Big Brother, Big Government & Beijing
When I read things like this ...
Ministers are to consider plans for a database of electronic information holding details of every phone call and e-mail sent in the UK, it has emerged
yes, & while the gasps subside, they are really considering it...
A massive government database holding details of every phone call, e-mail and time spent on the internet by the public is being planned as part of the fight against crime and terrorism. Internet service providers and telecoms companies would hand over the records to the Home Office under plans put forward by officials. The information would be held for at least 12 months and the police and security services would be able to access it if given permission from the courts.
& then when you consider that
There are 1,162 quangos in the UK, running at a total cost to the taxpayer of £64 billion, equivalent to £2,550 per household.
Even under the Cabinet Office’s restrictive definition of quangos, the cost of these bodies has risen 50% in the last ten years.
UK quangos now employ an army of almost 700,000 bureaucrats.
Even the Government itself does not know the full extent of the unaccountable quango industry, which ranges from the massive e.g. Job Centre Plus (Staff: 70,042, Cost: £3.5 billion) the Courts Service (Staff: 19,986, Cost: £704.8 million); to the bizarre e.g. the British Potato Council (Staff: 49); the West Northants Development Corporation (Staff: 34, Cost: £15.3 million)
When the total number of quangos is added to the other government subsidiaries such as local authorities and NHS trusts, the total number of organisations controlled by the UK Government rises to 2,063, costing the taxpayer £257 billion and employing over 5.1 million people.
It should be no surprise that this happens...
The Office for National Statistics will release figures showing that more than 200,000 Britons emigrated during 2006. That will take the total number who left the country between 1997 and 2006 to 1.97 million
However dear readers, I would crave your indulgence for just a little longer to consider one brief thought …
I am currently typing this post in one of our formerly colonies. It is more efficiently run, has lower taxes & certainly, its citizens are not as closely monitored by the government as Westminster would have us watched. So what exactly was the problem in handing Hong Kong back to the communist Chinese?? In fact we would do well to seed the United Kingdom to Beijing as quickly as possible!
Comments
Quangos are quasi autonomous non governmental organisations. They are more accurately referred to as NDPBs or Non Departmental Public Bodies.
Job Centre Plus is accountable to Parliament through the Secretary of State for Work & Pensions and the Courts Service through the Lord Chancellor & SoS for Justice.
The work and spending of the real quangos can be examined directly by Commons Committees or again through the Ministers of Departments that allocate funding to the quangos. Quangos were originally set up to reduce the Civil Service head count and to be more responsive to their customers' needs than the traditional civil service. Perhaps you also meant to include self financing regulatory agencies which levy monies from companies in the industry they oversee.
I write as someone who knows a little of how government runs in the UK but who assumes that the finance and banking industries are run in the manner of Nick Leeson, Adam Applegarth and George Soros among others. I'd be grateful to be proved wrong.
Posted by: Gallimaufry | May 20, 2008 7:33 PM
Color me ignorant, but don't the British people have any say in this? Or do the majority just not care?
Posted by: Joseph | May 20, 2008 11:21 PM
Well, wouldn't that be nice Joseph. Although we live in what is loosely termed a democracy, the public does not get to vote on every issue, their MPs vote on their behalf. Unfortunately, the majority of MPs loyalties (apart from primarily lying with themselves, and their expense claims) lie with their party, not their constituents. Hence the furore when an MP attempts to do something other than 'toe the party line' resulting in episodes such as Frank Field's recent media exposure.
Posted by: ForJoseph | May 21, 2008 8:23 AM
gallimaufry..you jest surely? the govt overseas all these various bodies..is that supposed to reassure? as for finance...you fail..you are gone...seems a much better system .
Posted by: thud | May 21, 2008 11:51 AM
Gallimaufry,
You may find Jackart's latest posting to be enlightening:
http://brackenworld.blogspot.com/2008/05/my-interactions-with-state-today.html
Posted by: Simon Jester | May 21, 2008 1:04 PM
Easy. Every email you send is encrypted, and contains a 10 MB file of a vile sex act. Or kittens.
That'll put an end to this arrant nonsense forthwith.
Posted by: rpg | May 21, 2008 1:55 PM
Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, but I'm struggling with the concept of a "vile" sex act, unless it involves small children, animals or my next-door neighbor.
Posted by: Kim du Toit | May 21, 2008 6:56 PM
I like rpg's idea, my mac will encrypt with a 128 bit alogrythm, whatever that is, claimed to really hardware intensive to break, what fun
Posted by: Chris Edwards | May 22, 2008 7:01 PM
Nice idea, but the problem with encryption is that under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 they can demand the key from you, and lock you up for two years if you refuse...
Posted by: Bruce | May 22, 2008 9:53 PM
That phone call database the government are "thinking of" - it's existed since the late 1980's - the problem then was storage of all the call data, but that is now so cheap and easy it just keeps growing...
Posted by: nick | May 25, 2008 10:42 AM