Slashdot Mirror
UK Switches Off £235M Child Database
wdef writes "The UK's controversial ContactPoint database has actually been switched off! It's rare that we hear anything this sensible from government about an expensive, privacy-destroying, 'think of the children' solution: 'The government argued the system was disproportionate to the problem, so is looking at developing other solutions.' Perhaps the UK coalition government really is winding back Big Brother, as they had promised to do? Does seem unlikely."
A big brother society is expensive, so the Conservatives don't like it. It's an infringement on civil liberties so the Lib Dems don't like it (nor to a lot of the more socially liberal conservatives), and it was introduced by Nu-Labour so neither party likes it.
Bizarre though it may seem, some people get into politics to improve society.
The coalition is unpopular with a lot of Liberal Democrat voters (not sure what they'd prefer - probably for the LibDems to continue to be completely ineffectual, rather than to get at least some of their policies passed) and is in danger of a back-bench rebellion by the LibDem MPs who'd rather pander to popular opinion than get on with running the country.
Yes, correct. but I don't see the MPs doing anything about it because they all did vote to join the coalition.
They need to do some things about civil liberties to keep these people on side, and cancelling existing programs is one of the few things that won't alienate Conservative back benchers, who are typically against government spending of any kind.
Yes the conservatives by nature do want to cut spending. However, they are also the most 'liberal' (small l) party in parliament By this I mean they are against an Orwellian state. This is fundamentally different to the stance taken by Labour. Hence, scrapping ID cards, the introduction of the great repeals bill where they are asking the public which legislation they want scrapped, and scrapping crazy data bases.
So far, the coalition seems to be the best government the UK has had while I've been alive (although, to be fair, that's not exactly hard). Unfortunately, it's not clear how long it will manage to stay together.
Yes defiantly, they seem to be making sensible decisions most of the time. I think it will stay together for the full term, firstly because they are going to change the rules so that 55% of the MPs need to vote to for a dissolution. However no party can muster 55% of the votes in this parliament and secondly because Nick and Dave _believe_ they are doing the best thing for the country.
Also is it me or since the last government left office, have the stories on slashdot about the UK been positive. With the last government the stories were all about ID cards, locking people up for 90 days with no reason, random crazy terror legislation etc.. and now it is all about our freedoms and how the goverment is going to cut up this state from 1984.
If the Lib-Dems had chose to form a coalition with Labour instead, it would have been most loudly objected to by natural Conservative supporters, who voted Liberal Democrat where their own candidate was a no-hoper. Sure, the right of the party wouldn't have been too pleased with the coalition but it would have been the Tory supporters, with their massive sense of entitlement that would be really annoyed.
Fundamentally it's a problem with the first past the post voting system, not some wide generalisation about party supporters of one side or another.
If the promise to have a referendum on Alternative Voting is delivered upon, and the electorate are intelligent enough to vote it in, then it will solve this predicament. It will make it always advantageous to vote for the party(s) you prefer, rather than voting tactically for a different party in the hope of keeping the villain of choice out.
Perhaps the UK coalition government really is winding back Big Brother, as they had promised to do? Does seem unlikely
Yeah, right. Not that Cameron and Clegg are particularly bad for the country; but the situation right now is what dictates what the government does - Labour would have done exactly the same, give or take a few details. It makes no real difference.
But in my experience, when they talk about cutting back "big government" or "curbing the nanny state", what they mean is that they want to take power away from elected bodies who are in principle directly responsible to the people, and transfer it to some that are neither elected nor accountable. So we have less "nanny state" (ie. governmental bodies open to scrutiny under the FOIA) and more "private initiative" (ie. companies, which are not covered by the FOIA, and are governed by an impenetrable network of financial interests - who knows, perhaps they are people like Rupert Murdoch and Mohamed al Fayed, both of whom enjoy a certain notoriety in UK)
Being a democratically minded person myself, I don't really understand those that keep repeating the mantra about "Nanny State" and "Big Government". I suspect they are either the ones that would benefit directly from no being subjected to too much scrutiny, or just very, very naive.
As I recall, this database was supposedly super secure, comprehensive, etc. and a great way to aggregate all sorts of very sensitive information in one spot so all sorts of unrelated government agencies could access it. Yup, so secure that the politicians put in a specific provision allowing the families of politicians, celebrities, etc. to opt out of it, while the rest of the public were required to participate. Allegedly an audit trail would be kept re: accesses records, records but considering the somewhat less-than-stellar performance of most governments re: privacy protection, internal auditing, etc. it's probably for the best for this system to be scrapped and for CapGemini to go home.
How have they sold off the NHS?
I've been hearing this from bitter labour voters since before the election and I have yet to hear about the UK scrapping the NHS in favour of the US insurance model, or any other radically right-wing policies.
Now, it's entirely possible that I missed it, as I emigrated to australia a month or so before the election, but to me all this Tory hatred I hear is just bitterness and fear-mongering from the section of the population that relied too heavily on labour handouts in the last parliament.
No-one really wants AV, it won't pass, and, "we already asked the public about voting reform but they didn't want it".
Like the US, we are now ideologically a one Party state. It's enough to make me want Soviet democracy. The guaranteed job, housing, and higher education for the willing are icing on the cake.
"abuse" != "exposure to sex"
No sig today...
You say no one wants it, but both Labour and the Liberals use it for internal leadership elections. So they acknowledge it's fairness. Labour and Cons don't want it for General Elections because it gives more of a chance to smaller parties than does FPTP.
If it's properly explained to the electorate, they should want it, because it gives them the opportunity to better express their preferences. If it doesn't pass it'll come down to ignorance and small c conservatism.
Of course many would prefer proportional representation to AV. But AV is a good compromise. It cuts out tactical voting, allows smaller parties more of a chance, but still delivers a decisive mandate to the winning party.