Well that's just peachy

During the worst recession in decades when unemployment is rapidly rising what better way to show how in touch you are than by bringing into government a guy famous for firing people on TV.

Good Gravy

"The Government respects the privacy of its citizens," said the Government Response to the Lords' report. "We take the protection of their personal information extremely seriously and we are committed to handling it safely and securely."

Do you think they believe this tosh themselves? Are they that deluded?

Personally I think we should all be profiled at birth.

Personally I think you should have been drowned at birth.

The laffer curve. And why it doesn't mean what you think it means

"The difficult concept for tax - loving leaders is that by cutting taxes you may get more revenue, not less."

Why do arguments citing the Laffer curve always misrepresent it? Without fail?

and are fully aware of the consequences

Then I'll eat my hat.

@ g e

You might want to take note of the "Joke Alert" icon in future...

false choices...

"many drug users turn to crime to feed their expensive habbits... How will this change if you legalise the drugs then heavily tax"

You're assuming that this is what would happen. Why not instead give addicts a prescription, so that's essentially free? The market for heroin collapses, dealers are put out of business and the rate of acquisitive crime drops like a stone.

You could pay for this by a (small) tax on softer drugs....

Sweet mother of God

Stupidity beyond comprehension.

bristol

OY!

CANCER

X-rays are bad for you.

and...

the database?

@Orwell would be proud, this judgement creates the Memory Hole.

Rubbish.

That is...

OUR MONEY they're spending to advertise this guff to us.

CLEANSING FIRE.

I hate kittens

So this is win-win as far as I'm concerned

Why

Is this old crook still given space in the media for his rambling nonsense?

@It's a moot point...

Well you're either a troll, a labour cabinet minister or are woefully unaware of the facts of this issue.

Hell you could be all three.

Tony "day in day out" McNulty

is an arse.

"Speaking freely to a newspaper in a free country is 'playing into the hands of our enemies'. "

It's also an example of the sort of scaremongering that Rimmington was talking about...

@Watch 7/7 Ripple Effect...

People like you are part of the problem. Dribble like this makes everyone concerned with the destruction of our privacy and rights look like a paranoid loon.

You want to help? Then STFU.

unprintable

****ing **nts

Depressing...

95% of shoplifters are heroin addicts. The governments continuation of the worst policy failure over the last is the cause of this crime and the excuse for the implementation of the next policy failure, ie mass surveillance for all.

We deserve better than this...

War on Drugs

= EPIC FAIL

"It's a serious indictment of Labour's failure to combat drug crime and stem the flow of drugs onto our streets."

Oh get stuffed, your policies would have the exact same affect.

Acid smiley, just because.

@stefan

"he should stop crying and read the terms and conditions of those websites. soon as you host any image with them you forfit your copyright over the image"

You should read the terms and conditions because this is NOT TRUE AT ALL.

There is no way I would have signed up to flickr if it would mean surrendering my rights.

I'm seriously tempted to call you an idiot but I'm not going too.

@Freetards

I'm starting to loathe you freeloading parasites...

@ Can I be the first to say...

<applause>

politics a little bit of

Well the next election is sewn up before it starts. Groovy Dave's drugs policy is better than Labour's in the same way that herpes is better than AIDS, so that's a step forward. Kind of.

But we deserve better.

We deserve better than to be lied to by crooks who fiddle taxpayers' cash.

We deserve better than to be told what we may and may not do with our own bodies.

We deserve better than to have important policy decisions dictated to us by mouth-breathing cretins who are utterly unable to manage spelling, punctuation and grammar, let alone the avalanche of nonsense that passes for "news" coverage on this issue.

Enough is enough. It's high time something was done. We can sit around and bitch on the internet but no-one who can make a difference is listening.

The political parties will court the hysterical incoherent proles at the Mail and the Sun and will ignore our informed opinion, after all, we can only vote for one of three parties, all with identical policies.

I say no more, I say enough.

The next general election will be decided, like all the previous general elections, by a few thousand people in a few dozen seats around the country. There are the euro elections that no-one bothers to vote in and council elections that are decided on a few hundred votes. The system is rotten to the core. We can make that work to our advantage.

A part founded on completey legalising drugs standing in marginal seats would pick up votes. If we pushed hard enough it could pick up a lot of votes, maybe not a majority but enough to "send a message" as our politcial masters are so fond of saying.

Am I peeing in the wind here? Any thoughts?

Coming soon

Expenses-fiddler Jacqui Smith demands this man apologises to all the victims of terrorism in the uk. Whilst riding a horse.

FOAD

You lying, venal, stupid greedy parasite.

Cleansing fire.

David Cameron...

"Its almost a dead cert that David Cameron will have rolled out the necessary readers within the next 4 years."

Nope:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zpET3Zfv9I

Your shipment...

of FAIL has arrived.

I'll believe it when I see it.

and incidentally biometrics are part of the problem, not the solution.

Reminds me of something

I wish I could put my finger on what it is.

And yes; fire, cleansing fire.

Fire

Cleansing fire.

The main requirement for government IT...

Fire.

Cleansing Fire.

re: a good snapshot of UK vs US justice

and Deja Vu

and indeed @ Deja Vu

Can we please have a belming icon.

Thankyou.

Randy Pratt?????

Seriously?

Video games didn't make me violent or aggressive

and I'll kill anyone who says otherwise.

cheer up

might never happen

So effectively everyone who uses Bit Torrent is a socially retard leech?

Going by the comments above I'd say that this is an emphatic YES.

jesus tapdancing christ

I didn't realise the average age of the Reg was 13.

freetards are ruining the internet for everyone

Seriously, why not just pay for stuff instead of stealing it?

I expect better from the Reg...

Although the trend is unmistakable the figures quoted are ludicrous, and there is a reason for that.

Take a look at the actual survey, it's utterly rigged to get a positive result, as rather well described by Mr. Frizzlepop up thread:

http://www.ips.gov.uk/identity/publications-research.asp

Now I'd expect the lazy drooling spunkbaskets in the dead-tree press to mindlessly regurgitate whatever pan-fried nonsense the government provides, thus allowing them to fill pages with minimal effort, but I expect better from El Reg.

Have a look at the survey questions and see if you can see the problem, and also see why reputable polls from organisations most people have actually heard of show such different results. The government survey is designed to find the best ways to sell the scheme and not get an accurate picture of it's support.

I would expect any properly conducted survey to show a significant majority against the scheme now, after all this 55% is down from a high of 80% some years ago using the same bent methodology.

I smell...

an insurance claim...

Two words:

Consumer boycott.