Our apathy is their greatest strength…

This story in The Guardian highlights a whole load of ways that the UK government are fundamentally reshaping our relationship with the state. The reminder that ‘they work for us’ is sounding increasingly hollow, given the way that they are removing all the restraints on the goverment to intrude into our lives, indulge in surveillance on any level they see fit and even prevent us from saying we’re not happy about it.

This chunk from the article, as quoted on the lovely Andy’s blog is indicative of the scariness –

“The government is briskly and fundamentally reshaping the relationship of the individual to the state, of the Lords to the Commons, and of MPs to ministers. The ID cards bill will allow the authorities unprecedented surveillance of our lives, and the power to curtail our ordinary activities by withdrawing that card. The legislative and regulatory reform bill, now entering its final stages, will let ministers alter laws by order, rather than having to argue their case in parliament.”

What are we going to do? Mass protest does seem the only route. Civil disobedience seems logical and ethical… What the hell is Blair up to? The distance between the new-labour police state that he’s building at the moment and the lovely utopian ideals put forward when labour won the election back in 97 is a gulf of unimaginable proportions. Was this the plan all along? Is he as much of a lying conniving bastard as it seems, or just one of those politicians who make really stupid assumptions about the importance of civil liberties when faced with some kind of supposed ‘challenge to national security’. Surely this kind of draconianism is a bigger challenge, no?

Anyway, back to recording for me – maybe I’ll just call the new album fuck blair, and list the names of the dead British soldiers on the sleeve, and post copies to MPs, thereby causing them to break the law just by reading the sleeve-notes – can’t have mention of the catastrophic consequences of Blair’s disastrous military cock-up in the gulf actually read in parliament, can we now?