UK abandons train and tube scanners

The Brown government has changed its mind on placing security scanners at every London tube station and mainline train stations across the country, because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays such scanning would require. Despite doubts from London Underground after the original trials …

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

"Despite doubts from London Underground after the original trials Gordon Brown gave the scheme his support..."

Despite an expert report saying Cannabis shouldn't be re-Class B'ed, he goes ahead and does so, claiming non-existent "lethality".

Despite unbiased expert sources telling him that ID cards will not work as advertised, he persists with the hare-brained vote-losing scheme, instead of ditching it when he could have as the misguided legacy of Bliar.

So people who might be expected to know tell him that it won't work and he does it anyway. He's taken one or two lessons too many from Tony.

[Anonymous Coward]

Godron's (sic) 3-phase plan

1) Incrementally increase the expense and unpleasantness of motoring in every way possible

2) Incrementally increase invasveness and prevelance of surveillance and searches on public transport

3) Profit!

(I know phase 2 is traditionally left blank, but this time there IS a phase 2...)

[Paul Fleetwood]

Crikey

Let us all marvel for a moment that sense has taken hold of the government and a stupid idea has been abandoned.

I'd love to believe that this was the beginning of a trend where pointless "security" measures that will provide no protection but needlessly infringe upon people's lives are abandoned, but this governments track record of trashing my optimism is a long one.

[Eric Worrall]

Lets abandon public mass transport

We are far more vulnerable to terrorist attack in a train or bus than we are in a car. Surely its time we stopped throwing money into the transport black hole, and started investing in a decent road system.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bollocks

The government never had any intention in installing this stuff. It was a post-attack, big "oh look, we're doing something". Now that the backlash is getting going they're happily dropping all their unfeasible suggestions. ID cards will be next.

<hopes>

[Dodgy Geezer]

How to apply bias...

If you are against the new technology, you would write "..These scanners, which can look through clothes, proved particularly unpopular with young women. .."

If you are in favour of the new technology, you would write "..These scanners, which can look through clothes, proved particularly popular with young men. .."

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm confused

It would have cost billions; it would have crushed a few more rights; it'd have employed more people in peaked hats and big boots; it have been hopelessly unreliable, inconvenient and infuriating; and most of all - IT WOULDN'T HAVE WORKED...

...and the government is abandoning it?

What (as they say) gives?

[Tony Bryer]

We are to blame

But we (I use the word loosely) deserve this because of our insistence that 'something must be done': any government which turns round and says 'stuff will happen' will be pilloried for doing so. If the idea hadn't been tried and dismissed, then at some future date when something happens (as sadly it no doubt will) the tabloids would have fallen over themselves to cast the blame on those who were offered the chance to improve security and dismissed it out hand without trying it.

Another example of the pressure to achieve security at any cost is CRB checking, 3.6m checks this year. Today's Telegraph: "Beverly was all set to volunteer for her five-year-old daughter Mary's school party last March. She was shocked when she learnt from a teacher that she was not welcome as she hadn't been vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/main.jhtml?xml=/education/2008/06/26/ftchild126.xml . As the article says, this desire for total safety probably works against those it is meant to benefit.

[Nomen Publicus]

DOH, DOH!

"Instead of fixed scanners British Transport Police will continue to use some mobile scanners and sniffer dogs."

Wow, the cops have more clue than the government, Who'da thunk it?

There is another reason why scanners at rail stations are pointless - most stations are open structures that are impossible to seal so that cattle^h^h^h^h^hpassengers can be directed to the scanner

[Christoph]

It couldn't possibly work

If they scan everyone for weapons going in how are the police going to be able to get their guns through to shoot the passengers? By the time they've explained themselves and got through the queues the train will have left.

[Maurice Shakeshaft]

Sadly, AC (Bollocks) is probably wrong.

The Government cannot drop ID Cards. There is too much money tied up in it already. The howls from the IT & E.Technology industries in UK & abroad would be unbearable. While the UK may not be a massive market - once the technologies and techniques have been proved with the "Bolshie Brits" the world is the IT & ETech industry's lobster.

Scanners are a bit of a different matter - at the moment. I want to know when the rules are going to be changed to make the use of scanners acceptable/required. (Next major bomb attack & loss of life?) In airports - when you travel, you agree to comply with the airport and carriers terms and conditions including scanning. If faced with being scanned - and assumed guilty or prevented from travel if I object - then private transport is the alternative until it becomes prohibitively expensive. What price freedom then?

[Steve]

Re: What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

An elected one, sadly... For as long as we take the attitude "they're all he same, I don't care enough to vote/stand/complain/..." we have to take some of the blame.

[Anonymous Coward]

@What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

He's called Gordon Brown.

[Jon Press]

Er...

"because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays"

And this does not apply to airports ???

[Nic Brough]

@Lets abandon public mass transport

>We are far more vulnerable to terrorist attack in a train or bus than we are in a car.

Yep, but you're far more likely to be killed in a car accident than in a bus or train (annual total for terrorism + bus + train accidents last year is less than a 10th of the deaths caused by cars). Your greenies will also point out that the global warming caused by cars is significantly more likely to kill you, make you homeless, starve you etc than that caused by public transport.

>Surely its time we stopped throwing money into the transport black hole, and started investing in a decent road system.

We tried that - it doesn't work - more roads cause more cars, which implies more roads, which eventually ends up with no space for food, housing etc. The countries where there are fewer traffic problems do it in one of two ways - by being too poor for most to afford cars, or by having a decent public transport system so people don't need to clutter up the roads with cars.

Anyway, back to the point - investing in security at stations will have three notable effects 1) diverting funds from useful and desperately needed improvements to public transport. 2) slowing down the users, making it even less attractive than the current unreliable, dirty and run by muppet systems, and 3) having no effect whatsoever on terrorist activity, showing once again, that our government just does not understand security.

Paris - because her knickers are more secure than a scanner enabled tube station.

[daniel]

For once, the man sees sense.

This government is like a badly behaved toddler, you tell them "don't touch that, Its hot." Then they do it anyway and then they wonder why the public burns them. Honestly. it doesn't matter who tells them that their stupid schemes are stupid they do it anyway. Then for once they do realise "hmmm stupid scheme is stupid" but it isn't far enough. they need to realise that the nanny/police state we are walking into is unacceptable too. School teachers are afraid to let kids climb in trees, or go pond dipping, we have more CCTV cameras than anyone else, The government is also behaving more and more like the NSDAP.

[Dan White]

@ Steve

"Elected"? You sure about that?

I don't recall anyone actually being given a chance to *vote* for the sour faced incompetent git.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nic Brough

Yes, because there are infinite cars, and infinite people to drive them, apparently.

*rant* Anyway, what kind of fucked up logic dictates that traffic congestion is a problem to be solved by... restricting car use by other means? What problem exactly are you trying to solve? Do you solve hospital overcrowding by shutting hospitals? */rant*

/man from a part of the country with ample road provision, very high rates of car use, and very little real traffic congestion

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

The answer is the one we voted for - or not (when Blair was re-elected, Brown as leader was part of the ticket). This lot may appear clumsy but thats got a lot to do with the advice a leader gets. Don't expect the next lot to be any better I've worked alongside one of them and he and his mates seemed most worked up about the abolition of fox hunting. I suppose the only good thing is that the goverments final seen sense. Anon as they'll be after me on horses.

[Anonymous Coward]

unpopular amongst women

... because just like most men the first thought regarding the new "through clothes" scanners is X-ray specs!!! The sexes agree on this one!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Up north public transport is a joke

so I tend not to use it. Round these parts no one wants to use it as it is thought to be unsafe. They set buses on fire here, as well as assaulting and robbing the drivers. If you want go to through the city centre you need to use 3 modes of transport (each requiring a separate ticket). A friend says if it were like London an had the Corporation running the show (like it used to be 40 years ago) it would work much better. However, as it stands at the moment, they wonder why no one wants to use it. We can have some transport in 5 years. I want it now not in 5 ruddy years.

Stop as it's all gonna grind to a halt.

[Graham Marsden]

@Jon Press

>> "because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays"

> And this does not apply to airports ???

Most people don't commute to work on aeroplanes!

Imagine trying to catch the 08:21 to Waterloo only to find that you have to arrive half an hour earlier to get through the security scanners whilst removing your shoes and disposing of any bottles of liquid greater than 100ml...

[neil]

@ Dan White

We have never directly voted for any Prime Minister ever. They are elected or appointed by the party who is in power at the time, who were elected.

If you want a directly elected head of state or parliament, I would suggest you do not continue to live in the UK.

[MarkMac]

@Dan White

Elected - I think you'll find the electors of his constituency got the chance to vote for him in the first placae, and then the Labour Party MPs got another chance. These would be the MPs who were elected to represent a majority of seats in the country.

And please try to remember we do not have a ruling President, voted for personally, we have a ruling Party, voted for collectively. Blair may have /acted/ like a President, but he was still just the chief exec of the party with the largest number of seats.

[MarkMac]

@Anonymous Coward / Hospitals

"Do you solve hospital overcrowding by shutting hospitals? "

Flawed analogy - people don't have a choice about needing to go into hospital, they do have a choice about how to travel.

Make it hard /expensive / tiring to travel by method A, and people will start to use method B. Petrol prices (which are NOT controlled by the Govt, let it be noted) are a case in point. As prices rise, people reconsider non-essential trips. I've stopped driving the kids to the nice leisure centre for a swim, because it became cheaper to pay for guest passes at my local gym. We didn't do our son's birthday at the jungle-tumble place because some parents were unhappy driving the 20 mile round trip.

[david]

This lot may appear clumsy but thats got a lot to do with the advice a leader gets.

Gets...and then ignores it seems...

No excuse for it.

[Andy Bright]

re:What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

Yep, as the guy above says, the one you voted for. But I disagree with him on the point that someone else wouldn't be better. Who could be worse and how so?

One of the things that people really don't understand in Britain is that the money spent by government, whether local or national, is their money. You give it to them for two purposes. To protect you and to provide services to you.

Now tell me how well this is going? Which services do you think have improved with the massive increase in money they've taken from you in the form of arbitrary increases in taxation? How better protected do you feel?

Which projects, all of which should serve only those purposes, do you feel actually do serve those purposes? And of those projects, how many have been successfully completed and given a reasonable period of bedding in, work as advertised?

Now tell me again that you believe just about anybody else couldn't do this job better than the current idiots you've voted for.

My belief is the only way things will change is if you do two things. First you need as many people as possible to vote for anyone other than those currently elected - and to do so regardless of the party of the incumbent or the party of the opponent. The other thing is for as many people as possible to make it clear why this is happening.

Politicians are like the media, mostly of them are retarded. They can't see the obvious if it came up and bit them. So unless the public informs both the media and the politicians why and how you're dissatisfied, every new MP will think they can get away with the same shit all over again.

The thing is you have to repeat this process until they finally understand that in order to get re-elected, they actually have to do their jobs, listen to the electorate and do as the electorate wishes. The process I'm talking about is called lobbying, and big business is not the only entity entitled to do this.

[Glen Turner]

@Lets abandon public mass transport

Using the same argument as the poster...

Because car bombers use cars, let's abandon cars and use public mass transport.

Apologies for feeding the troll. Mines the one with the suspicious bulges, which will doubtless get me shot in the head by over-reacting armed police when I board that public mass transport.

[Glen]

Re: Hospital analogy

banning/restricting cars in favour of mass public transport

vs

closing smaller outlying hospitals in favour of city hospitals

erm... not only does the analogy work, but is a fair assesment of a lot (all?) of government policies.

lets try it with other issues

post offices

librarys

schools

prolifferation of WMD

OMG the gummint only has one policy!!!

centralise then outsource.

mines the one without the spellchecker, ta.

[Mat]

@ MarkMac

"Flawed analogy - people don't have a choice about needing to go into hospital, they do have a choice about how to travel."

So you've never heard of 'Elective Inpatients' then..............

[Gordon Pryra]

What bombers? And what terrorists?

We had real terrorists back with the IRA.

More people die every month in any single London burrow than "Terrorists" kill.

Yet the "Terrorist Card" is used to control us and to make us fear each other.

The word "Terrorist" can find a direct analogy in the word "Hell"

Both mythical ideals, used to control the credulous and to hold power over the population

[Anonymous Coward]

<no title>

Even if more roads generated more cars (and there is a limit at worst) then it just goes to show that the real problem is that many folk are regretfully abandoning the benefit of personal mobility, and enduring the limited abilities of public transport. The answer isn't to pile more misery on us, it is to supply sufficient roads for all; and to do whatever is necessary so folk do not feel the need to make so many journeys in the first place. But of course beating up the public (in particular the poorer sections) is the easy option.

The answer to things been done badly in your own country is rarely to leave. That's a last resort, "given up", situation. Why should folk effectively get pushed out of their own country simply because they can see that the status quo is not "right"? The answer is to take action to put it "right", so one can feel more proud of one's own nation.

[Ascylto]

Labour's not working!

"because the technology does not work"

Since when has this sort of reason stopped a Labour government implementing it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We never vote for Prime Minister

It really annoys me when people say 'We didn't vote for Brown'. We've never voted for any Prime Minister, all you vote for is your local MP. Then whichever party has the most MPs picks the Prime Minister. The only way you can vote for the PM is to be a member of the party that wins the general election.

[Dan White]

@ neil

So, lets see... other candidates intimidated into not standing, leading to a pointless election with only one candidate that nobody has any respect for, with a reputation for bullying and arrogance. Leading a party full of cronies who have been screwing the masses to get what they want...

Zimbabwe? No, Gordon Brown's appointment just 12 months back.

And don't worry mate, I'm actively looking to get out of this shit-hole police state.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @ neil

>>Zimbabwe? No, Gordon Brown's appointment just 12 months back.

I don't know that Gordy authorised the breaking of the arms and legs of Tory supporters, did he?

Still, I think that's an entirely apposite comparison, and sensitively made.

[Dan White]

@Sarah Bee

Thanks for that. I've had my coffee and morning rant now, and I feel much better :-)

[Mike Smith]

@We never vote for Prime Minister

"Then whichever party has the most MPs picks the Prime Minister"

Er, no. The Queen picks the Prime Minister. It's worth remembering that she doesn't have to select the leader of the party with the most MPs either. Not that she would do anything else in practice, but it's ultimately her decision and no-one else's.

I've been thinking recently that she should dish out a short sharp reminder to ZanuLabour of who really is the British head of state. I'd lobe to know just how many letters she's had recently begging her to give Gordon the sack.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @Sarah Bee

Sorry, Dan, but I was being facetious.

I mean, it's Zimbabwe, ffs. There is no comparison to be made.

[Anonymous Coward]

On who we vote for...

Yes, technically, we vote for a candiate for a parliamentary seat. Generally, though, who the candidates are forms only part of the decision as to which candidate to vote for. There are other elements, each of which weighs differently in different voters' minds: the "brand" (party) of the politician; their likely policies; their likely leaders; whether it's sunny or grey outside. Some of these are linked in reality, but don't actually impact peoples' decisions: "I've voted Tory all my life, and so did my father and his before him,".

If there was a general election now, Labour would probably be kicked out.

[James Pickett]

OMG!

But won't we be overrun with terrorists if they don't do it? Same as with ID cards, detention without charge, etc, etc...

Perhaps if they (i.e. No.10 and the Home Office) calmed down a bit, and stopped aggravating Middle Eastern conflicts (not having Blair as a 'peace envoy' would help), we could all sleep a bit more easily...

[TeeCee]

@Gordon Pryra.

I hate to be pedantic, but I think there's an error in there.

s/people/rabbits/

There, that makes sense now.

[Nano nano]

"Security theatre"

Makes Joe Ordinary annoyed and lets the terrorists think they are achieving something.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Mike Smith

Yes, you're right, my mistake. But it only strengthens my point - the general public didn't vote for Tony Blair, they didn't vote for John Major, they didn't vote for Maggie Thatcher, even if they thought they did. So moaning about how they didn't get a chance to vote for (against?) Gordon Brown is a bit silly, really.

[b]

ZanuLabour

Can people please stop saying this. I keep belming at my computer and my work mates are looking at me funny.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: ZanuLabour

Yes. And yes. It's offensive and I'm not letting it through any more.

[Steve]

Voting is irrelevant

The civil service runs the country - didn't you ever watch Yes, Minister? The scary thing is how many plots from those books have actually ended up happening.

Personally, I think voting in general elections is like standing in a burning building and arguing about what colour curtains you should put up.

[Mike Crawshaw]

@ Sarah, Re: Neil

"I don't know that Gordy authorised the breaking of the arms and legs of Tory supporters, did he?"

*YET*, Sarah... 6 weeks (AKA 42 days) is about the length of time for a broken bone to heal, isn't it?

the one with the reinforced arms, ta!

[Chris Adams]

Good things come in threes?

Yesterday I found out that, unlike Tony Blair in 2004, Gordon Brown has actually stood up and banned (sorry, Sarah) Zimbabwe from playing cricket here next year, and now an unworkable technological "solution" proposed to fight a popular bogeyman-du-jour has been dropped!

What's next?

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @ Sarah, Re: Neil

42 days is a world of wrong, but there's still no comparison if you look at what is happening right now. Sorry.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Good things come in threes?

Why the apology? Hard not to be pleased at that news.

[Glyn]

@MarKMac

"Flawed analogy - people don't have a choice about needing to go into hospital, they do have a choice about how to travel."

We don't have a choice. We don't live near where we work anymore. I've never lived within public transport useable distance from work as there aren't the jobs. And if I had to move everytime I got a new job I'ld be living out of boxes all the time.

I currently live in Stoke and work in Marple, south of Stockport. To get there on public transport would take about 5 hours and involve 3 buses and a train and cost a fortune.

The closest I ever worked to home took me 10 minutes in the car and 2 hours and 3 buses on public transport. If I had to work nights I'd have had to stay there as there were no buses after 11pm.

Unless we revert to grouping companies by town, then we need to travel to work

[Stuart Castle]

@Jon Press

"because the technology does not work and the public would not tolerate the long delays"

And this does not apply to airports ???

As has been noted before, people don't generally commute to work on Planes.

The Airports carry a fraction of the people that the Tube and Rail System do. According to some figures I read, the population of the city of London doubles during the day. This means that several *million* people each day need to get to (and from) the City. Now, a lot drive (and I don't know how many), but even that is a fraction of what is carried on public transport (particularly trains).

Simply put, if they put these security barriers on the Tube, the resulting delays would effectively halt London during the rush hours. This would cost billions each day.

Delays at Airports, while inconveniant for those involved, don't affect nearly as many people.

[Stuart Castle]

Re: What kind of fuckwit is running the country?

"An elected one, sadly... For as long as we take the attitude "they're all he same, I don't care enough to vote/stand/complain/..." we have to take some of the blame."

Tony blair was elected. Gordon Brown was given the job.

[Tom Chiverton]

Screeeeeeeeeechhhhhhhhhhhhh !

Nice u-turn :-)

[Sam]

Re: What kind of fuckwit is running the country?

"Running"?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Mat, Elective inpatients

Er, elective inpatients are ill people who elect to go to hospital for treatment. Which part of "you don't choose to be ill" was hard to grasp?

Back to the point.

The govt has finally seen the light over a daft and unworkable scheme which was nothing but a knee-jerk reaction. Unfortunately it won't be teh last such reaction.

Only yesterday some moron published a report that light aircraft could be used by terrorists to transport bombs. No, sh** sherlock? So could bicycles, rollerskates, radio controlled toy cars, dustbins, shoes, hats, coats, underwear, pockets... wait for the knee-jerk reaction "we must ban all light aircraft / children's toys / clothing from public places"...

Hmm, wait... the last sounds interesting after all. Go for it Gordy, you'll get my vote!

[Anonymous Coward]

@Sarah (breaking Tory ams & legs)

What better way to get the Tories back in than to let Brown screw the country further into the ground than any other Labour or Tory government has managed to do in the past?

(Here's a thought - up 'til now, Labour have been able to say that the Tories had the highest rates of unemployment, house repossessions, taxes etc and that was enough reason to vote Labour. Now Brown's scuppered that little lot, what will they use next?)

The joke? NuLabour (and people here who APPEAR to support them) telling us that we cannot complain about the way we're being treated now.

I did vote. Who I voted for doesn't matter because, as soon as NuLabour got back in, they basically shredded their so-called Manifesto and went back to the old spend-and-screw policies of Old Labour. Not what I voted for at all.

Given the choice right now, I would not vote for the current Labour government since I don't think anyone can really trust anything they say any more. And they basically got back in under Tory Blur because he promised NuLabour wasd free of sleaze and corruption...

[Dale]

@Lets abandon public mass transport

Trouble with abandoning public transport and everyone going back to private cars is that there would then be huge gatherings of cars all over (e.g. the M25 parking lot) which would be a terrific terrorist target, much like the huge queues of people waiting to be scanned at the train station.

The only solution would be to introduce new laws banning people from being closer than two metres from each other in public spaces, making large crowds impossible. There being no prospect for mass destruction for any would-be terrorist, they would all simply give up and go home.

Concessions could be made for licenced family groups who wish to walk next to each other, on the understanding that they assume all of the risk of being a target.

[Sooty]

@ dale

"The only solution would be to introduce new laws banning people from being closer than two metres from each other in public spaces"

Isn't a group of more than 2 people stood together already classed as an unauthorised protest and the riot police called :)

[Keith Williams]

@How to apply bias...

Talk about applying bias...

"If you are in favour of the new technology, you would write "..These scanners, which can look through clothes, proved particularly popular with young men. ..""

You seem to be implying that these scanners would not prove popular with older men.

I do beleive that they would be popular with all post-pubescent males.

this icon 'cause we're all evil anyway.

[Anonymous Coward]

@What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

A fat, miserable, clueless one by all accounts. Labour need to decapitate their leadership ASAP and seriously rethink policy. There is no way I'm voting Conservative (I grew up in the 1980s, when they were setting up this whole mess and Maggie robbed small children of free milk. The bitch), but there is no way I'm standing for this crap either. Or voting for a joke party. And the Lib-Dems just aren't cutting it in any way that would make them contenders.

Where's the Guy Fawkes spirit?

[A.A.Hamilton]

@What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

What kind? The worst kind: El Gordo the Brown (Trousers) 2007 plc. The Master of No Decision. The believer that there is, somehwre, in a distant galaxy perhaps, a successful UK Government [IT project]. The guy who is calling for 7000 Wind Turbines. The man who is backing Solar Energy. The guy who really understands the position of the car in the British economy. The guy with his head so far up the basal end of his alimentary canal that the echoes of his own voice sound like a chorus of support. That kind.

Good 'ere, in 3rd world UK, innit?

[Anonymous Coward]

so it really should be

ZebuLabour - they are rather like a herd of cows.

Mine's the one with the tin-foil lining as I'm tired of being asked what's hiding down my trousers.

[Graham Marsden]

@Sarah Bee

Re: Z*nuL*bour

Could this be a new addition to the ranks of eg Godwin's Law?

Bee's Law? ;-)

[Anonymous Coward]

...private transport not safe either

... imagine a terrorist who loaded a small van (trannie ?) with loads of fertilizer, and then detonated it whilst doing 90 on a motorway ... imagine the deaths then, as cars piled into one another .....

[Anonymous Coward]

re:What kind of fuckwit do we have running our country?

as it has always been...

whichever one the tabloid newspaper editors decide

[Anonymous Coward]

The Sun Historically always backs the winner

Either they are swaying the vote, and to do that all it requires is to keep abreast (or two).

Or, they are just fickle and they can gauge who will win ahead of time.

Whoo little miss bee is a labour apologist, I am beginning to think Zimbabwe may very well be more liberal. Quite a few opposition political figures have faced the law courts under Labour and we have Harriet Disharmony promoting discrimination.

All that Labour have achieved is to make this society into a powder keg, no one is afraid of the terrorists; we weren't bothered when it was the IRA and we aren't bothered about the made up ones.

The faith in our so called democracy has perhaps never been lower, this sham of a democracy is not ensuring that the will of the majority leads the country. Instead it is just putting into power 4 year dictators, who will promise the earth and deliver only that which feathers their own nest. Whilst of course also manipulating voting boundaries, and stuffing the ballot box (ohhh sir, very Zimbabwe sir).

[Ishkandar]

Scanners et al

@Dodgy Geezer - not true. Only dodgy geezers like them. Young men also dislike that scanners peering through their girlfriends' clothes and being leered at by dodgy geezers !!

@MarkMac - "Petrol prices (which are NOT controlled by the Govt, let it be noted) are a case in point." - WRONG !! In UK petrol prices *ARE* controlled by the government !! Just like cigarettes and booze. The majority of the price is in government taxes !! Brown could have solved all this "poor deprived people" crap by simply reducing the tax on fuel instead of pretending to be Santa Claus with one hand and taking it all back in taxes with the other hand !!

@Sarah Bee - Well, how about Labour-PF ?? And, no, they are breaking arms and legs; just hearts and wallets !!

@AC - "... imagine a terrorist who loaded a small van (trannie ?) with loads of fertilizer, and then detonated it whilst doing 90 on a motorway ..." - he'll spread self and trannie very thinly over a large amount of the motorway and the other drivers will just ignore the little bumps and get on with their journey !! Bombs only work when set off in confined spaces or in a directed manner (e.g. shaped charges) !!

Can we charge the Scots for all the damage inflicted by Brown in the poor English and Welsh ??

[James Cleveland]

Why

Is gordon brown doing everything wrong, he's such a tosser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re. ID Cards - prediction

The whole ID Card scheme is such an unholy mess that I reckon it's about the first thing to be dropped by the Tories. Firstly, the money on overpaid consultants has gone (no chance on getting that back with a consultant-friendly NAO), secondly, it does not make sense to keep digging, regardless of how deep the hole is. The Tories can rightfully point at New Incompetence, sorry, Labour and blame them for the mess.

Sure, a new identity scheme would be welcome after the initial NHS numbers cockup (even after all those years there are still duplicates allowing the benefit system to be gamed) but there are better ways to go about it. From experience I'd start with leaving politicians out of the loop for as long as possible so you have a chance to develop something that works instead of a preliminary freeze on thinking because someone desperately needs headlines. Secondly I'd think about what WORKS instead of leaping on the most "sexy" technology(*) to solve what is in reality a process problem. There is no need to increase the chance of ID theft and kill privacy to give someone a digital identifier.

I think it's rather clear when the problems started, and financially the picture is clear too. Whatever the Tories lack, they DID generate a budget surplus. Whatever New Labour claims, it DID generate a large gaping deficit hole which includes the pension fund gaming ("Look, we can tax that too!"). For some people they simply stole their future, and the whole country will now have to pay for the mistake. Spin does not maketh results - but I guess it gave at least 8 years of good headlines instead.

If a government needs fear, control and breach of privacy to hang on to power it is the surest possible indication you need to get rid of them pretty pronto. I know another country that *may* have learned that lesson.. We shall soon see.

(*) for those people that appear to need equipment to get excited :-)