Tony Blair's final speech to the Labour Conference was a masterpiece of politics: it sounded great and managed to paint an almost unrecognisable picture of the last ten years. If that's how Blair thinks history will remember him then he really is living on a different planet.

For all the achievements Blair has presided over - and there have been some, such as the minimum wage - he has presided over more and worse disasters.

One Blair achievement that he chose not to mention was the 1998 Human Rights Act which incorporated the EU Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Perhaps Blair doesn't want people to remember that his was the only EU government that decided after 911 to derogate from section 5 in order to lock people up indefinitely without trial. And it is his government that is planning to effectively neuter the Act.

Blair mentioned the "Google generation" but somehow forgot to mention his government's Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) - the snoopers' charter that abolished online privacy in the UK.

But that's all small stuff compared to the major defining moment of Blair's ten years: his decision to join George W Bush in an illegal invasion of Iraq. The invasion cost the lives of thousands of innocent Iraqis and - according to the UN - torture today in Iraq is worse than under Saddam. The invasion has also made the world more dangerous for the rest of us.

So what did Blair's retrospective say about this most significant and disastrous personal decision of his premiership? Did he apologise? Did he seek to justify? Even explain?

No. He didn't even mention it. The only mention of Iraq was to say that we're there now so we have to stay. That might be true, but the point is that we're there because of him. What sort of leader doesn't think the decision to send the country to war is worth even mentioning?

And, of course, he remains unapologetic about his attacks on our basic civil liberties. He follows his usual approach of describing a problem about which everyone agrees and then relying on the idea that the end justifies the means. That morally reprehensible position is handing victory to the terrorists who want to destroy our way of life.

Perhaps the most frightening - if unsurprising - line in the speech was this:

" We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world"

In other words Blair intends to continue his attempts to redefine "liberty" to meet his own political agenda.

Minitrue would be proud of the way Blair's speech rewrote the history of the last ten years. But there are limits to what even spinmeister Tony can do.

You can't redefine freedom for the sake of political expediency

Blair's failure to realise that shows beyond anything else why he must go. Not next summer, not next May but now.


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Congratulations to the peeps at NO2ID on an extremely powerful image. As NO2ID say:

"Tony Blair is not Hitler. But he is building the tools of totalitarianism. The identity scheme he is pushing is more controlling than any Europe has seen before. He can give no guarantee how it may be used in his lifetime, let alone the lifetimes of our children."

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Anyone who still believes this government respects our privacy should read this story from a couple of days ago:

Wider use of private data planned

One of the basic planks of data protection and security is the "need to know" principle. Systems collect only the information they need for the users to do their job. People do not have access to information they do not need. Information is by default not shared.

To date, government systems have generally followed this principle. Information you supply to, for example, the DVLA is not routinely made available to the DSS. Even where information is duplicated (eg addresses) it is collected separately. This duplication reinforces the separation of systems and protects against accidental "data bleed" and deliberate "fishing" expeditions.

Now, in the name of efficiency, New Labour is planning to abolish adherence to this principle in central government. The protective "data silos" will be torn down. In future the assumption will be that all data we give to any government department can and will be shared with any other department.

So the distinction between any two government databases becomes purely physical. Logically, they will all become one huge database containing the entire record of our life. And you can bet that the proposed National Identity Register (NIR) will soon become central to this. Your shiny new National Identity Register Number (NIRN) will increasingly be used as the "key" to unlock your entire private life. The absence of such a common key today is one of the biggest technical factors protecting our privacy.

For all the government's talk about helping a "small but significant number of adults who have chaotic lives and multiple needs" this proposed change will apply universally - there will be no "opt in" mechanism.

The Department of Constitutional Affairs (DCA) has produced a Vision Statement that shows how little they understand the concept of privacy. How can anyone take seriously a document that begins by saying (page 2): "This Government has an excellent track record of strengthening individuals' rights to privacy". NIR anyone? Child database?

And whilst the DCA talks about respecting privacy this is to be done by "Codes of Practice". However the document states (page 5) that "The aim of Codes of Practice will be to facilitate information sharing, not to add a burden to the data sharing process."

As Phil Booth of NO2ID observed, this reverses the assumption of confidentiality and represents an "abolition of privacy" in our dealings with the government.

Which is only to be expected from a government attempting to impose compulsory National Identity Cards and a huge, intrusive National Identity Register.

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Following my previous post Dave queried the scope of the database proposed by the Children Act 2004. It's a good question and the answer is important enough to merit a post of its own.

Despite the spin, the proposed kid database will be about a lot more than health records. Look at section 12 of the Act:

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2004/40031--c.htm#12


This describes the information that may be collected and recorded for the database. Examples specifically mentioned in the Act include:

• Details of any person who "who has care of him at any time" (para 4c) - which presumably could include babysitters
  
  
• "details of any education being received by him" (para 4d)
  
  
• "information as to the existence of any cause for concern in relation to him" (para 4g) - which sounds good but is woolly enough to include gossip about the parents
  
  
• As well as unspecified information from "the Commissioners of Inland Revenue" (para 8c) and "a registered social landlord" (para 8d)
  

The catchall is 4h:

"information of such other description, not including medical records or other personal records, as the Secretary of State may by regulations specify."

In terms of access, para 6e gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations:

"permitting or requiring any person to be given access to any such database for the purpose of adding or reading information"

And para 11 explicitly removes any assumption of privacy by saying that all this may be done:

"notwithstanding any rule of common law which prohibits or restricts the disclosure of information."

The Act as a whole effectively allows the Secretary of State to decide by regulation to collect almost any information on children or those who come into contact with them and to provide this information to whomever they feel fit.

It's all part of the trend to making primary legislation that provides the government almost unlimited powers to act by regulation without the need for further Parliamentary approval or even debate. In this case such regulations will provide yet more support for the cradle to grave surveillance state.

But because it's being done in the name of child protection, very few politicians are brave enough to object.


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