One of the many ghastly legacies of Labour's 13 years of inept, authoritarian misrule was the decline in our liberties.

Nanny is now everywhere, telling us how to behave, and what we should think. She keeps her beady eye on us too: we're the officially the world's number one nation for CCTV. Thanks for that, Labour.

But other countries across the world are making an effort to keep up with us. Australia has performed particularly well in this race, and may even be edging ahead with their latest initiative.

Yes, it's yet another sad day for our liberties when we learn that Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers' laptops and mobile phones for pornography. What the fuck? Yup, it's real:

"..a new question appears on Incoming Passenger Cards asking people if they are carrying "pornography".

And if you should tell a naughty fib? Won't help. Customs officials now have..

".. an unfettered right to examine travellers' electronic devices"

Oh, so they get unfettered rights, to trample all over ours? Dear God.

What next? What happens if, during the flight to Sydney, CF dozes off and has a particularly fruity dream involving Gemma Arterton, that ginger bird off of Doctor Who and a bottle of baby oil.? Will he have to confess all to the customs officer? For fucks' sake.

Under the last, all-too-recent, thank-Christ-it's-over, authoritarian Labour government, we could have glumly expected exactly the same legislation to be enacted here. It's already happened on the Eurostar, many years ago, so it wouldn't be hard to extend to the airports. Perhaps the show-em-nude, todger-detecting x-ray scannners could be upgraded to read hard discs as well?

Let's hope the Coalition boys are all too busy...

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Targets are a lazy way of governing, or managing, or just trying to get something done. Set a target, add a reward (or a punishment) and then sit back and relax. No need to think about it any more: a target has been set.

And that's exactly what lazy ol' Nanny State does. She wants everything to be done her way, but she doesn't want all the shit, shag 'n' hassle of actually dealing with the detail.

To take an example at random: worried about leaking water pipes? Oh dear. But no need to worry - just set the water companies a 'target' to lose let water through leaks. Then tell them you'll take away some of their enormous profits if they don't meet your new target. See? Problem solved. 

But what if the water companies turned out not to be staffed entirely by chimpanzees in suits? What if someone in those water companies actually realised that you could also reduce leaks - and hit your new target - just by reducing the water pressure a little.

Oh but they wouldn't, would they? Surely, if they did that, people's showers wouldn't work properly. Boilers, which need a certain minimum pressure, would go expensively wrong. The higher floors on flats might not even get any water at all. Everything would be fucked up, wouldn't it?

And people, who pay through the nose for the basically-cleaned-up-rain that the water companies sell, would not like that at all 

So the water companies would have to secretly reduce the pressure without telling the customers, just to meet their 'targets' and keep their greedy paws on their profits.

Which is, of course, exactly what the bastards have been doing.

Genius. Long live targets.

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Chilling news from the world of science. Boffins, rather than working on a cure for the Geoff Hoon, or a method to force cyclists onto cycle paths, or an antidote for Strictly Come Dancing, have come up with a way to read minds.

Yes, really. Not just Derren Brown-esque trickery, but proper mind-reading. Apparently:

"Scientists have read the minds of healthy volunteers using a brain scanner to detect what they were thinking ... The advance brings a step closer the prospect of a "thought machine" to detect what a person is thinking from their brain activity patter"

Excited Scientists, breaking off from chanting "'ere we go, 'ere we go, 'ere we go", and dancing around the labs', added

"Now that we have shown it is possible to directly access information about individual episodic memories in vivo and noninvasively, this offers new opportunities to examine important properties of episodic memory"

Which, in human speak, translates into "We can read your mind. While you're still alive. Without making holes in your head. Bwooo-hahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa"

Well, ain't the State gonna love this? Won't Nanny be pleased?

Soon, you won't just be demonised and denormalised for smoking; you'll be in deep shit for just thinking about your next fag.

You won't just be abused and constrained for eating fish 'n' chips: Nanny will come down on you like a ton of bricks if you even hungrily daydream about a nice piece of cod.

And, just before you pick up the 'phone, or tap out an instant message, inviting your mates out for a drink on Friday night, you'll receive a stern email from Nanny, warning you off the binge.

Be afraid..

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The Big Brother state marches on, growing in power. Soon every detail of our lives, habits and health will be known to the Government and stored on enormous databasess, accessible by tens of thousands of government-approved agents of the State.

The latest step toward this Authoritarian's wet dream is the placing of all our of health care records into an enormous central database, accessible by NHS staff up and down the land. Why? Fuck knows.

CF fails to see why a doctor in Cornwall, or Yorkshire, might wish to read his medical records, but then it must get boring just counting your money and planning yet another extension to the surgery.

And, doctors have warned, this is being done - surprise, surprise - entirely without our consent. Apparently, the Government is so keen to rush this into being, before they're consigned to the dustbin of history, that they are not, shall we say, being overly diligent about whether patients want their own records included or not.

Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, writes in a letter to Ministers:

"The breakneck speed with which this programme is being implemented is of huge concern.

"Patients’ right to opt out is crucial, and it is extremely alarming that records are apparently being created without them being aware of it."

Alarming, yes. Surprising? Not at all. When has this government ever cared about what we, their employers, want? When has this government ever worried about our rights as individuals?

Still, there's a small light at the end of the tunnel.

As of April this year, the Data Protection Act grows much sharper teeth. The fines for losing or misusing data about real people will be dramatically increased. Up to half a million quid per transgression. Tee hee.

So, when a junior civil servant inevitably leaves a laptop (the one we bought for him) on the 5:15 train home, with all of our medical records unencrypted on it, imagine the fucking size of the class action we can bring against the NHS and against the Government.

We'll be rich!

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Those bloody anti-terror laws; how did we come to let them in? It seems that every day they're abused and deliberately misinterpreted, by the state and by plod, to keep the sheep under control.

One of the most egregious abuses is the recent idea that anyone taking a photo of anything must be doing so not because they want a memento, but because they plan to blow it up at some later date.

Therefore, they are potential terrorists. Oh no! Therefore, under section 44 of the Terrorism Act, they must be stopped, arrested and their cameras confiscated.

What a load of hectoring, controlling, fascist state bollocks that is. What happened to the simple concept of a 'free country' for fuck's sake?

If CF wants to take a photo of something, he'll fucking well take a photo of it, and the police - or more often, the pretendy police, the PCSO - can fuck right off.

A group has been created to kick back against this insane over-empowerment of Plod, under the catchy name of "I’m a Photographer, Not a Terrorist!"

As PHNAT (yeah,  that's what they call themselves) say on their website :

"Photography is under attack. Across the country it that seems anyone with a camera is being targeted as a potential terrorist, whether amateur or professional, whether landscape, architectural or street photographer"

Fucking right. They also point the glaring failure of logic underlying this stupidity:

"creation of the collective visual history of our country is extinguished by anti-terrorist legislation designed to protect the heritage it prevents us recording"

But more fundamentally, why the fuck can't we take a photo of anything we can see without the heavy hand of the state falling onto our shoulders?

But that's just not happening in the real world: a  press photographer covering - gawd 'elp us - 'campaigning Santas' at City Airport was arrested. 

A BBC photographer was stopped and searched for pointing his camera - along with several hundred tourists - at St Paul's Cathedral.

And in one of the most outstanding pieces of fuckwittery yet, seven - seven? - armed - fucking armed? - police grabbed an architectural photographer in the City of London, for the crime of photographing a steeple at the ruined Christ church in Newgate. Dear God.

Well, PHNAT aren't going to take this shit anymore. They've planned a demonstration for tomorrow. Saturday January 23rd, on Trafalgar Square at noon. "In defence of street photography". Jesus H. Christ, that it should come to this - defending our right to use a camera outdoors.

Get down there tomorrow, if you're able. Exercise your rights; take some pictures.

And tell the Nanny State, and all her plastic plods, to fuck right off.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Photographers to protest against police use of terror powers (guardian.co.uk)
• ++Section 44 Stop and Search Illegal ++ (bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com)

Now that everything is sorted out, the economy is fixed, swine flu has been eradicated, the war in Afghanistan has been won and poverty and inequality are just a distant memory, the triumphant and successful Labour government can concentrate on the more trivial aspects of society, and really begin to help us all, in every way.

That must be the case, mustn't it? After all, look at this: Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham (isn't he the one that cured swine flu?) is calling on kids up and down the country to help create a brand new swimming stroke.

A what?A fucking what? A "brand new swimming stroke"? What the flying fuck does he want one of those for?

"The national competition to kick off Swim4Life, part of Change4Life, asks youngsters to send their ideas, including a description of how they came up with their new stroke, a picture that inspired it and a suggested name."

A senior member of the cabinet has announced a painting competition for the kiddies? What the fuck? And what's with all the txt-speak? Swim4Life? Change4Life? And, hey, 'Kids'?

Secretary of State, Timmy Mallet, sorry, Andy Burnham, said:

"The competition is all about getting kids moving in the water where their bodies have to work harder than on dry land - be it the dolphin, the penguin or the wriggly worm stroke."

“Taking the kids swimming is a great way of making sure they’re moving around and having fun.

“I hope this competition will see even more families take the plunge and head to their local pool to think up an inventive new stroke.

Ah! Now we're getting to the real point. Andy Burnham couldn't give a tiny rat's arse about any 'new swimming stroke', even if it is beautifully described, and comes with a lovely little painting. Nah.

This is the State as our mummy, telling us what to do , telling us how to bring up our children, making sure we all eat our veg and generally patronising the living fuck out of us all: 'You'd better go swimming tomorrow, but don't worry, Nanny's thought of a lovely game we can play at the pool'.

Just in case we'd missed the point behind this clumsy, patronising, half-witted effort, 'Andy' reminds us

Swimming is a great way to get the 60 active minutes kids need everyday. It’s also a great way for families to be active together over the summer months."

Jesus Christ. What the fuck did we do before this nannying, patronising Labour government came to power? How did we fucking manage? How did children even make it to adulthood without this constant fucking barrage of unsolicited advice to their hapless parents?

Do you know, it's been going on for such a fucking long time, it's hard to remember.

Hat-tip to the lovely Ivor for pointing out this utter fucking absurdity, in an email to constantly.furious@gmail.com.

Send more examples to the same address when you find 'em, folks.

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