Half the population don’t support ID cards. Oh, the joy:

Support for the UK’s national ID card programme continues to plummet, with one quarter of people saying they are strongly opposed to the scheme.

According to an ICM poll, 25 percent of those surveyed thought it was a “very bad” idea — up from 17 percent in September last year.

Opponents of the ID card scheme said the survey of just over 1,000 people, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, showed the government would be “unable to impose” the cards on the population.

25% think it is a very bad idea and other 25% think it is just a bad idea. Not that New Labour will give a shit either way about what we think.

I think he might be railing against popular opinion in this belief:

The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says the adoption of Islamic Sharia law in the UK is “unavoidable”.

Dr Williams told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that the UK has to “face up to the fact” that some of its citizens do not relate to the British legal system.

A Brit living in a Muslim country would never be afforded the same consideration. We have a perfectly well established (if far from perfect) legal system in this country. Anyone who wishes to move to this country must accept that system. When in Rome…

It seems that GP’s are stirring up a bit of trouble for Gordo. I received the following email yesterday and have decided to post it pretty much “as is”. The only thing I have removed is the name of the author who is a GP and on the GPC. The contents pretty much speak for themselves:

Dear All,

We currently appear to be being steered towards accepting imposition A simply on the grounds that in the short term we will take less of a financial hit. I think this is probably dangerous and that we will regret it next year if we do not stand our ground now. It will be your decision. There has been criticism that the GPC is not prepared to give a steer. They are in a difficult position and are still trying to formulate questions that will make it clear that if you accept imposition A then it is only under protest as being the least unpalatable of two unacceptable options. We are not negotiating with honourable people. I certainly hope myself that if you go for option A when you are asked to vote then no one at all in Gloucestershire or Avon will then do any extended hours surgeries whatsoever; regardless of how much you might be bribed to do so.

For what its worth my personal view on the way forward is : -

• Reject both A & B. Stay cool and then point out that the stand-off between us is another “faut pas” by Gordon Brown in person, caused by his insistence on the over-riding of his own negotiators. He is getting a reputation in the media for someone who cannot delgate any power. I think he is vulnerable and will not want an epitaph as being the man who destroyed the NHS. Unless we reject both A&B we are not in a state of “dispute” and cannot legally hold a ballot on any form of industrial action.
• Publicise widely that the Government has lied, interfered with the pension settlement, and has betrayed doctors who signed up in good faith to what they believed to be legally binding contracts, and that the NHS can no longer therefore trust Gordon Brown. Seek a General Election if feasible by whatever means available to us legally. Posters seeking that might help. Gordon Brown has no personal mandate as Prime Minister from the general population.
• Stress publicly the underlying privatisation agenda, with loss of the traditional family doctor as being our major concern.Stress Government intention to use nurses, pharmacists, emergency care practitioners, and overseas doctors from Eastern Europe as cheap GPs.
• Take every possible opportunity to educate patients in our daily dealings with them. It is very easy to drop in a relevant critical comment or two about the Government in general conversation. It is after all only informing them of the truth. If we all do this then hopefully opinion polls will rapidly show an impact based upon our disillusionment with the Labour Party. Our strength lies not necessarily in our patients’ support, but in our ability to influence them on matters political, such as the threat to the continuation of the NHS, via our frequent one to one contacts.
• Continue to publicise the enormous achievments and benefits of the new GMS/PMS contracts to patients, but don’t expect too much from patients as the media campaign against us has been too effective. They do indeed view us as fat cats now.
• Illustrate to patients that already practices are planning staffing cuts that will make it more difficult for them to access an already understaffed and underfunded primary care service, including access to both doctors and also to practice nurses. ( Don’t forget our nurses now often have as big a following as do the GPs - they spend longer with each patient and that can be interpreted as being a more personal service by the patient. Patients don’t understand the delegated responsibility)
• End practice based phlebotomy and anticoagulant control. It might cause patient protest, but we can simply point out the scale of cuts and that we can no longer afford it. That should soon cause a public outcry.
• Expose the cuts to practice-based primary care teams, with the associated widespread downgrading of senior clinical nurses and cuts to health visiting and midwifery, leaving but a few only as managers for groups of practices, simply to save money. Point out how this undermines team spirit, and has resulted in delegation of important clinical work to very much more junior nurses who often do not have the necessary skills etc.
• Expose the gross inadequacies of the emergency OOH services compared to those that GPs ran before PCTs took over. Also expose cuts to the ambulance services.
• Insist that the employers element of superannuation is handed back to PCTs immediately and is not in future recorded as part of our income whether intentionally or otherwise.
• Try very hard to use BMA lawyers to establish that the contract cannot be broken unilaterally as there is no “natonal emergency”. If necessary insist on a judicial review as delaying tactic if nothing else, regardless of what the BMA lawyers think about likely outcome, or whether the BMA quibbles about paying for one. ( I have serious doubts about the BMA’s willingness to support our campaign financially. It has spent too much on gutting BMA House!)
• Insist on the declared support of the wider BMA, which I don’t feel we have at present. If not forthcoming consider establishing a break-away organisation outside of the BMA, which I will personally be prepared to become involved with , I daresay along with others on the GPC.
• Seek a European judgement based on the current “Working Time Directive” etc. Lobby Euro MPs. If necessary get BMA lawyers to seek changes to European law along the lines of maximum time that pilots/lorry drivers are allowed to work without a minimum break.
• Seek support of Medical Defence Organisations to resist the enforcement, by financial threat or otherwise, of doctors having to work alone doing booked surgeries with just a prescription pad at antisocial hours, when they will obviously be at risk.
• Ballot on industrial action to comply with Trade Union law, and don’t leave this too late.
• Insist as far as possible that all GPs act in unison throughout the UK. Peer pressure will be vital for success. Get LMCs to prebook a series of large-scale meetings now.
• Make it clear to Government that refusal to negotiate fairly will mean an immediate embargo on all further IT developments including National Spine, electronic prescribing, GP to GP etc
• No statistical or survey information of any kind to be fed to PCOs in future.
• Withdrawal from all PBC and C&B developments by ALL GPs, with refusal to engage in commissioning of any sort until satisfactory resolution.
• Refusal to develop QUOF in any way.
• Refusal to engage further with “Access”.
• Doctors currently doing any extended hours will be asked to stop doing them for the time being as part of the national campaign of unity.
• There will be an end to any attempts to reduce referrals to secondary care which most of us have cooperated with to date. Any referrals sent back to practices by the inevitable referral management centres that will result, will be returned with a note to the PCT asking them to confrm acceptance of legal liability, and those patients affected will be given a letter to take to their MP.
• An end to any further generic prescribing.
• An end to 28 day prescribing, and a return to presciption for quantities of drugs dictated by clinical considerations only.
• Refusal to agree to any “drug switch” campaigns, whatever short-term savings there may be for PCTs.
• Seek to establish our right to treat any patient privately outside contracted hours, as per consultants. If rejected insist that consultants should have that right to practice private medicine withdrawn if they hold an NHS post.
• Refusal to train new GPs until satisfactory contractual negotiations are re-established.
• Encourage GPs to withdraw from OOH arrangements until satisfactory in hours contractual arrangements are restored.
• Insist that attached staff being accommodated in GP owned or leased surgeries are rehoused.
• Collect undated resignations.
• Point out to all managers just how vulnerable their jobs will be if we all resign.
• Ask for a detailed public analysis of the value of SHAs by the National Audit Office, with the intention that they are scrapped.
• Set up immediately a subcommittee that will assist the process of resignation if we are forced to go that far, will negotiate for a “Mediplan” type insurance etc., and will produce detailed guidance notes for GPs.
• Publicise that it is Gordon Brown personally who is responsible for threatening the NHS by starting yet another unnecessary war.
• Publicise that we have always been prepared to negotiate on detail of contractual arrangements and on improving patient care in line with updated evidece bases, given the necessary resources and professional respect, but that the outline of the 2003 contract is written in stone, and that general practice cannot continue without inflationary uplifts plus significant extra funding in addition in order to cope with the ageing population, developments in medical science, and new treatments.
• Publish comparative cost tables for drug costs, primary care costs, and overall health costs for all European countries.
• Insist that comparability is restored as a factor that must be taken into account by the DDRB in assessing GP pay.
• Call a Special Conference of LMCs, or convert the Annual Conference into a Special Conference solely for decision on the agreed way forward.
• Consider as an option seeking mass PCTMS salaried contracts as “consultants in primary care”. I was at a dinner yesterday with a PCTMS GP . He is a senior doctor, but he is paid £90,000 all found. ( The contract includes Crown indemnity, maternity and paternity leave, sick leave, NHS pension, all staff and premises provided etc). He is taxed by PAYE so does not have the disadvantage of payment of Schedule 4 tax in advance. I think many could find the advantages of such salaried contracts backed up by PROPER GPC negotiation ( instead of the half hearted support so far given)attractive compared with what we now face as supposedly “independent” contractors.
• Resign en-masse from GMS/PMS contracts as last resort on a pre-determined date following the Special Conference.

I had no idea that they were even allowed to do it in the first place:

Police can no longer authorise bugging conversations between solicitors and clients in police stations.

A ruling by the Lord Chief Justice said the monitoring of such conversations will be unlawful, unless it is authorised by an independent person.

…

Until now, such surveillance could be authorised by a deputy chief constable.

So much for Attorney Client Privilege. How did we get into a situation like this?

Get a load of this:

Thousands of people have marched in the Sudanese capital Khartoum to call for UK teacher Gillian Gibbons to be shot.

Mrs Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool, was jailed by a court on Thursday after children in her class named a teddy bear Muhammad.

She was sentenced to 15 days for insulting religion, and she will then be deported.

The marchers took to the streets after Friday prayers to denounce the leniency of the sentence.

The protesters gathered in Martyrs Square, outside the presidential palace in the capital, many of them carrying knives and sticks.

Marchers chanted “Shame, shame on the UK”, “No tolerance - execution” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad”.

Hundreds of riot police were deployed but they did not break up the demonstration.

Note that it says “Thousands of people”. Hardly a noisy minority.

UPDATE: From The Telegraph:

Hundreds of people have marched through Khartoum after Friday prayers denouncing what they termed a lenient verdict against a British teacher for insulting Islam and calling for her to be shot.

Sheikh Abdul Jalil Karuri, a leading cleric, whipped up a crowd attending at the city’s Martyr’s Mosque by telling them Gillian Gibbons had deliberately named her class’s teddy bear Mohammed “with the intention of insulting Islam.”

Later the protestors joined other worshippers to congregate in the centre of the capital.

“Those who insult the Prophet of Islam should be punished with bullets,” the crowd shouted after Gibbons, 54, was jailed for 15 days on charges stemming from naming a teddy bear Mohammed.

Sheer lunacy. Millibore should get her the fuck out of that country today. If some idiot leaks her current location (which is highly likely), she’ll be dead before she finishes her sentence.

A waste of bloody time:

An interim report into how two discs containing the personal details of 25 million people went missing is expected in December, the chancellor has said.

I hope it doesn’t get lost in the Christmas post.

“We will have his interim report in about three weeks’ time… I intend to report to the House,” he told MPs.

The Commons breaks up for Christmas on 18 December. It is not clear whether the report will be published by then.

Rather convenient eh?

The fact that these discs went missing is besides the point. The shocking way that the civil service treats out private data is rather more pertinent. Does it really take 3 weeks to come to a bunch of blindingly obvious conclusions and recommendations?

Sometimes it is just too difficult to get your head around the way some people think:

But senior clerics in Sudan insisted her actions were intentional blasphemy and part of a wider Western plot against Islam exemplified by “the writings of renegade Salman Rushdie and the blasphemous caricatures of Prophet Muhammad”.

The Sudanese Assembly of the Ulemas, a semi-official body of top preachers, clerics and scholars, said: “What has happened was not haphazard or carried out of ignorance, but rather a calculated action and another ring in the circles of plotting against Islam.

“It is part of the campaign of the so-called war against terrorism and the intense media campaign against Islam”

The only people bringing about a media campaign against Islam are these idiots. I’m sure if “the West” (whatever that means) really wanted to plot against Islam, we would start with something a little more effective than giving morally dodgy names to cuddly toys.

UPDATE: See this comment from the following piece in the Times:

what the hell was the woman thinking when she named the teddy muhammad is she thick?. it is obvious that the sudanesse are going to take offence. If she had made anti semetic remarks then no body would bat an eyelid at any punishment

mozimmal, stoke on trent ,

So there you have it… naming a Teddy Bear is the equivalent of anti-semetism. It is impossible to hold a rational argument against this level of stupidity.

Via The Register, we pick up this rather worrying developement:

UK Identity Crisis Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) has lost two further CDs containing private information.

Staff at HMRC have told police that another two CDs are missing, according to the Times. They contain information on thousands of people and were sent to offices in London, but have yet to appear.

We called the Met, but it refused to comment beyond saying officers were investigating the original loss of data and searching for the missing discs.

Last month, HMRC lost information on 15,000 people after another CD was lost. The disc was sent from HMRC’s Newcastle office to Standard Life’s office in Edinburgh, but never arrived.

More from the Times here.

How do we get rid of these imbeciles? Not at the next election… now!

Pssst… There’s a couple of CD’s for sale on eBay. (via The Register)

Every document that has any personal information about me or my family gets shredded before chucking it in the recycling. After today, I wonder if there is really any point:

Confidential details of 15 million child benefit recipients are on computer discs lost by HM Revenue and Customs, the BBC understands.

The chairman of the organisation, Paul Gray, has resigned.

Revenue and Customs says it does not believe the records - names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts - have fallen into the wrong hands.

They do not “believe” it has fallen into the wrong hands. I feel so much better now.

Replace the words “child benefit recipients” with “identity card registrants” and read the story again. Let’s face it, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

BBC political editor Nick Robinson said he understood ministers had been aware of the problem for nine to 10 days.

Oh goody, another cover-up.

Mr Darling is expected to outline the measures taken to protect those whose data has been lost.

I await with baited breath.

Update: So it’s only 25 million records then. Quite impressive for a bunch of totalitarian, info-facist fuckwits.