Bishops: Labour: morally corrupt

Daily Mail:

"Labour is embroiled in a war of words with senior Church of England bishops after they criticised its ‘scandalous’ record in power.

They warned that the party’s policies had left Britain in the grip of family breakdown, debt addiction and a growing wealth gap.

Downing Street was said to be privately furious at the politically-outspoken comments.

[...] The bishops’ scathing assessments, coming only a week after the Archbishop of Canterbury publicly attacked the Government’s economic policies, took the unusual step of condemning Labour by name.

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch, went as far as to describe the party as ‘morally corrupt’..."

Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas to everyone!

Germany casts serious doubt on UK's economic plan

Sure there's a lot I'd like to talk about here. We haven't talked about the economic meltdown yet, and I saw this item on BBC news last night complete with the usual moronic indignation of the reporter that such outrageous criticism should be leveled against our benign and brilliant government, and who we should all presumably be rallying around:

Daily Mail: "Britain and Germany were locked in a full-blown diplomatic crisis today as Gordon Brown was forced to defend his economic masterplan from a surprise attack by the German finance minister.

In scornful comments that angered Downing Street, Peer Steinbrueck derided the PM's fiscal stimulus as 'crass Keynesianism' that would saddle Britons with debt for a generation. He went on to ridicule the 2.5 per cent cut in VAT, which was the headline anti-slump measure in Alistair Darling's recent pre-Budget report.

'Are you really going to buy a DVD player because it now costs £39.10 instead of £39.90?' he jeered in an interview with Newsweek.

'All this will do is raise Britain's debt to a level that will take a whole generation to work off.'"

Labour's DNA stockpiling illegal

About Time. "The European Court of Human Rights has spoken with a strong and clear voice - retaining indefinitely the DNA and fingerprint records of unconvicted suspects is unlawful.

The 17 judges of Strasbourg's Grand Chamber were unanimous in their ruling, and they emphasised that the government must follow it - because on this issue it does not have much "margin of appreciation" or leeway.

The court said the UK was the only one of the 47 members of the Council of Europe to permit the "systematic and indefinite" retention of DNA samples and profiles from people who have been acquitted, though within the UK the arrangements apply only to suspects in England, Wales and Northern Ireland."

BBC

"The question is what impact will this have on fighting crime"

No that's not the question, but it's very telling that the BBC would like to propose it is. The question is why this didn't come to pass a long time ago, and quite why the UK government were hoping to get away with this in the long term and why the BBC have, generally speaking, chosen to support any illegitimate dehumanizing measure as long as it is 'for everyone' ?

Another big question is quite why the police have been allowed to stray in a very concerning direction across the board with a view to this and many other things.

Another question is why were at least a couple of judges extremely conspicuously coming out and talking up a mandataory national DNA database ? And why were people like Ian Blair talking up the sharing of this monstrosity with the rest of Europe, especially when it was fairly obvious that at some point it was going to have to, rightly have its wings severely clipped ?