Your weekly "Britain is fucked" thread. Now with added Police State!

[Cain]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/run-on-uk-sees-foreign-investors-pull-1-trillion-out-of-the-city-1639413.html

A silent $1 trillion "Run on Britain" by foreign investors was revealed yesterday in the latest statistical releases from the Bank of England. The external liabilities of banks operating in the UK – that is monies held in the UK on behalf of foreign investors – fell by $1 trillion (£700bn) between the spring and the end of 2008, representing a huge loss of funds and of confidence in the City of London.

Some $597.5bn was lost to the banks in the last quarter of last year alone, after a modest positive inflow in the summer, but a massive $682.5bn haemorrhaged in the second quarter of 2008 – a record. About 15 per cent of the monies held by foreigners in the UK were withdrawn over the period, leaving about $6 trillion. This is by far the largest withdrawal of foreign funds from the UK in recent decades – about 10 times what might flow out during a "normal" quarter.

The revelation will fuel fears that the UK's reputation as a safe place to hold funds is being fatally comp-romised by the acute crisis in the banking system and a general trend to financial protectionism internat- ionally. This week, Lloyds became the latest bank to approach the Government for more assistance. A deal was agreed last night for the Government to insure about £260bn of assets in return for a stake of up to 75 per cent in the bank. The slide in sterling – it has shed a quarter of its value since mid-2007 – has been both cause and effect of the run on London, seemingly becoming a self-fulfilling phenomenon. The danger is that the heavy depreciation of the pound could become a rout if confidence completely evaporates.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/06/police-surveillance-protesters-journalists-climate-kingsnorth

Police are targeting thousands of political campaigners in surveillance operations and storing their details on a database for at least seven years, an investigation by the Guardian can reveal.

Photographs, names and video ­footage of people attending protests are ­routinely obtained by surveillance units and stored on an "intelligence system". The ­Metropolitan police, which has ­pioneered surveillance at demonstrations and advises other forces on the tactic, stores details of protesters on Crimint, the general database used daily by all police staff to catalogue criminal intelligence. It lists campaigners by name, allowing police to search which demonstrations or political meetings individuals have attended.

Disclosures through the Freedom of Information Act, court testimony, an interview with a senior Met officer and police surveillance footage obtained by the Guardian have ­established that ­private information about activists ­gathered through surveillance is being stored without the knowledge of the people monitored.

Police surveillance teams are also ­targeting journalists who cover demonstrations, and are believed to have ­monitored members of the press during at least eight protests over the last year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/mar/06/fingerprinting-children-civil-liberties

As voters express concern about surveillance technology, is it becoming second nature to the Facebook generation – used to publishing intimate details of their private lives on the worldwide web – who, in later life, may be less vociferous in their opposition to such schemes?

An increasing number of today's schoolchildren are forgoing the humiliating daily name call of registration, and are instead having to "fingerswipe" in and out of class, or to give it its proper name: biometric registration. According to campaign group LeaveThemKidsAlone, schools have fingerprinted more than two million children this way, sometimes even without their parents' consent. A statement on its website claims: "It's part of an enormous softening-up exercise, targeting society's most impressionable, so they'll accept cradle-to-grave state snooping and control."

Hard-pressed schools and local councils with tight budgets are being enticed by a new generation of software that promises to cut administration costs and time. In the last 18 months, several Guardian readers have written into the paper expressing concern at this new technology being trialled on their children. Everything from "cashless catering schemes" to "kiddyprints" instead of library cards is being introduced by stealth into the nation's schools, it is claimed.

[Adjective Noun]

Without these threads, I might have some kind of belief in the UK government. Like, that they have principles or something. Thank you Cain!

[Cain]

Indeed.  I've also noticed Charlie Brooker is even giving the government shit now.  For example, from his article today in the Guardian:

According to a survey released last week to help promote World Book Day, 65% of respondents admitted lying about which novels they'd read in a desperate bid to impress people. The news was accompanied by a top 10 rundown of the least-read and most-lied-about books. Top of the list: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Presumably people don't feel the need to actually read it because they can see the film adaptation taking place all around them every day, yeah? Yeah. In your FACE, Jack Straw.

[Adjective Noun]

About damn time. Not that anyone will actually do anything about it, satire is much safer. Well, the BNP might want to, but I cant read their pamphlets without laughing and/or ranting. (Not that I've put any effort into doing anything, or even seeing if anyone is doing anything. If I somehow replaced the government with wise, benevolent leaders I'd get much less entertainment from the news.)

[P3nT4gR4m]

If this recession is the real deal then nobody has to worry about a police state. They won't be able to afford it. Best advice is find the cash and buy up a couple of police departments of your own. These will be available at serious knock down prices, not the overinflated rates only the mafia could previously afford. Total immunity in even a single small region will create untold opportunities but make sure you seal it down tight. Competition will have to be executed as soon as they start sniffing around.

[Suu]

[Bruno]

Here in the US we're still using the old technology.

[Archduke Omni-Fap!]

I like to think that the government's Orwellian aspirations will be mitigated to some extent by their personal greed and utter incompetence.

[Cain]

If this recession is the real deal then nobody has to worry about a police state. They won't be able to afford it.

True.  I've considered this upside as well.

Then I remembered the government will probably cut internal security spending last, and that once they cannot use hi-tech methods, they will probably revert to low tech ones.

[Cain]

I like to think that the government's Orwellian aspirations will be mitigated to some extent by their personal greed and utter incompetence.

At this stage, I think that's all that's stopping them.

Have you checked out the clowns for The Convention on Modern Liberty, for example?  I mean, yes, its nice that there is a cross-party selection of people, some of whom are really quite honest in their concerns about liberty, getting together for a chit-chat.  But there are two major problems with it:

1) Cross-party.  Hmmm, would that mean the same parties who got us into this mess?  As far as I can see, only the Lib Dems even deserve to be part of this, and even that is only because they've never had enough power to block or pass illiberal legislation on their own.

2) Talking achieves about as much as blogging, except you can all go to the pub together afterwards.  Now, if the Convention on Modern Liberty decided to mass protest outside Parliament, organize sewer photographing expeditions and wear LOLCAT t-shirts, then maybe I might think they were something more than a talking shop for the noveau-commentariat.