Jackie Danicki

I’ve been enjoying an awesome weekend away from the computer, but I have been alerted to a couple of things which I really must post.

Guy Herbert has linked to a spine-tingling transcript from the first day of the ID Cards Bill committee stage:

Lord Gould of Brookwood: Both the previous speakers—the latter with great emotion—were arguing for freedom. We have to ask what greater freedom is there than the freedom to place a vote for a political party in a ballot box upon the basis of a mandate and a manifesto. That is the crux of it: the people have supported this measure. That is what the noble Earl’s father fought for. But that is too trivial an answer. I know that. The fundamental argument is that the truth is that people believe that these identity cards will affirm their identity. The noble Lord opposite said that he likes to be in this House and how he is recognised in this House because it is a community that recognises him. That is how the people of this nation feel. They feel that they are part of communities, and they want recognition. For them, recognition comes in the form of this identity card. Noble Lords may think that that is strange, but it is what they feel. This is their kind of freedom. They want their good, hard work and determination to be recognised, rewarded and respected. That is what this does.

…This is not some silly idea of the phoney left. It is a mainstream idea of modern times. It is a new kind of identity and a new kind of freedom. I respect the noble Lords’ views, but it would help if they respected the fact that the Bill and the identity cards represent the future: a new kind of freedom and a new kind of identity.

Emphasis mine, for what should be obvious reasons. As Guy writes, this sort of talk makes the blood run cold. It’s not just an isolated incident of one politician spewing garbage straight out of 1984. The context, as Perry de Havilland writes, makes it all the more chilling. Blairism is the agreed worldview of both of Britain’s major political parties (and the worldview of the third is no less bonkers). So what now? As Perry says, in a passage which I will just print out on index cards and hand to anyone who asks me why I don’t vote:

I have never been more certain that my conviction is correct that liberty, individuality and several rights can only be fought for outside the democratic political process. Although being in office matters to people like Philip Gould, to the rest of us the truth is we might as well be living in a one party state.

New Labour has indeed won in Westminster, regardless of who wins the next election, but of course as Gould cannot imagine anything beyond politics, there is still a civil society out there that needs to be defended against people like him and you cannot do that by voting for different sections of the political monoculture.

My emphasis again - I’m going crazy with the bold tags, but I cannot emphasise enough just how sick-making all of this is, and how spot-on the observation that the polls are not where these battles are won and lost.

If you’re looking for something else to depress you this Sunday, there’s this news (also via Samizdata), which is no less infuriating for its predictability:

Town hall bureaucrats are to be given sweeping new powers to investigate homes for identity card evasion and to impose heavy fines on occupants found without one. The revelation, in an obscure Whitehall consultation paper, calls into serious doubt the Government’s repeated promises that planned ID cards, already hugely controversial, will be voluntary and that no one will be forced to carry one.

I can’t help but wonder what Britain will look like in ten years’ time. Inshallah, I won’t be here to see it for myself.

Filed under: Life