Truth Seeker

Thanks very much to lalex6 for sharing this great piece of nostalgia with me:

I almost pissed my pants when I first saw this video over at 'I Ain't Afraid Of No Daleks' and just had to share it with you all here.

You may want to be sitting down on a comode for this one:

Shadow home secretary David Davis has resigned as an MP.

He is to force a by-election in his Haltemprice and Howden constituency which he will fight on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit.

Mr Davis, 59, told reporters outside the House of Commons he believed his move was a "noble endeavour" to stop the erosion of British civil liberties.

He is one of the best-known opposition MPs and his resignation came as a complete surprise in Westminster.

This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand.

He told reporters outside the Commons: "I will argue in this by-election against the slow strangulation of fundamental British freedoms by this government."

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson said it was an extraordinary move which was almost without precedent in British politics.

Mr Davis has led the opposition to Labour's plans to extend the maximum limit terror suspects can be held beyond the current 28 day maximum.

On Wednesday, he accused the government of "buying" the nine votes they needed to get the legislation through the Commons.

He vowed that the Conservatives, who are the official opposition and favourites to win at the next election, would continue the fight in the House of Lords.

'Personal decision'

Shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve, who will take over as shadow home secretary, rubbished reports the Tory leadership was split on the issue and said a future Conservative government would repeal it.

He said he would be campaigning for Mr Davis in the by-election - but added it would be Mr Davis' own personal campaign and he would receive no financial support from Tory HQ.

This resignation is quite extraordinary and without precedent that I can think of in British politics and means that politics is now utterly unpredictable.

Asked about Mr Davis' resignation, Tory leader David Cameron said: "It was a personal decision, a decision he has made."

He said it was a "courageous" move and he hoped Conservatives would support Mr Davis's by-election campaign.

But he stressed the work of the shadow home secretary - on knife crime and other issues - "must go on" and he praised Mr Grieve as a "star performer".

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "Faced with a crucial decision on the safety and protection of the British public, the Conservatives have collapsed into total disarray on what is their first big policy test since they have come under greater scrutiny.

"David Cameron must come clean on what has really happened and why David Davis has really resigned."

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, who also voted against 42 day detention, said his party would not be fielding a candidate in the by-election, after speaking to Mr Davis.

'Stunt'

Labour MP Denis MacShane said he was sure Mr Davis would win the by-election but added "I think this will be seen as a stunt" which showed the Conservatives were "utterly unfit" for government.

The former Europe Minister said he thought Mr Cameron had "cut the ground from under David Davis by not pledging to repeal 42 days" if the Tories won the next election.

But he said Mr Davis' decision to resign was "a bad day for Parliament" and said he did not personally think Labour should run a candidate against him in the by-election.

Mr Davis mounted a passionate attack on government plans to extend terror detention in the Commons on Wednesday - only to see the government win the key vote by the narrowest of margins.

In his resignation statement, he said he feared 42 days was just the beginning and next "we'll next see 56 days, 70 days, 90 days."

But, he added: "In truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms."

He listed the growth of the "database state," government "snooping" ID cards, the erosion of jury trials and other issues.

"This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand," said Mr Davis.

"At least my electorate and the nation as a whole will have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law," he said.

'Local party'

Mr Davis' local party fully backed his decision, its chairman Duncan Gilmour said.

"David discussed early in the week what he would do if the result went against us last night. "David is a man of principle and we fully back him," he said.

The Lib Dems had targeted the seat in 2005 as part of its ill-fated "decapitation" strategy to unseat key Tory figures but Mr Davis was re-elected with a 5,116 majority.

Mr Clegg said the party would fight the seat at the next general election but he said the "unnecessary and illiberal" 42 day proposal transcended party politics.

I read this news article some time ago, which was posted on the 'Mail Online' website on 10th April, 2008 and thought it was still worthy and relevent for posting here for you to read.

 Every single Metropolitan police officer will be 'microchipped' so top brass can monitor their movements on a Big Brother style tracking scheme, it can be revealed today.

According to respected industry magazine Police Review, the plan - which affects all 31,000 serving officers in the Met, including Sir Ian Blair - is set to replace the unreliable Airwave radio system currently used to help monitor officer's movements.

The new electronic tracking device - called the Automated Personal Location System (APLS) - means that officers will never be out of range of supervising officers.

But many serving officers fear being turned into "Robocops" - controlled by bosses who have not been out on the beat in years.

According to service providers Telent, the new technology 'will enable operators in the Service's operations centres to identify the location of each police officer' at any time they are on duty - whether overground or underground.

Although police chiefs say the new technology is about 'improving officer safety' and reacting to incidents more quickly, many rank and file believe it is just a Big Brother style system to keep tabs on them and make sure they don't 'doze off on duty'.

Some officers are concerned that the system - which will be able to pinpoint any of the 31,000 officers in the Met to within a few feet of their location - will put a complete end to community policing and leave officers purely at the beck and call of control room staff rather than reacting to members of the public on the ground.

Pete Smyth, chairman of the Met Police Federation, said: "This could be very good for officers' safety but it could also involve an element of Big Brother.

"We need to look at it very carefully."

Other officers, however, were more scathing, saying the new system - set to be implemented within the next few weeks - will turn them into 'Robocops' simply obeying instructions from above rather than using their own judgement.

One officer, working in Peckham, south London, said: "They are keeping the exact workings of the system very hush-hush at the moment - although it will be similar to the way criminals are electronically tagged. There will not be any choice about wearing one.

"We depend on our own ability and local knowledge to react to situations accordingly.

"Obviously we need the back up and information from control, but a lot of us feel that we will simply be used as machines, or robots, to do what we are told with little or no chance to put in anything ourselves."

He added: "Most of us joined up so we could apply the law and think for ourselves, but if Sarge knows where we are every second of the day it just makes it difficult."

Another officer, who did not want to be named, said: "A lot of my time is spent speaking to people in cafes, parks or just wherever I'm approached. If I feel I've got my chief breathing down my neck to make another arrest I won't feel I'm doing my job properly."

The system is one of the largest of its kind in the world, according to Telent, the company behind the technology, although neither the Met nor Telent would provide Police Review with any more information about exactly how the system will work or what sort of devices officers will wear.

Nigel Lee, a workstream manager at the Met, said: "Safety is a primary concern for all police forces.

"The area served by our force covers 620 miles and knowing the location of our officers means that not only can we provision resource more quickly, but should an officer need assistance, we can get to them even more quickly."

Forces currently have the facility to track all their officers through GPS devices on their Airwave radio headsets, but this is subject to headsets being up to date and forces buying the back office systems to accompany them, according to Airwave.

Steve Rands, health and safety head for the Met Police Federation, told Police Review: "This is so that we know where officers are. Let us say that when voice distortion or sound quality over the radio is lost, if you cannot hear where that officer telling you where he is, you can still pinpoint his exact position by global positioning system.

"If he needs help but you cannot hear him for whatever reason, APLS will say where he is."

 It makes me wonder just how long will it be before they decide to also microchip the brave men and women in our Armed Services - which they could force them to do when they feel the time is right.

Though the microchips in the article above are not implanted ones, I do see this as the first step towards microchipping of the whole UK population using implanted RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technologies.