Since PMQs earlier this week, when Ed Miliband accused the Tories of relying on donations from the rich and tax avoiders to fight and win the election, the fight of words has been rumbling on. Lord Fink, an ex-Treasurer of the Conservative Party first threatened to sue Miliband and then stated that everyone is doing it. Not so! …
I went up to Blackfriars to techUK’s offices to listen to their Digital Question time. They had arranged for Vaizey, Onawurah and Huppert to speak. I covered the event using storify, which I moved here, after storify terminated their service.
I originally said on this blog that they covered privacy, access and inclusion, start-ups, brexit (briefly) and government IT. Computer Weekly have hosted a video here…, if you want the complete story. The Guardian ran a story, “Vaizey calls for tech firms to ‘meet politicians halfway’ over encryption” and sub-titled, “Debate needs …
While writing up the pointer to my linkedin piece on banks and customer service I looked up Google’s view of Boris Johnson and FATCA, possibly the world’s most famous dual citizen tax exile. The press have been keen to comment, here’s one of the Forbes article’s and here’s Nigel Green in City AM. Green reveals that Johnson claimed that he was going to renounce his US citizenship in 2006, but clearly hasn’t. I wonder why? …
The once mighty PASOK has been reduced to the smallest Party in the new Greek Parliament. In 2009, it won 44% of the popular vote and formed the Government; earlier this year, it won a under 5%. Its decision to join the New Democrat led coalition in 2010 had led to a split, with much of the left of PASOK leaving to support its eventual replacement, Syrizia. PASOK has been killed by its own austerity policies and walking away from the hopes and causes of their political base. …
Will Hutton in the Guardian states that the Greens propose to extend the rights to belong to Trade Unions and to prohibit discrimination against TU members. It’s true see, check out their policy statement http://policy.greenparty.org.uk/wr.html, they also plan for a a right of Union recognition. Where’s the Labour Party on this? Actually, where’s the TUC and unions? I know it’s a long way from manifesto, to government policy, as a long term labour party member, boy do I know, but if the party policy ain’t right, then the parliamentary party’s policy and government policy is unlikely to be. …
The EU is considering a new Copyright law, its scrutiny committee is JURI (Legal Affairs) and the JURI Rapporteur is the sole remaining Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda. She has posted her report, on her website here, and commented on a blog article here. She has also posted it to a collaboration site. This immediate debate has shown little support for Reda, which may suggest she has it right, or that her priorities are the troll friendly jurisdictions. …
After Paris, the road to more surveillance
As the dust settles in Paris after the attack on “Charlie Hebdo”, politics in Britain returns to posturing as normal. Cameron states that the Tory Manifesto for the General Election in May will include promises to increase the legal powers of surveillance by MI5 to cover all communication. Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group writes a considered piece on what this might mean. The end of this road is prohibiting encryption for the use of ordinary law abiding citizens. …
Last year, Luke Akehurst published a piece on Labour and the Green Party on Labour List, in which he argued that Labour needs to campaign strongly against the Greens to stop their momentum. Like all good strategists, he’s seeking to avoid a war on two fronts. I made a comment on the page, and considered writing a longer piece here but in the end failed to find the time. …
The Dark Knight was released in 2008, five years before the Snowden leaks in 2013. It was on UK TV last night, and I have referred to the surveillance machine that Batman built to fight the Joker. There were stories at the time that the US Federal Government were tapping everyone’s cell phones, and my reasons for quoting this piece of fiction is the conversation had between Batman and Lucius Fox on the latter’s discovery of the machine built by Batman. Listen to the dialogue in this you tube short cut. …