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Wednesday, April 04, 2012

plug

david cameron and nick clegg look like they are about to have a falling out over the use of the security services to monitor the population of britain. while david is crying out 'full steam ahead', nick is busy shouting 'hold your horses' (see what i did there?) the papers and civil rights campaigners are up in arms over it all. i should be worried about it, i should be concerned, but if truth be told i have always assumed that the secret services have been listening in and monitoring us anyway. many many years ago when i was at college i knew a chap who worked for a small political party and he always joked about how his calls were being tapped. i laughed along with him until one day when i was calling him to discuss an essay and a night out when i heard a series of clicks. he later told me that was the line being tapped. quite why anyone cared about my thoughts on talcott parsons is anyone's guess. so i am paranoid. plus most people seem to be happy to put the most intimate details of their life on facebook or shout them out while on their mobile in public spaces that the idea of privacy almost seems to be old fashioned. but mr. cameron doesn't look like he is going to let it lie (even though he was very opposed to similar measures when they were being brought in by blair and then by brown - see that is the problem with being in power, just not so easy as being the opposition - he says the measures are necessary because he needs to, and it is his duty to, plug the gamps in britain's security. he might be right. however i would feel a whole lot more confident in his ability to do that if he could stop the leaks in his own government when it came the recent budget. no point talking about plugging the national gaps when you can't even manage it on a party level.

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