivals
..A report published on Monday by Labour Together, the Starmerite thinktank, calls for ministers to go much further than they now plan on devolution.
The report, written by JP Spencer, Labour Together’s director of devolution policy, calls for mayors to be able to appoint commissioners to oversee a wide range of public services, from health to criminal justice. These commissioners would mirror the work being done by police and crime commissioners, a role introduced by the coalition government to oversee local policing.
The report argues: “This will allow places to deliver public services in a different way, more accountable to their users via their democratic representatives.”
At its most radical, this vision could even mean the abolition of large numbers of government departments. Before he left government, the former prime minister Gordon Brown launched an initiative he called “total place” to refocus government’s resources away from traditional departments and towards local authorities.
Labour Together’s report also calls for big changes to the way mayors’ budgets are set, calling for a version of the Barnett formula that already sets funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland based on the UK government’s spending plans.
The government is not going to back those funding proposals, some of which have already been rejected by Starmer and his chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
But Steve Reed, the newly appointed local government secretary and a close ally of the prime minister, is one of many at the top of government who believe they should go further than the changes included in the devolution bill, which is going through parliament.
Reed has not been in position long, but is understood to be open to the idea of handing over much more power to mayors, whether in health, education or criminal justice. He believes that doing so will allow locally elected politicians to emulate the “co-operative council” reforms he launched as leader of Lambeth council, which gave local people the power to design the services they needed...
https://www.labourtogether.uk/all-reports/pride-and-prosperity
It should be assumed by all that we will be subject to all sorts of cyber-threats on a daily basis. To do otherwise and rely on people being nice to our ID cards scheme would be a complete dereliction of duty.
A large part of ABM capability in a missile is burnout velocity.
After the ABM treaty in the 70s, there was a chunk of the Democrats in Congress who were convinced that the US Military was secretly trying to give Patriot ABM capability.
So they restricted the burn out velocity. The problem was that Aerojet, who were doing the solid motors, kept on improving the ISP. The burn out velocity kept creeping up. Raytheon kept on twiddling things to *slow* the missile down.
Initial deliveries were just under the limit. When ABM became the thing, again, under Reagan, Aerojet delivered some really really hot motors.
The equivalent Soviet missiles turned out to have much higher burn out velocities anyway - they just ignored concerns under the ABM treaty.
https://youtu.be/kvZGaMt7UgQ?si=0e16n7cIqInUZCN6 Shows what an unrestricted system looks like. Accelerating at 100g and glowing white hot from air friction at Mach 10. HIBEX managed 400g…
Pride and Prosperity
Restoring civic power
https://futurenorth.substack.com/p/pride-and-prosperity
I haven't digested the full thing, but even if one disagrees with the detailed plans, the principles behind it seem to me entirely laudable.
And not ones which should be unique to Labour.
The sight of people losing their jobs in care homes because they weren't vaccinated felt very un-British. (Not saying I had a better answer to the issue).
1) I found an old email from 2008 with the government responding to a petition from back then against the previous ID cards proposition on an old gov.uk website (no longer active). Funny thinking I'm signing a petition almost 36 that I last signed aged 18.
2) The petition is now over 1.9 million and the third largest petition on the current website dating back to 2010. The two higher ranked ones were Brexit related and are a long way off.
3) We will reach over 2 million today with certainty. Most likely by around 9pm - give or take half an hour.
Tomorrow, we relocate to one of my top Italian cities, Bergamo.
is it possible to get that data?
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/36851092/george-galloway-detained-gatwick-airport-terrorism-act/
I've signed the petition once and only once, but the state gets no more than an email address and name to link to that . . . if I had to use a digital ID, I wouldn't sign it.
Long may it stay that way.
I guess it peaks at 3 million or so. But will take significantly longer to get there.
Parliament has better things to do than pass masses of legislation.
One omnibus appeal on set timeframe to consider all material issues should be sufficient. It’s the sequential reviews that are the issue
(Wow a huge prize gong went off there. Apparently in 475* years of PB history I was the first to ever ask another poster to elaborate)
*475 is an estimate, very little is known about the early exchange of letters than preceded PB. However the Penny Black soon became the Tuppeny Blue after a very heavy loading on their outgoing services by some bloke in Camden.
Someone could have a lot of fun.
If your request for elaboration is serious, then if as many have suggested a state-issued digital ID were required for signing petitions then the state could get a register of people opposed to its policies, which would be a terrible thing for an authoritarian state to have in its power.
Currently signing this requires only an email address, thank goodness. An authoritarian state can't go round up anyone who signed this petition.
It might be to an extent because, in the nicest possible way, most of the rugby players today probably aren’t going to fill the Daily Mail and instagram with bikini pics from their Ibiza holidays and so not as media friendly as the footballers. It’s sad as they inevitably will train at least as hard and don’t get the same financial rewards as the female footballers do these days.
I do hope though that someone asks Khan about it as he has to do the same for the women surely as he did for the lionesses unless of course, and I’m sure it wasn’t this, he was going for cheap popularity points rather than rewarding on great merit.
Gary Geipel concluded that the UN has made precise claims -- for which it has no evidence: And that many journalists, for whatever reasons, accepted and transmitted those claims.
https://quillette.com/2025/09/10/gaza-and-the-collapse-of-truth-seeking-united-nations/
(For the record: I am "pro-Gazans", just as I would have been "pro-Germans" in the final battles in 1945. I think the people of Gaza should be freed from the Islamo-Nazis who rule them, just as Chancellor Merz thinks the Germans were freed from the Nazis. In 1945, the suffering was ended by the unconditional surrender of the Nazi regime; those who want to end the suffering in Gaza will urge Hamas to give up the hostages, and surrender, unconditionally.)