November 9th 2009
Return to Sense? Or Cynical Postponement
Mark Hanson
Today reports have emerged that the Government has abandoned plans to monitor emails, texts and telephone traffic until after the next election.
The plans to track every communication were rounded on by critics during the consultation, yet some in the security services have pushed hard for the proposals.
The difficulty for the government is that whilst the security of people in the UK is of great concern, the seemingly endless expansion of State size and surveillance measures has, finally, become an increasing concern for many ordinary Britons.
A poll held earlier this year showed that the majority of voters believed that state surveillance had gone too far.
Labour is finding that it needs to back-track on a number of policies that have been the bedrock of its tenure, simply in order to stand a chance of re-election. The DNA database is a case in point, as the government has been trying to undo its commitment to widespread and indiscriminate holding of DNA profiles, whilst at the same time giving the police the impression that they are still to increase the number of profiles held.
I sadly suspect that the measures that Labour is now shelving are simply being put in storage until after the election. Should Labour win, they will return to the socialist agenda of big government and State interference in citizens’ lives.
Brown’s abandonment of the ID Card scheme is a case in point, where he said at the Labour conference that there would be no compulsory ID cards until after the next election. Yet the government continues to extend ID cards to select sections of society, hoping to build the “critical mass” when they can say that everyone must have one.
Although numerous pieces of good news have been emerging, the real danger is that civil liberties will be off the agenda, ready for a fresh onslaught once the election is out of the way.
