Rights & Liberties

Although Alzheimers is a very serious subject, this initiative by a German care home which apparently succeeds in preventing too many incidents of people in their care wandering off and having to get police and other authorities out to look for them is so supremely simple, and when you think about it and obvious ruse, I just fell off my chair laughing when I read it!

The Nice Polite Campaign to Gently Encourage
Parliament to Publish Bills in a 21st Century Way, Please. Now.

For those who have been watching for this, the government's response to the sham consultaiton it carried out late last year on drugs policy, in the form of its new Drugs Strategy, is out tomorrow.

I can't do any better than to point you to Transform's pre-publication press release which just about covers all the things I am angry about this process, only in more measured language than I could muster!  No doubt there will be more tomorrow. 

Apparently wavey Davey Cameron was flouncing about with a "foot long form" that takes police "seven minutes" to complete in PMQs today, demanding that Mr Bean adopt their campaign to stop this bureaucratic nonsesne.

I rather hope that I am as unlikely as Davey or Gordon to be stopped and searched for whatever reason, but if I were, I would want a full justification for it, and there and then, in writing, and not on a tape that I would have to seek access to through some kind of data laws.

I am quite sure there is plenty of "bureaucratic nonsense" that the police have to carry out - like arresting people for possession of drugs say - that could be cleared away to better effect rather than a ticket that tells you, when you are wrongfully stopped and searched, why they suspected you, what for and what redress you can or cannot seek for the inconvenience.

Not quite content with their complicity in throwing smokers out into the cold, it appears some of our number in the Euro-parl are preparing to freeze us off those as well with the idea of a ban on patio heaters.  Yes, they may be gas guzzlers, but there are market ways of dealing with that through the taxation of externalities and fuel and so on to make people use them sparingly.

Why shoulddn't it be my choice, say, to save 100% of my vehicle emissions by not driving any longer but have the occasional night on the patio and be able to stay there for an extra hour maybe when there begins to be a nip in the air by cranking up the heater for a while.

Honestly.  What is it with some of our people and banning things.  It makes me want to declare that I am not in the same party as these people. 

We none of us like being kept awake at night - I know, my students regularly make my site sound like Wembley Stadium emptying at 3am but I wonder where these people objecting to their village pub getting a late license have been living all their lives.  Certainly not in any village I know, where long before the new licensing laws such pubs would probably have had "lock-ins" at least as late as the 1am this guy is now asking for:

Residents said they were worried extended opening hours would lead to parking congestion and noise problems.

A pub which opened into the early hours was out of keeping with the character of a small village, they added.

While Peter Black today highlights a story in the Western Mail by Jenny Willott I noticed closer to home an egregious abuse, potentially, of the DNA database system:

Police handcuffed a student and took his fingerprints and DNA after he tried to throw a bottle of water to tree protesters.

Jonathan Leighton, a student at St Anne's College, was arrested at 2am on Sunday in Bonn Square, Oxford, after he tried to give the water to tree protester Gabriel Chamberlain.

Now, I am against the "tree protestors" and their supporters, and I do hate littering enough to want it to be a criminal offence, albeit a minor one, but this seems heavy handed at best if the story is as it seems.  And potentially to have your DNA (a part of you) on a database for the rest of your life for trying to pass a bottle of water to someone as a gesture of kindness is outrageous. 

I would like DNA to be subject to Habeas Corpus, so long as that principle still obtains in English Law - which of course is already doubtful! 

Via the Environmental Economics blog comes a story about, well, bansturbators banning, yup, balls, bollocks, genitalia from the back of vehicles:

Today, a Chesapeake lawmaker plans to introduce a bill that will ban "truck nuts" from your truck or SUV.

The nutty idea is the brainchild of Delegate Lionell Spruill.  We're talking about the fake testicles people hang on the backs of their vehicles.  Spruill's bill would ban anything on a car or truck that looked like human genitalia.

Those nutty Americans, eh! 

Via Tom Paine's "Last Ditch " blog here's a humourous take on the serious issue of organ harvesting by default:

EVERYONE is to be fitted with a zip as part of Gordon Brown’s plan to nationalise Britain’s kidneys.

The zip will run across the middle of the abdomen to allow for the quick and easy removal of major organs and body parts – all of which will become the property of the Cabinet Office from next April.

Harvested organs will be given to Labour Party donors or used to make pies for the TUC conference.

Read the rest of it if you like...  (and no - it was not me in the photgraph - although I tend to agree that the default position should be donation, I can't imagine anyone wanting mine so I'm on pretty safe ground!)

So much for evidence based drugs policy .  Was there any purpose at all in the government consultation late last year?

Cannabis is to be reclassified as a Class B drug after an official review this spring, The Times has learnt.

Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith are determined to reverse the decision to downgrade the drug when the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs completes its report in the next few months.

While its recommendations are not yet known, ministers are already making plain that the Home Secretary is prepared to overrule the expert body if necessary.

Reclassifying cannabis as a Class B drug will mean that anyone found in possession of the substance could face a five-year jail term and an unlimited fine rather than a police warning and confiscation of the drug. The penalty for supplying would remain the same, at a maximum 14 years in jail and unlimited fines.

And yes, I think I've given up on getting any comment from the new Lib Dem Shadow Home Secretary