The Free-Market is Over

News broke last night that Bradford & Bingley would follow the route taken by Northern Rock, and be nationalised by the Labour government.

The government is planning to sell off some assets, before merging the bank with Northern Rock.

The news is worrying because it signifies the end of the free-market as we know it.

Consumers have to realise that when depositing money in a bank account, it is an investment. With all investments, there is some degree of risk. The bigger the risk, the greater the potential return.

Deposit accounts are considered relatively unrisky, hence the potential return, or interest rate, is relatively low.

As with other forms of investment, you risk losing your investment.

It’s blunt, it’s not popular, but it is a fact of life.

Why should Northern Rock, or Bradford & Bingley, be any different to XL?

It shouldn’t!

We are supposed to have a free market in Britain, yet industries are not allowed to fail.

If banks go under because of poor business planning, then so be it. If any other industry went under because of a bad business plan, that would be the end of the story.

It’s not as if depositors have anything to worry about, though. Deposits worth up to £35,000 are protected by the government – and were long before the problems of Northern Rock became public knowledge.

ID Card Insanity Continues Unabated

The BBC are reporting that Junior Minister Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) has been singing the praises of ID cards at Labour’s conference in Manchester this week.

Hillier claimed that current plans were to extend the sheme to children as young as 14, whilst the plans may be too advanced by 2010 for the Conservatives to back out.

Quite why the government are insistant on pursuing the invasive ID card scheme is beyond me. They are unpopular enough.

ID Cards Do Not Work

David Heath (former Shadow Justice spokesman) told me once that ID cards do not work if you:

• are young,
• are old,
• have a round face,
• have brown hair,
• have a beard,
• are bald.

In fact, if you are bald with a brown beard, the machines used think you’re head’s on upside down!

Dangerous Government Failures

How can we trust the government over the implementation of this scheme?

They have a fantastic dreadful record of looking after our personal data. They cannot be trusted with the National Identity Database. Amusingly, Phil Booth, of campaign group NO2ID, was refused entry to the Labour conference because of their incompetence with personal data.

Look at their record with technology contracts. The NHS IT contract, for example. Over budget, not fully implemented, may be scrapped before it is fully implemented. How could we trust them to get it right this time?

Moral Arguments

Okay, it’s one thing to look at the government’s past record when knocking ID cards. But this ignores the main fault with the deal.

It is yet another case of the government praying on the public’s fears.

People’s liberties and freedoms are at stake here. The government is the servant of the people, not vice versa. It should not be able to ban people from going on holiday, or applying for a bank account, or a student loan, because they do not have an ID card.

Just because there may be benefits of having ID cards, it doesn’t make it the right thing to do. There would be benefits for curfews, state monopolies, and so on – it doesn’t make it right!

The time is now for campaigners to get out and stop the government from imposing an ID card scheme that will enfringe on our freedoms. It won’t make us safe; it won’t cut terrorism – terrorists do still carry ID after all.

Children on the DNA database

The Liberal Democrats have called for South Yorkshire Police to delete the details of 4,000 youngsters on their computer database.

The party called for the removal of all samples obtained from under-16s who were not convicted of a sexual or violent crime.

The current, disgraceful system allows the police to keep samples of DNA from anyone arrested of even the most minor of crimes, even if they are neither charged, nor convicted.

Figures obtained from the Home Office show that South Yorkshire Police have 4,269 details of under-16s on their computer database, which they are allowed to keep for life.

Chris Huhne, Home Affairs spokesman said:

“Time and time again, this government has shown a cavalier attitude towards the gathering and safeguarding of personal data.

“Ministers may think it is acceptable to keep the DNA of children in perpetuity for the most minor of offences, but we have demonstrated that we do not.”

The news that so many of our youngsters are having their personal records kept on the largest DNA database in the world is shocking. The government, and the police, are using scare tactics to play on people’s fears as we edge ever closer to a surveillance state.

Although the government claim that the database is key to clearing up crimes, more than one in seven samples on the national database have been obtained from individuals who have not been cautioned or given a formal warning; who have not been charged; and who have not been convicted.

These are innocent people. People who are being treated as criminals, yet have committed no crime.

Britain is a liberal society, one of the finest in the world. But Labour and the Conservatives are willing to erode our civil liberties.

DNA evidence is not the key to solving crimes. Better policing; more police officers – that is how we can cut crime in Britain. Not by watching everyone’s move; not by listening to every conversation that is being had; not by phone taps and not by recording everyone’s DNA.

The solution is simple.

Keep innocent people off the DNA database. Scrap ID cards, which have been shown not to work. Put more money into the frontline troops, the policemen and policewomen that surve to protect our communities.

Lib Dems Support Safe-Standing

It may surprise readers to hear that safe-standing at football grounds was debated at a full party conference.

But yes, in Bournemouth, such an issue was debated by the Liberal Democrats.

All-seater stadia were introduced after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 as a way of controlling crowds. This policy motion aimed at trying to get safe-standing terraces (as are common in Germany) at football matches.

The reasons for this being, at football matches, people like to sing, and you can only sing standing up. By standing up, the supporters increase their lung capacity and can belt out wonders, such as “Are You Tottenham In Disguise?“

But it is not only from an atmospheric point of view that this motion was introduced. Football fans have been singled out here for discrimination. If you go to a rock concert, you can stand; go to a rugby match, you can stand. You could even go down to Lords and stand (though I doubt the MCC would approve).

Regular season-ticket holders will tell you that the make-up of an average match-day crowd is getting older. Young supporters cannot afford the market price for tickets. By allowing safe-standing areas, supporters will have a lower-cost ticket to purchase, and we’ll see a greater diversity in the supporters section. Fans with young children could still go and sit in the seated areas of the ground.

A survey carried out by the Football Supporters Federation saw an overwhelming majority of 92% of fans wanting to see the terraces brought back!

Now some readers may be thinking about Hillsborough, and thus that terraces should not be brought back – in fact the families of Hillsborough victims did turn up in Bournemouth to campaign against this motion. But the fact is, Hillsborough is not a reason to ban safe-standing terraces.

Hillsborough was a tragedy, no one will deny it. But it was not the terraces that caused the problems. It was the fencing that was put up to stop pitch invasions. It was also caused by insufficient counting of fans, meaning the terraces were over-capacity. Without the escape route (blocked off by the fencing) there was nowhere for fans to escape.

No one at the conference debate had a valid reason not to introduce safe-standing at football stadia, and the motion was, therefore, carried.

It is now Liberal Democrat policy to introduce safe-standing terraces at football grounds.

Who puts the ‘Liberal’ in Liberal Democrats?

Liberal Vision, a liberal think-tank, has released research into how liberal each of the Liberal Democrats’ MPs are. See below for results:

1. Öpik, Lembit 55.0%
2. Laws, David 50.0%
3. Keetch, Paul 45.0%
4. Howarth, David 44.4%
5. Barrett, John 42.5%
=6. Browne, Jeremy 41.7%
=6. Goldsworthy, Julia 41.7%
=6. Hemming, John 41.7%
=9. Brake, Tom 40.0%
=9. Campbell, Sir Menzies 40.0%
=9. Kennedy, Charles 40.0%
=9. Oaten, Mark 40.0%
=9. Thurso, John 40.0%
=9. Williams, Roger 40.0%
=15. Clegg, Nick 38.9%
=15. Mulholland, Greg 38.9%
=17. Baker, Norman 37.5%
=17. Beith, Sir Alan 37.5%
=17. Carmichael, Alistair 37.5%
=17. Foster, Don 37.5%
=17. Heath, David 37.5%
=17. Lamb, Norman 37.5%
=17. Reid, Alan 37.5%
=17. Younger-Ross, Richard 37.5%
=25. Alexander, Danny 36.1%
=25. Huhne, Chris 36.1%
=25. Hunter, Mark 36.1%
=25. Swinson, Jo 36.1%
=29. Bruce, Malcolm 35.0%
=29. Burstow, Paul 35.0%
=29. Davey, Edward 35.0%
=29. Harvey, Nick 35.0%
=29. Hughes, Simon 35.0%
=29. Moore, Michael 35.0%
=29. Sanders, Adrian 35.0%
=29. Smith, Sir Robert 35.0%
=29. Teather, Sarah 35.0%
38. Rogerson, Dan 34.2%
=39. Burt, Lorely 33.3%
=39. Featherstone, Lynne 33.3%
=39. Horwood, Martin 33.3%
=39. Kramer, Susan 33.3%
=39. Rowen, Paul 33.3%
=39. Williams, Mark 33.3%
=39. Willott, Jenny 33.3%
=46. George, Andrew 32.5%
=46. Gidley, Sandra 32.5%
=46. Harris, Dr Evan 32.5%
=46. Taylor, Matthew 32.5%
50. Rennie, Willie 32.4%
51. Farron, Tim 30.6%
=52. Breed, Colin 30.0%
=52. Brooke, Annette 30.0%
=52. Stunell, Andrew 30.0%
=52. Webb, Prof Steve 30.0%
=52. Willis, Phil 30.0%
57. Williams, Stephen 27.8%
=58. Holmes, Paul 27.5%
=58. Pugh, Dr John 27.5%
=58. Russell, Bob 27.5%
=61. Cable, Dr Vincent 22.5%
=61. Hancock, Mike 22.5%
=61. Leech, John 22.2%

(Source: Liberal Vision)

Although there’s a lot of space between the top three, there are many MPs bunched up in places. This is because of the unusual system used by Liberal Vision to compile this data. The researchers looked at a mere 20 pieces of data per politician (either a Parliamentary vote, or signing of an Early Day Motion). The data was compiled between 1 November 2004, and 7 June 2008 – meaning some data was gathered before the last general election. Each MP was given one point for voting for a liberal bill, or for signing a liberal EDM; they lost one point for voting for an iliberal bill, or signing an iliberal EDM.

Although the researchers made effort to distinguish between those elected pre-2005 and those elected in 2005, the depth of data used here is sparse, to say the least, and should be used sparingly. To see Vince Cable propping up the foot of the table it worrying, not far from other notable Liberal Democrat MPs Stephen Williams, and Steve Webb.

New ComRes Poll show Tories Slipping

Conservative Leader David Cameron

Readers of the Independent on Sunday will have seen a new ComRes poll today which shows a major change in the British public’s voting intentions.

The new poll showed the Conservatives still leading with 39%, down 5% on the previous poll, whilst the Liberal Democrats were the biggest winners on 21%, up 4% on the previous poll, after a sucessful conference in Bournemouth. Labour, whose conference started in Manchester, rose to 27%, an increase of 2% on the previous polling figures. David Cameron’s twelve point lead is the lowest since May.

The poll contained a series of questions surrounding the leadership of the Labour party, which prove to be good news for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Less than a third of those polled (30%) thought David Miliband would make a better Prime Minister, with nearly half (47%) disagreeing. Back in June, when the same question was asked, 41% thought Miliband would be better. A majority of 57% think that the current economic climate means it is the wrong time for Labour to change leader. An overwhelming majority of 71% think that there should be a general election in the event of Labour changing their leader once more.

If we combine the reduced Conservative lead with the lack of interest in a new Labour leader, then this strengthens Gordon Brown’s position. We wait, with anticipation, ahead of other polls due to be released shortly.