What Does Gordon Brown Eat?

Barack Obama has been pap-snapped popping out for a burger - something he can pull off because he's pretty much the most powerful man in politics and can do whatever the hell he likes, but also because his charm and easy-going nature makes it seem perfectly normal. Meanwhile, Gordon Brown couldn't be less normal or more distant from the public. His attempts at YouTube are forced (just like his smile) and he it seems he has been pap-snapped too... standing in front of a Nazi Swastika (apparently taken in a school he was standing in front of a WWII display about Nazi Germany).

So Barack Obama is normal and eats burgers. Gordon Brown is clearly an alien (I wonder if he has the right to live and work on our planet) so what does he eat????

ID Please...

On the news this morning, I discovered that Manchester will be the trial city for the government's hair-brained ID Card scheme. What joy!

Identity cards will cost anywhere between £30 and £60 and, according to Jacqui Smith, will 'increase protection' against crime, illegal immigrants and terrorists. The Home Office press release claims the benefits of ID Cards as:

• a universal and simple proof of identity that brings convenience for organisations and individuals –ending the disorganised use of photocopied bank statements, phone bills and birth certificates;
• control over who can see your personal details – this means no longer revealing details about your finances or personal life just to prove who you are and where you live;
• ensuring that foreign nationals living, working and studying here legally are able to easily prove their identity and preventing those here illegally from benefiting from the privileges of Britain;
• and convenient travel in Europe using the identity card.

Seems great, doesn't it... until you start to really think about it.

Just like any form of identification, it will be possible to clone and forge these cards. They will be stolen and they will be lost. No security system is completely unhackable - a truth that has been repeatedly reasserted, most recently with the banks' certainty that 'Chip & Pin' and 'Verify by Visa/Mastercard Secure Code' would reduce credit card fraud instances of which continue to increase. It might make it more difficult for forgers and fraudsters, illegal immigrants and terrorists - for about five minutes - but like Star Trek's 'Borg', they will adapt and if we rest too much faith in such a system I fear that we will ultimately leave ourselves and our nation fatally exposed.

As for the so-called benefits of the scheme, I keep wondering if the Home Office is trying to be funny. We already have two major forms of identity in this country - the passport and the driving licence. Both of which we have to pay (through the nose) for every time we need to renew or change the details. The passport now contains biometric information and the driving licence has your address on it. Why do we need a further proof of identity? (Which we would also have to pay (through the nose) for every time the details needed to be changed). Convenience and 'control' of my information are paltry reasons to introduce a scheme as such massive cost. I will still have to have a driving licence in order to drive and I will still need to have a passport for travel outside Europe, so why is having extra ID considered to be convenient. Furthermore, I fail to see how this will give me more control over my personal and financial information than I already have. As things stand, I don't need to hand over such information to prove who I am. This seems rather like grasping at straws to me!

I don't agree with the argument that says carrying an ID Card is an infringement of civil liberties. I think it's important to be able to prove who you are and frequently those who try to conceal their identity when requested, are precisely the people who are up to something! What does concern me here is that this will be a huge waste of money - a colossal white elephant. The government will waste billions of pounds (even with the public putting in fistfuls of cash themselves) just getting this scheme off the ground and the most important aim of the scheme (to increase our national security by preventing fraud, illegal immigration and terrorism) is unachievable through this scheme. Introducing a further form of identity does not properly address any of these problems. Fraudsters will be able to forge, clone or steal the cards, if not immediately, then some time in the not too distant future. Illegal immigrants will still arrive here and will just continue to do what they do now: present no form of identification so that they cannot be deported, end up being released, and then disappear into the population without a trace. And terrorism is a far greater problem with far more complex issues than can be solved by a bit of plastic - after all, those identified as guilty of or suspected of terrorism in this country in the last decade, have all been here legally.

At the end of the day, an ID card does not tell anyone what you are doing or planning or what your moral, legal, religious or fanatical beliefs are (neither should it). We need to be smarter than this if we want to combat the problems in our society. This is yet another sign of Labour's inability to approach anything with a modicum of common sense or originality.

Swine Flu

As I sit here watching I Am Legend, the story of a lone survivor of an infection that decimates the human population, it is, perhaps fitting that I should blog about Swine Flu.

Swine Flu, even at the worst projected mortality rate, is not going to kill to the extremes of the aforementioned movie. However, it seems that some people seem to think this is an end-of-life-as-we-know-it scenario. On Friday morning I was driving to work with the radio on (taking a well deserved break from singing practice) and heard someone being interviewed on the morning news criticising what was being done. Although I can't remember it verbatim, the person said something along the lines of "If one person has it on a plane, 100 people have it". This assertion gave me a right chuckle since that kind of infection rate would already mean many hundreds of cases in the UK. The "Catch It, Bin It, Kill It" leaflet that I found had been circulated at work on email. I particularly liked the advice about setting up a network of 'Flu-Friends': Not, as you might imagine a group of friends and relatives that you can infect, but instead, a group of minions that you can train to do your bidding should you fall ill (the leaflet suggests that you can ask them to run errands for shopping and medication for you but surely there's more fun to be had than this?)

This is a serious situation, but I really think some people need to get a bit of perspective. Firstly, you're extremely unlikely to catch it passing someone in the street - even sitting next to an infected person on a plane or train is no guarantee of contracting the illness. Furthermore, the UK is fortunate that we have a good stock of antiviral drugs available and with sensible precautions the virus can be contained so that they should not be needed.

I'm not sure that 'Flu-Friends' classes as a precaution, sensible or otherwise.