We Are Not Paedophiles!

This immediately caught my eye lunchtime today, and I am quick as I suspect will others be to protest the latest over-reach from Mother-Labour.

National press are today reporting that ordinary people will have to start getting CRB checked if they visit schools, contribute to the school run, volunteer with the cubs and scouts... etc.

We reached the point when Labour went too far a long time back, but this piece of proposed legislation is absolute trite and an exercise which highlights how vacuous this Government is. More jobs for the boys, and empty legislation designed to make the Idiots in Government look tough whilst being downright insulting and intrusive on the people in the real world. England was once the land where the people were free and happy; the land where nobody would ever be forced to turn over evidence regarding themselves in the absence of criminal charges.

The absence of a check will lead to fines and the check will allow for local authorities to be given legal access to enter homes and establish private interviews with children. Upon announcement Baroness Morgan said the legislation was designed to “avoid another Soham,” sewing immediately an image in the minds if those who are unthinking and stupidly willing that ANYONE who would not welcome such an intrusion must be like Ian Huntley.

Look where we are today. Your rights are just something that gets in their way, an obstacle that can be got around.

Fining parents £5,000 for dropping the neighbour’s kids at school in the absence of a CRB check could turn out to be the poster image and abiding memory that will haunt Labour for decades.

Faustie has already set up a facebook group entitled “I am not a Paedophile” - I hope if you too are outraged that you will go join as well.

I have a suspicion.

My suspicion is; and it is outrageously low, even for Labour is that this is a political ploy… It is the announcement of a huge database and super-sized QUANGO, increased snooping powers for councils all rolled up in an action that increasing diminishes individual rights. This, just months before an election, and right as their chief opposition are arguing that the state needs to be rolled back.. Labour then counter and use their interpretation of the protection of children in their argument to carry on with the uber-Marxist project.

… Or am I being just overly cynical of an already despised and disreputable Government??

Government Advocates Population Controls

Just been over at The Times, when I saw this story.

Jonathon Porritt who chairs the Government's Sustainable Development Commission, and was formerly the Chairman of the Green Party has come out in favour controlling population growth in the UK through contraception and abortion. He does so because he feels that parents who have more than two children are being irresponsible by creating an unbearable burden on the environment.

A report from the commission will recommend that the Government must reduce population growth through family planning. Porritt is quoted in The Times as saying,

“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,”

“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible. It is the ghost at the table. We have all these big issues that everybody is looking at and then you don’t really hear anyone say the “p” word.”

I am not sure where these people feel they get the right to dictate such measures to anybody at all, let alone aspire to make this Government Policy the sheer temerity and inappropriateness would normally be sufficient to see a popular uprising.

However, I really hope that Gordon Brown listens to the advise of the "unapologetic" Porritt, because it is perhaps the most ludicrous advice that a Western European government is ever likely to receive. The way the Times has reported this implies that the report serves warning to the Government of the dangers of overpopulation, yet does not speak to immigration policy or the other elephant in the room, The EU which dictates the free movement of people within its own external borders.

I look forward to seeing this Government say that it wishes to join Iran and China in implementing a restriction on the number of births allowed to UK families, whilst simultaneously leaving the policies of the EU unchallenged so that families from anywhere else can move to the UK and have as many children as they like.

I wonder what feminists like Harriet Harman and Hazel Blears will make of such a policy, especially as they are Gordon Browns favourites to advocate Government policies on TV. Surely this a direct contradiction upon a persons right to choose, and any policy that advocates population control is incitement from the state upon young women to commit infanticide.

I can't wait for Government ministers to appear on TV and be asked which of their kids they would have aborted in support of their new socialist doctrine. That will really spice up Question Time. Of course, The BBC will have to carry this debate, as the report is making recommendations from Porritts commission to improve the environment.

The Optimum Population Trust, for which Porritt is a patron has however answered what must be one of humanities most pressing and searching questions. How much Carbon will the average person burn in their life time, in comparison to the number of trees required to offset that persons Carbon Footprint. They say the answer is two-and-a-half acres of Oak Trees which they compare to a size the same as Trafalgar Square.

Perhaps when the population policy is flouted by those allowed to exempt it (I am guessing, Labour Politicians, Green Party Advocates, Full Members of The Optimum Population Trust) perhaps they can be forgiven from breaking that law if they plant enough trees.

It could be the policy announcement that will forever seals in the minds of the many just how loony this Labour Party has really become.

Childrens Register Accessible To 390,000 People

Another hat-tip to Brits at their Best blog for writing about and linking to this story.

The government has announced that a database that is being set up by the government that will track details of every single individual in the UK aged 18 or under is to be accessible by 390,000 staff that work with children. No child for any reason can be excluded from the list and each will have an individual identification number.

Beverley Hughes said the database would allow people working with children to "put their particular piece of the jigsaw into the whole picture." 17 Local Authorities will soon begin training staff on how to use and update the database, which will hold name, address, contact details, date of birth, school, doctor and of course their unique identifying number. It will be accessible to all local authorities, police, NHS staff and childrens charities.

I cannot think of a single worthwhile reason why such a database should exist. I find it harder still to think of anybody I would trust less with such a project than HM Government. Such a system is open to massive abuse and is an expensive failure waiting to happen. The potential for abuse is staggering. To me, it is the State taking ultimate responsibility for the upbringing of children in the UK; they obviously think the State should have overall responsibility in protecting children.

Will we really accept the criminalisation of parents who refuse to allow their childrens details be updated to the register?

I hope the Conservatives are prepared to scrap this scheme if they come to power, they have already said they will scrap the ID card scheme.

Is Your Number Plate Illegal?

Back in September 2001 the ‘Display of Registration Marks’ act was passed by Parliament to standardise the format of number plates. The legislation looked at the font and size of the plates to make them readable to humans and to machines, such as speed cameras. All of the specifications followed on from, and are within the specifications set out in EC Council Regulation 2411/98. Within the legislation it was decreed that the only national emblem permitted on UK number plates is the 12 star ring of the EU, with two letters to denote the country of registration, i.e. GB.

At the time this met with public outrage, and a number of news outlets and newspapers carried this story. A lot of people had purchased cars and personalised plates in the years prior to 2001 that had the Union Flag, or St George Cross, Scottish Saltire, or Welsh Dragon. Under the law, display of any symbol other that the EU Flag carries up to an £1,000 fine. Furthermore, it is an MOT failure for the car. The legislation allows as an alternative that no symbol be carried, meaning that the choices are no symbol or the EU symbol.

In December 2001, John Spellar the Minister for Transport announced that after overwhelming public opinion and because of calls from the Welsh Assembly and Scottish Parliament that the law would be reviewed. In the meantime police were not to prosecute people for having emblems other than the EU flag. The legislation was to be changed to ensure that motorists would not be prosecuted, and the laws were to be devolved to the Scottish and Welsh legislatures. In fact the statement says "The Government has decided to legislate to allow the voluntary display of national flags and symbols on vehicle number plates. It is what the people of England, Scotland and Wales have asked for and strengthens their feeling of national identity.

Fast-forward to January 2009 and the revised law has not been made through Parliament, and these powers have not been devolved. The law still stands ultimately at European level. EC Council Regulation 2411/98 says – Member States are required to recognise number plates that confirm with this regulation. However, this format is recognised as optional in Finland, Sweden and the UK. If it is optional, why has the law not been changed in the UK?

The DVLA V796 form makes no mention of the UK’s various symbols being allowed. However, some websites that advertise personalised number plates state that they are allowed to use the Scottish Saltire or the Welsh Dragon see Here and Here. However, this site states that only the EU flag may be used where a national emblem is requested.

This whole situation is another example of the UK being overzealous in the interpretation of EU laws, how frustrating and unnecessary these decisions can be. It is the UK Government, not the EU, that has chosen legislate so as to make illegal number plates carrying our national emblems. The UK Government has made the requirement that the EU flag be shown where an emblem is placed, or no emblem be allowed at all. It has done so not at the insistence of European Commission regulation, but chose to do so, on its own initiative. The subsequent announcement to revise the law can be held up as another example of the Labour Government making announcements to quell popular distain that they never had any intention of honouring.

I hope that no one has been prosecuted, fined or met with a MOT failure because of this debacle. If you have, I think you should definitely take this up with your MP, and that you have a strong case for financial and legal recompense.

I personally, will never identify myself with this EU creation of nationhood. I consider myself English and British, as do most people in England. Continued attempts by the EU and the UK government to impose a Euro-nationalism are offensive and dangerous. It is shocking that we can ask people to go represent our nation by fighting in wars for us, by representing us on the field of play in sports and at the Olympics, by representing the UK abroad in trade, in commerce, as an ambassador; only to have that representation upon our vehicles deemed so outrageous that it warrants a fine, and road unworthiness.

I attribute the existence of this and of other perplections of EU association directly to the absence of regular and involved national debate in the UK about our continued membership and its implications.