Tag: politics

let's dismantle some more of our civil liberties, shall we?

RECORDS of all criminal convictions and cautions will remain on police files for 100 years after chief constables overturned the principle that offences can be “spent”, The Times has learnt. …

Some six million criminal convictions, including cautions and minor offences already on record, will now be kept for life.

more from The Times

and after hearing some oily Home Office minister on the Home Service this morning trying to justify keeping juvenile’s DNA records when the samples had been taken in cases of mistaken identity … How I hate what this country is becoming.

they have a point …

from a letter in today’s Times

“Sir, Alcoholics, like other addicts, are dishonest, manipulative and scheming. Are these not the exact qualities required to be a successful party leader these days?”

[edit]and

“Sir, Leading the Liberal Democrats as a reforming alcoholic should be no problem. After all, we have a reformed one running the world’s only superpower.”

Harold Pinter's Nobel speech

‘God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.’

more here (link to the Guardian).

this extract, of course, is not Pinter’s own conviction, but his suggested speech for G W Bush.

Tescowatch (an occasional series)

good story from today’s Guardian:

It sounds crazy to question the future of Britain’s most powerful retailer when it accounts for more than one in every eight pounds spent by UK consumers, but the next six months could see significant efforts to clip its wings.

Next month, a report from an all-party group of MPs into the future of the high street is likely to recommend an end to below-cost pricing of key goods, and curbs to stop supermarkets in general, and Tesco in particular, buying more convenience stores. The recommendations will be closely watched by the Department of Trade and Industry, which appears sympathetic to the anti-Tesco bandwagon.

we can but hope …

ooooh!

from Popbitch, comes the following re David Blunkett:

Poor David Blunkett. The sniggering about his sex life and mounting political pressures seem to have got to him. We’re hearing tales of Blunkett bursting into tears in civil servant meetings and even in front of newspaper editors. Plus he’s taken up phoning journalists and giving quotes about his personal life and children, on condition that the papers say they come from “friends of David Blunkett”, only then to issue statements denying their veracity and demanding privacy from the press.

Thankfully for the PM, a dodgy share-dealing story conveniently turned up so David could be quietly “resigned”, rather than any more whisperings of a Syd Barrett-style meltdown emerging. And this would explain why he wasn’t allowed do the standard short TV interview with the BBC political editor that all other departing cabinet ministers seem to have to do.

non sequitur

prompted by this post by drpete, I’m reminded that yesterday we were taking photographs inside and outside the Maul Mall, our nearest retail shopping experience (TM).

while I was taking some photos *outside*, a chap in a suit with a little M&S badge came up to me and said:

“Excuse me – are you having a problem?
You seem to be taking some photographs”

try as we might, neither perlmonger nor I could parse these two comments together. Obviously, I responded that I wasn’t having any problem at all, and that I was indeed taking photographs, and went on my way.

but They don’t like it, do They …