Author: Dave

This theme, minnow, when using the add this buttons does not associate with a picture, I have today added the “Meta Tag Manager Plugin” and shall be experimenting with it . …

The Guardian has a long piece on the Tories 2015 election campaign and explains why some of the constituency campaigns have been investigated by the the Police. It hinges on the allocation of cost to the low limit constituency campaigns and the higher limit national campaigns. The Electoral Commission has investigated the battle bus costs and stated that,

“has found no evidence to suggest that the party had funded the BattleBus2015 campaign with the intention that it would promote or procure the electoral success of candidates”

apart from the planned location of the whistle stops.

The Guardian also quotes the Electoral Commission as saying,

“coaches of activists were transported to marginal constituencies to campaign alongside or in close proximity to local campaigners, …..

“it is apparent that candidate campaigning did take place during the BattleBus2015 campaign

Stephen Bush examines Amber Rudd’s Marr interview, look at the obvious errors and then moves away from encryption, and onto censorship. He doesn’t talk about the means, but states that the strict definition & separation of liability between a carrier and publisher gives facebook, youtube and twitter the excuse to avoid taking responsibility for the fake news and hate speech that they propagate. Will Hutton’s article on the malign influence of the  the Datenkraken  on free speech and enlightenment values is another dimension of Bush’s critique; one that requires a longer reply. …

Tim explores the idiocy and ignorance of the Home Secretary who looks at whether further regulating  messaging software might be helpful in reducing incidents such as the recent deadly assaults in Westminster. She already has the powers to mandate back doors in messaging software and a large knife should already be hard to get. But I note that no-one is asking if the car manufacturer, Hyundai according to Tim,  could have done more. …

The Police estimated that 100K people attended the “Unite for the EU” march on Saturday; we used to double the police numbers in order to gauge the true size of the demo. Actually it’s been hard to discover its size with some sources describing the attendance as in the 1000’s. The TUC’s “March for the Alternative” in 2011 is reported on wikipedia as being between 1/4 & 1/2 million, but 100,000 is big; obviously not as big as the 1m that marched against the Iraq war in 2003 and that changed little.

The BBC’s reporting of the march has been complained about; describing 100,000 as thousands would seem to be a deliberate attempt to downplay the demo and its politics, we’ll see what happens there.

I am sorry that I couldn’t be there. …

I fond this in an article on US Politics at Zero Hedge,

As Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere quipped in the 1960s, when he was accused by the US of running a one-party state, ‘The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them’.

I finally posted my note on the NCSC at linkedin. I discuss the budget, its size and the conflict of interest that GCHQ’s has in acting in both an offensive and defence capability …