First up, ID cards. Now the state still has a long way to go before this becomes a reality, and it can only be hoped that as people wake up to the reality of this expensive and unwanted scheme then resistance will grow to the point where it becomes unworkable.

Meanwhile 12,171 people have already pledged to refuse to sign up and put £10 towards a legal fund to fight the Act. Sign up here  http://www.no2id.net/

Oppressive and irritating as having to use the ID card will be (and whilst not comulsory, you can guarantee you'll need one to make a benefit claim, put your kids in school etc) the real beast lurks beneath the surface.

The creation of a national database is being planned with Orwellian stealth.

I've seen how it's going to go down.

The Homeless Link database is used by charities and statutory services for dealing with current and ex-street homeless people. Each 'client' is held on this computerised record and any worker who is working with that individual, from any agency 'in the link' can access and post information about the client.

Information includes details on mental health/medication, current and former drug use, criminal convictions, housing history, employment and education, sexuality, physical health, pretty much everything about an individual you'd wanna know if you were some sinister control freak despot.

It also includes details of interventions, this means info about the any times that an agency has intervened in a clients life, a typical entry might be

"visited ***** today, he seems very down because his benefits haven't turned up. is drinking heavily, have concerns about deteriation of his mental health"

or such like, allowing every other professional to read what is going on in that clients life without having to ring/e-mail a worker as they would have had to previously.

Whilst it was resisted by many frontline workers, and checks and balances were put in place (such as police not having access to the database - like we believe them) it is a very useful tool, and is used across the sector (although in the end this was enforced on workers rather than agreed with them).

The informal nature of the record keeping means that unsubstantiated allegations can appear that will dog a clients life for years. the void personally knows of one client who had a suspected and not very serious incident of arson on his record (for which he was never arrested let alone convicted).

This had an enourmous influence in the way he was treated as he began the long journey through the hostel system into a flat, as every professional who worked with him had him down as a potential fire raiser and treated him accordingly without any real evidence whatsoever that it was true.

Whilst clients do have the right to see information held on them (although this is rarely made clear) the agency involved can withold info if it feels that there may be a 'serious risk to the health and safety of the client or any other individual' if the client is 'allowed' to see it. No-one will tell the client this information exists, it will just be removed from the database and his/her file when the request to see it is made.

The Government announced shortly before Christmas that it is creating a database for all children in the UK, to be up and running by 2008.

The database will hold the following details for every child or young person:

*basic identifying information: name, address, gender, date of birth and a unique identifying number based on the existing Child Reference Number/National Insurance Number
* basic identifying information about the child’s parent or carer;
* contact details for services involved with the child: as a minimum school and GP practice, but also other services where appropriate; and
* the facility for practitioners to indicate to others that they have information to share, are taking action, or have undertaken an assessment, in relation to a child.

which all seem very familiar.

Presumably when that child turns 18 then information will be transferred to the National ID database, thereby creating a lifelong record held by the state of an incredible amount of information about an individual. Behaviourial problems at school ... you could still be living them down when your 50.

And imagine how much that information could be worth - to marketing companies, cops, drug companies, employers, paedophiles and ex-lovers, you name it, they'll buy it.

On a lighter note (sic) the new offence of 'glorifying terrorism' has produced a rush on the net to get it in while you still can



"The Palestinian suicide bombers are fighting a desperate last-resort battle of honour against the colonising forces of Israel"

"Damn those Hamas guys rock don't they?!"

"ETA have the best name plus i like going on my Holidays there"

are some quotes the void has happened across this week. This ludicrous new law has far reaching implications with the official definition of terrorism stating that it

(b) involves serious damage to property,
(c) endangers a person's life, other than that of the person committing the action,
(d) creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public, or
(e) is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Neatly letting the state off the hook terrorism is only terrorism when

(b) the use or threat is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and
(c) the use or threat is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

With Reclaim The Streets having been listed as a potential terrorist threat by the FBI, where could this leave the activist community in the country ... and those who write about them.

The cliches about Cherie's Blair comments about suicide bombers or this guy have all been trotted out and I'm not about to repeat them...

except to say that in this case the obvious kneejerk response to this law is correct, it's unworkable, immoral and unenforceable, and Blair, as a former barrister, should know better.

and finally to the smoking ban, which feels like light relief, but in many ways will impact on my day to day life more than the above.

As for the whinging non-smokers bleating about their rights for a smoke free environment, first off, anyone of you with cars can shut up, your hypocrites with no argument

and the rest of you, well there are pleny of non-smoking establishments you can frequent for your low fat cream cheese crispbreads and herbal tea, and if the demands there, then you can have non smoking pubs as well (see, the market will prevail ... god what's happening to me, must need a fag).

Whilst I agree that pub staff should not have to breath in second hand smoke if they don't want to, a half decent air conditioning system can see to that. And whilst second hand smoke can be a pain, compared to the violent, drunken idiots they deal with on a nightly basis, it's probably the least of their worries.

This is prohibition, plain and simple, and those in the drug movement hoping for a new approach to cannabis (whther coffeeshops or 'cannabis clubs') should realise that this is the nail in the coffin for any legal social use of cannabis.

So out goes my morning coffee and fag down the local caf', or going for the occasional pint to watch the footie down my local.

Watch Northern Working men's clubs disappear, along with the Shisha cafes of Edgeware Road, and the coffeeshops of Soho. Watch Wetherspoons expand to become an even bigger monster, flogging off badly kept cheap beer to the proles in identikit smoke free hellholes.

And giggle at the crowd of 500 people shivering outside Ministry of Sound or other large clubs at four in the morning. Till they're all washed away in a patio heater inspired global warming stylee tsunami.

they say a week is a long time in politics...

but the real worry is what's next?