Fry up for fat kids

fewIt got him all the media exposure he dreamed of I suppose.  With one soundbite, Tam Fry secured his five minutes of press and broadcast fame and made a name for himself.

Briefing the press on a speech he was due to give to a conference in London, Fry said of overweight children: “…there should be a case for them being removed from their parents to a paediatric ward and put under weight management by doctors.”

Overweight kids have already been taken into ‘care’ by local authorities, though in only a very few cases and against a backdrop, thankfully, of public disquiet.  As a member of the National Obesity Forum’s board, Mr Fry moved us a step further towards ‘normalisation’ of such actions and acceptance that the state has the right to part children from their parents where it deems fit.

The suggestion is so obscene that there is no point attempting to grapple with it on its own terms, indeed, doing so will only help the normalisation process by giving it some credence as a subject fit for debate.

It is not debatable, it is evil.

Moving on though, let’s briefly consider some of the social phenomena that have, in living memory, resulted in children being forcibly removed from their parents for reasons other than child abuse (and child abuse is so repellent, so inhuman that there is never any debate about what does or does not constitute it).  Pol Pot springs to mind, as does Mao and the cultural revolutionaries.  Go back a few decades and we find the twin titans of social welfare, Hitler and Stalin, game for a bit of familial disintigration.  With the arguable exception of Scandinavia in the fifties, not many political regimes, however appalling and dictatorial, have indulged in splitting up families solely for the sake of a concept.  It is, rightly, beyond the pale even for second-rank ogres and oppressors.

On a more practical level, do feel free to do a few searches on the studies of what sort of adult lives await the majority of children who are taken into ‘care’.  It won’t make for pretty reading.  If you can’t be bothered to do that, then simply recall the horrors that are being dug up on the Isle of Jersey.  And if you have an innocent belief in the high standards set by modern local authority social services, then just two words should be enough to make you think again: Victoria Climbie.

Allowing a child to become obese is stupid, dangerous and irresponsible, but it is not abuse.  Allowing a child to run the risks attendant on being in ‘care’ of local authorities is not a price worth paying however dramatic the potential health advantages.

“…looking at mechanisms to deal with those categories”

No, not the keynote speech from a librarians conference or a feature in Indexing Monthly.  In fact, the slightly sinister words of Minister of the Interior, Jacqui Smith, speaking about the few exceptions who will not have to be fingerprinted to get an ID card.

I wonder what she means.  Given her form, I suspect that people incapable of providing fingerprints to the state are going to have their hands chopped off and stapled to their cards.  Or possibly they might just be taken away and shot.  Who knows?  What we do know is, when displaying a mock of the card, she denied that taking 10 prints from the elderly or those with missing fingers would be a problem.  What a sweet woman she is.  Pensioners up and down the country (many of whom will have fought in wars to preserve the freedoms so despised by Labour) will be thrilled to know they will be obliged to comply with the state’s desire to tag us all.  And as for the digitally challenged, maybe a stub print will suffice.

Is it possible for this government to become any more unpleasant?  Unfortunately, every time I think that, it proves that it is.

Hillierarious

Meg Hillier’s show of admiration for the Hungarian approach to civil liberties at a Labour Party conference fringe event was swiftly followed by a denial from the Ministry of the Interior that it intends to lower the age at which people will have to carry ID cards.

However, as part of the denial, the spokesman went on to admit that an Interior Ministry working party is looking at which age groups above 16 will be the first to get the cards.  Apparently our dear beloved Ministry is so terribly concerned that young people get into all sort of difficulties trying to prove their age (purchase of knives, fags or alcopops come to mind) that it is determined to allow them to have ID cards before anyone else.  Isn’t that sweet?  Nothing, of course, to do with them being too young to object too loudly.

Hillier, though, lightened the mood considerably with the following two precious examples of how they think in lalalalalaLabourland.

1) The Tories will not, according to Hillier, be able to can the cards because “There isn’t an easy way to unpick this scheme, quite rightly because it is invaluable.”  La la la la la Labour!!!!!!!!  She obviously thinks that this totally inept, incompetent, fourth-rate government is really going to have the ability to get ID cards functioning properly before it’s wiped out forever at the next election.  Hillierarious.

2) And if you thought that one was good, how about this?  To show us how important ID cards are, and to give credence to the idea that the government is able to deliver them, Hillier said: “It is full steam ahead in fact the prime minister wanted me to do it quicker than it was possible.”  Whoooooo, la la la la la la Labour!!!!!!!!  This woman sincerely believes that getting a testimonial from Gordon Brown is going to persuade people that the cards are right and are nailed on to happen.  Gordon Brown, the man who everything he touches turns to shit.  Gordon Brown, the most unpopular Prime Minister since Vlad the Fucking Unpopular (1728-31). 

Meg, oh Meg…please tell me that you never wanted to be a politican and you’re only doing it for a bet.

Hungary: the mother of democracy

Meg Hillier, a junior Minister of the Interior (with special reponsibility for knowing where everyone lives), went on a trip to Hungary (I wonder who paid for that, not us by any chance?).  While she was there, she was “struck” by the fact that all Hungarian 14-year olds carry ID cards with them.  So guess what?  Ms Hillier has decided that if Hungary - with it’s long and noble traditions of political freedom, tolerance and liberty – makes its kids carry them, then latecomers to democracy (such as the UK) should consider doing so too.

I foresee a rich vein of Labour policy construction opening up.  If Hillier can go to Hungary to learn about liberty, then aren’t we soon likely to see Straw in Moscow studying the latest practices in media freedom or Milliband in Harare at a seminar on free elections?  Maybe Jacqui Smith might spend a few weeks scouring the state archives of the old German Democratic Republic to gain an insight on promoting individual liberty?

Which frigging planet is Hillier from?  In which parallel universe is anyone going to be impressed by what they do in bloody Hungary?  Give me strength, please.

Bloody hell Blears!

Such is the tenuous grip on reality held by most Labour ministers that Hazel Blears (minister in charge of getting everyone to spy on everyone else in local communities) gets a full two cheers from thinendofthewedge for at least getting halfway to saying something worth listening to.

Interviewed this week Blears criticised local government and NHS staff for patronising working class people.  She said that she wants to “dispel the attitude from public service – I don’t just mean local government – that somehow those poor people need clever, educated, middle-class people to do the job for them.”

Our Hazel went on to sum it up nicely: “”I have an absolute belief in the ability of ordinary working-class people to determine their future and make their own decisions.”

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that a fellow biker is the only member of the cabinet to have realised that people are, by and large, capable of making their own decisions, but this is so shockingly off message for the party that epitomises nanny knows best that I almost feel the need to go and lie down for a while.

Now if only she hadn’t buggered it up it by limiting her concern to the “poor” and “working class” and just said that people - all people be they rich, poor, comfortable, posh, fuck me even the lower middle class – are better placed than the state to make decisions about themselves, then Hazel would have got the full three cheers.

Rocks and hard places

Whilst not glued to broadcasts from Manchester, enough of the Labour hierarchy’s noise has penetrated my consciousness to trigger a brief bout of critical self analysis.

Have I become so obsessed with the pettiness and spite of this anti-liberty party that I have forgotten the reasons why it needs to exist?  Much as I may be looking forward to at least a cessation of authoritarianism under Blair Mk II (only the terminally optimistic would expect the Tories to actually undo huge rafts of Labour’s overbearing legislation, especially with David Davis cut adrift), will that be a big enough prize to justify the exposure of the least able to look after themselves to the icy blast of the party that gave us “…there is no such thing as society*”

Self interest is a hugely more powerful instinct than altruism, so I have no problem in believing that whatever Blair MK II says now, the Tories’ dominant dna will reassert itself not long after he has moved into Downing Street, in sharp contrast to the cheerful capitulation of Labour traditionalists to Blair himself in the late nineties.

Will my happiness at the repeal of the hunting ban be sullied by my fear that eradicating child poverty will no longer be a priority?  Will my satisfaction that thousands of penpushers and jobsworths will lose their tin-pot powers (and probably their jobs) be soured by the certain knowledge that the minimum wage will be forever fixed at the rate it was on the day the Tories took power?

The answer to both questions is yes.  We are, poisonously, stuck with a choice between two deeply flawed political parties, neither of whom should be allowed anywhere near the levers of power.  Not even a single lever, even if it is very small and not terribly powerful.  Unfortunately, there’s no comfort to be found elsewhere.  The Liberals are anything but, and constitute the tastiest collection of incompetents, innocents, opportunists and the plain weird to be found anywhere outside of a Star Trek convention; while the Greens represent an even bigger threat to individual freedom than the Labour Party.

I’ve always believed that we get the politicians we deserve, but I honestly don’t think we’ve been that bad.

 

* Not the place for a debate about one of Mrs T’s more memorable lines, but I do acknowledge that it was part of a much longer, and more thoughtful, quote.  Whether you agree with the whole or not, consider how much the stripping away of convention, peer pressure, social cohesion and certain types of collectivism that characterised the Tory eighties created a perfect test bed for Labour’s future authoritarian social engineering.

No smoke without ire

Apparently the super brains behind the anti smoking lobby are a tad miffed that the vile habit is on the rise again after the slight fall in the wake of the enclosed smoking ban.  So they’ve dreamed up the sort of idea that fits in so well with all the other lunacy dripping like shit from the last dying days of this cancerous government.

Recruits are being sought for the new positions of well, I don’t actually know what they’re called, but let’s tag them as Public Imbeciles, who will be armed with carbon monoxide measuring devices and given permission to approach smokers at random on the street to ‘offer’ to test their exhalations.  Apparently these irritating little shits will be trained to not approach anyone who appears aggressive, which should rule out most outdoor smokers who are becoming so pissed off with having to freeze their balls off when having a quick fag that they normally sport expressions similar to bulldogs chewing wasps.

I could pose some proper, grown up, rational questions regarding use of tax payers’ money, priorities, civility or the nature of state spite, but instead I can’t help wondering what will happen if a single adult unaccompanied by a child is seen smoking in a public park.  Will the Public Smoking Imbeciles take precedence over the Community Warden Morons or vice versa, or will Imbecile and Moron have to slug it out to see who gets the chance to victimise them first.  I do hope it’s the latter.

A walk in the park

Living opposite a park, thinend often takes the small wedges for an hour or so on the swings.  Thinend also often glumly ponders ‘The State of the World We Live in Now’ and the resulting impossibility of letting them go to the park by themselves.

Is it not reassuring, therefore, that Community Wardens in some areas now have the power to challenge adults without children walking in public parks?

Should I not be grateful to the Brown regime for protecting my kids, and everyone else’s, from the danger inherent in single adults?

You’ve probably worked out the answer already, but just in case: no, I bloody well should not.  Labour has displayed its fetish for social control via the amplification of public fears for too long now for anyone to need any more examples, but this one does have a very special flavour of authoritarianism, assumed guilt and mendacity.

Of course, the only people to be challenged will be male (a very specific target of Labour’s hideous new world).  They’ll be walking or sitting in a public park (so must be guilty of something – at the very least they will arouse suspicion because they are not taking advantage of 24 hour drinking or worshipping at the New Labour altar of consumerism in their local shopping centre).

And the mendacity is palpable.  Like any other parent I have wild fears of weirdos watching my kids, but I also have other, higher priority, concerns such as local gang violence, traffic menace and the decayed structure on which the swings limply hang.  Labour, and its motley crew of bizzarely dressed wardens, wouldn’t and couldn’t tackle any of these real problems so they go for the soft target, even if it does have an end result that would be acceptable not in the East Germany of the stasi, but more appropriately in its obscene predecessor.

Euroblog bloggity blog

Thinendofthewedge has just spent a most enjoyable ten minutes here.  Euroblog is always a worthwhile read if only for the author’s ability to send some people’s blood pressure readings off the scale.

On this occasion, though, the entertainment is provided by a perfect example of how the EUgh and its supporters are gifted by a very special ability to unintentionally illustrate the sort of thinking that scares the shit out of most sceptics.

Blithely, and not a little patronisingly, Mr Worth dismisses all reaction to Ms Mikko’s draft proposal to regulate European blogs with the airy instruction to “get a grip folks” as poor old Ms Mikko is only capable of knocking up a Resolution rather than a big bad Directive or even bigger and badder Regulation.

Despite making allowances for his previous and current employment, Mr Worth’s inability to think about the issue beyond the constraints of the EUgh’s finely balanced (ie pondersome and complex) legislative mechanics is remarkable.

It does not matter whether Ms Mikko is passing a Resolution, Regulation or hot wind, the fact that she and 32 committee colleagues approved a draft which suggests blogs should be regulated and that some form of distinction exists between bloggers and “the public” is enough to incite either howls of laughter or screams of rage.

Disregarding this, and with a polite nod to Mr Worth’s focus on EUgh institutional mechanics, is it not also more than a little worrying that 33 members of a body which is intended to provide oversight of its more powerful sister institutions should give every sign that they would fall over themselves in haste to support any future clampdown on blogging originating in the Council?

Well, it worries me.

Not Mr Worth though, who moves effortlessly from EUgh mechanics to EUgh people by asking:  ”Does Marianne Mikko know much about blogging? I doubt it.”

Ah, well, that’s ok then.  In Mr Worth’s opinion, the MEP who has given herself the responsibility for drafting a report largely concerning blogs probably knows nothing about them.  I’ll suspend disbelief for a moment and let that pass but just to ensure a certain logical flow, should we then assume that the 32 other members of the Culture Committee who approved the draft also probably know nothing about blogs?

That assumption might be a little harder to swallow.  But then life seems to be increasingly full of indigestible rubbish these days.

 

Carry on RIPAing

Nottingham, Blackburn, Burnley, Hounslow and Harlepool are just a handful of the local authorities who have so far told Sir Simon Milton, though in rather diplomatic and indirect terms, what he can do with his advice on misuse of RIPA.

Despite the huge media attention given to Milton’s letter, did anyone with any knowledge of local authorities really think they were going to take any notice of it at all?

What is needed is a review by central government of which organisations can use RIPA at all.  Until that point, all of the no doubt highly paid heads of legal and community services in the local stasis will continue to find legal and political justification for spying on the people they are meant to serve.

Given that Professor Brown exhibits all the signs of someone incapable of telling a) arse from b) elbow, the chances of such a review are slim to non existent.