Compulsory Digital ID in the UK: Will it help to stop the boats? NO. It's a joke that the crowds in Calais and the smugglers are laughing at tonight. It won't come in for another four years. As a deterrent, it is about as effective as a chocolate condom. Will it erode Civil Liberties? YES. Now the punishment for decades of weak leadership is imposed on every UK citizen. "We have failed you until now, so you are all going to have to pay" is what Starmer is saying. It will cost £billions. Of tax-payers' money. It is the thin end of a wedge that begins with a Bigger State and ends with George Orwell's Big Brother 1984 State. Right now it's about jobs. A few years on it will be about the NHS, welfare, and then your political beliefs. The State will be able to track you, monitor your activities and take action against you if it deems you a threat to it. It goes against every principle of freedom and civil liberty - which should be the right of every innocent person - not a privilege for the State to allow or withdraw as it sees fit. Is it no more than a desperate gimmick that will never be realised? I HOPE SO. This is just my opinion. I'm glad I have been able to live most of my life free of this kind of regulation and surveillance.
For those worrying about civil liberties - it’s already lost - facial recognition in shopping for example already in place
Sad but true. The battle is already lost, so I shouldn't waste energy fretting about it. Does irk me though that Keir Starmer announces this as though he really believes it is going to help make a difference. The Black economy (illegal working) thrives for the same reason that shoplifting, vandalism and street thuggery all thrive. Because law enforcement is a pitiful shadow of what it once was, and there is no respect for the rule of law anymore among huge swathes of our society. Digital ID won't fix any of that. I feel very sorry for our over-stretched, under-funded and widely vilified Police forces. But effective Policing won't come back just because we create a Police State.
Time for another round of Donald Diplomacy; 1. The Prez sez "a peace deal is really close" (no evidence forthcoming, he just says it). 2. Invites one of his his favourite foreign leaders to a big bash with plenty of posh nosh and photo ops. 3. No peace deal. 4. The Prez sez "I'm really disappointed" etc. Then he waits a couple of weeks. 5. Back to step 1.
Shocking what has gone on in Manchester today. I'd like to know what Khan would have to say if that happened in London. Give it time.
I don't doubt that we have the highly professional security services in this Country to thank for the fact that no far worse terrorist slaughter has taken place in the UK over the past three or four years. That is no consolation to the families of the two innocent people killed in Manchester yesterday, or the loved ones of the four people seriously injured. But I think it should not be assumed that such things won't happen here because we have a supposedly more diverse, tolerant society. They have happened before. The London tube & bus bombs, the killings of Lee Rigby & PC Keith Palmer, the Manchester Arena bombing. And other planned events which would probably have killed hundreds more people - foiled by MI5 and other services. Unfortunately those prevented atrocities tend to be forgotten quickly, but I bet the list of them is very long. Whenever International diplomacy fails, the consequences ripple out around the World and it is always innocent bystanders who suffer. Military aggression, social injustice and ethnic / religious / ideological oppression are never without far reaching consequences. When Isaac Newton stated that "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" he could have been talking about Man's inhumanity to Man, rather than the laws of physics. Sadly, I fear that what we have seen so far is only a taste of what is coming. The voices of the majority of members of the UN which call for cool heads, de-escalation of tensions and negotiated settlements are now drowned out by those who are ready to use guns, tanks, troops and other weapons of war to achieve what they want. Maps are being re-drawn, territories earmarked for new purposes, grand plans unveiled. While the civilian populations living in the way of those grand plans are shown no mercy. On the streets of every city in every Country, ours included, hate crimes of every kind are on the increase. Fear, prejudice and division are the watch-words of the future. "Violence is coming" we are told. "Fight like Hell". Those words serve not just to stiffen the sinews of the believers in one faction or another. They send a message to every disillusioned, angry, bloodthirsty misfit who hears them. The message could not be clearer. Your time has come. But of course such people don't just throw themselves into the abyss. If we play their game, allow their atrocities to trick us into simply hating each other more, they will drag us all with them. Down we will all go together, into darkness.
Sadly Lardi you’re not wrong. Many of the politicians of the world and their influencers are a blight on humanity
Maintaining Peace is the hardest and most constant struggle. And by Peace I don't just mean repression of open hostility. Sadly (and admittedly with plenty of hindsight) peace was not well maintained in the years after the fall of the USSR. Matters appeared to be going well enough (The awful war in Bosnia aside) - new political freedom for many former Eastern Bloc Nations, NATO expansion, a weaker Russia riven by criminal gangs and a kind of 'Wild East' mentality allowing the rise of people like Roman Abramovich. But of course those years also enabled the gradual rise of Vladimir Putin. While in the Middle East a lasting peaceful coexistence between Israel and the Palestinian People was never achieved. The complex, tortuous process was neglected, virtually overlooked by Nations who had the power to nurture it - Britain included. Now the price is being paid for those years of neglect. Peace can be won and maintained. Northern Ireland is a good example - though there is never a perfect solution to any conflict so deeply rooted. But the process is never completed. It must be worked at diligently and patiently over generations, wherever it is needed. Wars cannot be ended with a phone call. Or a deal between allies on one side of a conflict when the other side is simply not invited to attend. Hard bargaining has to be done, in thankless private between representatives of enemies who pathologically hate each other. Peace cannot be imposed using guns and tanks and soldiers. However much those few very powerful, very misguided men who control such forces want it to be so.
