The GOS would like to draw your attention to two new campaigns that are close to his heart (well, probably. There is some dispute about the exact location of that organ), and therefore, since you are probably almost as grumpy as him, close to yours as well.
The first comes from that excellent organisation, No2ID. They are behind a new website called "Power 2010" which aims, with our help, to become a significant force that will shape political thinking in the next decade.
MPs' expenses, rock-bottom election turnouts, constant attacks on our freedoms – our democracy is indeed in crisis. In fact, we've said on this website before now that we don't actually believe we live in a democracy at all, because the views of ordinary people count for nothing in Nu-Labour's vision of a brave new world where everyone toes the government line.
The news from the Labour party conference confirms this: we hear that one of their plans is to stop teenage mothers from getting council flats. Jolly good, quite right, we all thought. Instead, they'll be given places in special hostels where they'll get the help and support they need. Wonderful, we said, just what's required.
Now Ed Balls has made things a little clearer: it will be compulsory for teenage mothers to go into the government's network of supervised homes. Asked if mothers would be legally obliged to go into supervised care, Mr Balls said: "Definitely, and rightly so because the state has got an obligation to make sure 16 year olds get the support they need".
Now, just hang on a minute, Ed. So long as you were proposing something that would end the current abuse of the system by young people, we were right behind you. But that's not quite what you're saying now, is it? What you're saying is that any teenager who has a baby before you, the government, think she should, will be taken away and locked up, forced to live in a hostel whether she likes it or not. Punished for breeding, in other words.
What about the girls whose families are supportive, of which there are very many? Suppose the family is happy to give both mother and baby a stable home? You'll still snatch them away, won't you? Pregnancy will become a crime, punishable by imprisonment. Because Nanny knows best. As a correspondent on the PoliticsHome website put it, "This is where we see Nu-Labour red in tooth and claw: they seriously think that the government has the right to snatch citizens away from their homes and families whenever it likes".
And the government aren't confining their attentions to pregnant girls: they're after Fido too. Not content with putting all of us on their national database, they've announced plans to make it compulsory (failure to comply punishable by law, as usual) for dog owners to chip their pets. And then they're going to put the pets' details on the national database, along with ours.
And probably the most sinister new development in Nu-Nazi Britain is that Section 12 of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004 has now slipped surreptitiously into force. It amends section 5 the Protection of Harassment Act 1997 – the section that provides for restraining orders.
Previously, restraining orders could only be given to those convicted of an offence of harassment. From now on, any person convicted or acquitted of any offence can be made subject of a restraining order, notwithstanding their acquittal.
So someone could tell a series of spurious and harmful lies about you to the police; you would be investigated and charged, protesting your innocence the while; your case would proceed to court where you would, one hopes, be vindicated and acquitted on all charges – but then the court could still restrain your liberty.
So, never mind "innocent until proven guilty". Now you're guilty even after you've been proved innocent! Remember that breaching a restraining order can be punished with up to 5 years’ imprisonment.
The new campaign, Power2010, will give us the chance to have a say in how our alleged democracy works for us all. Do we want cleaner funding? Fairer voting? More accountability? They want us to tell them our ideas for changing the way our country is run. Those with most support will become the POWER2010 Pledge - and hopefully help change Britain for the better.
Once again, the website is www.power2010.org.uk, and we urge you all to take a look, and join in. We already have.
The other campaign is from an organisation we have been recommending ever since GOS began, the Association of British Drivers. We are all drivers (nearly all, anyway), yet we permit ourselves to be treated as pariahs, as brainless idiots incapable of manoeuvring our vehicles round the roads they've so kindly provided for us, as milch-cows to be soaked of cash at every pretext, to be hounded and bullied and blamed ...
The ABD are beginning their campaign for ...
• an end to the rip-off road tax
• proper investment in our roads
• "no" to road-pricing by stealth
• real road safety, not cameras
• privacy, not tagging and tracking
• honesty instead of spin and excuses.
We're sure we can all get behind that. The campaign is at www.FairDealABD.org.uk.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
Copyright © 2009 The GOS