I’d better post this now, in the middle of the night, while no-one’s paying attention.

It seems that I’ve been very generously nominated by my fellow Lib Dems for some shiny awards and the judges have, in their wisdom, put me in the shortlist for 3 categories, which is wonderful – thank you very much. I think I can speak for most of the shortlistees when I say that the competition this year is terrifying. I’ll hopefully be three sheets before they start reading out the results.

While you’re over on Lib Dem Voice looking at the lists, there’s a category open to the public for you to vote for your favourite non-Lib Dem political blog. Now, without wishing to influence your vote, you couldn’t go too far wrong voting for Sharpe’s Opinion (I lied about not influencing your vote), which is a much under-rated and under subscribed blog considering the quality of his posts.

In disconcerting news, I’m now also in the unenviable position of ending up as the highest ranked individual female blogger on the overall Top 100 UK Political Blog’s chart (coming in at 23rd overall). After me it’s Nadine Dorries at 46, then Sadie’s Tavern, Kerry McCarthy MP, our own Caron Lindsay, JuliaM, Alix Mortimer, Laurie Penny and.. and… that’s it. That’s your lot. Now this doesn’t include people like Helen Duffett, who writes for Lib Dem Voice or anyone else that contributes to a collaborative blog,  and it doesn’t include blogs that don’t make the gender of the author clear (for whatever reason).

But that’s 8 out of 100… which is shocking. I feel like I should try to do something about this, but I have no idea what… a question for another day, perhaps.

So in the office we use a collectivist method of solving the hot beverage allocation problem. In other words, we do brew rounds, or tea rounds. Rather than get your own drink when you want one, we must make a drink for everyone else in the office who wants one, and we take turns on a round robin basis.

I’ve been mulling on this pretty much all year, because I hate it. I really really hate it. I’m told I’m not really a ‘team player’ – which is certainly true in respect of the brew rounds, but I’ve been doing my bit regardless for the sake of a peaceful life.

Today, however, I decided to put this question to the Internet: Is this the best way of solving the beverage allocation problem, or would it be better to switch to an individualist, ‘help yourself when you want one’ approach?

Here’s my argument in favour of the latter: Everyone requires and wants different quantities of tea and coffee through the day. Some will want just one or two cups, others (tea based lifeforms like me) will want one at least once an hour.

Under an individualist system, each person simply makes a drink for themselves when they need one – this means that supply always matches the demand exactly, and everyone’s happy.

My argument against the collectivist approach is nearly the opposite of this – supply does not match with demand, and because making a round of brews is a more onerous task than making a single brew, people tend to be less keen on doing their round when it’s their turn. The result is that supply does not meet the demand, because those with a higher demand for tea either have to do additional brew rounds when it’s not their turn, or wait until the person whose turn it is is ready to make one.

On the face of it, it seems that on economic grounds the individualist approach is the way to go, yet brew rounds are annoying popular in offices.. why?

Now my housemate’s office does brew rounds – they’ve come up with clever ways of deciding who has to make the brews, yet their system is significantly more authoritarian – they spin a wheel, and the person decreed as having the ‘du-tea’ must immediately make a brew round. It’s done in a very friendly and funny way, but it’s still more authoritarian than our system because the decision about when to make a brew is taken away from the person whose turn it is. This means that, in effect, their system creates an over-supply of tea, so is wasteful and inefficient.

Now, what I really hate the most about collectivist tea making is the inability to make a brew for yourself when it’s not your turn, but you just really want a cup of tea. This happens to me more often than I care to think about. This is, perhaps, why I dislike the system. Those who get more tea from the system than they could ever be bothered to make on their own, however, value it immensely.

Right, gasping for a cuppa now. Going to put the kettle on…

This post has turned into a bit of an epic – I apologise. This stuff needs saying.

The more I read about the ISA, the more anxious I’m becoming. ISA stands for Independent Safeguarding Authority, and are a Quango with the job of deciding whether or not people should go into the “Child’s list” and/or the “Adult’s list.”

If your name appears in these lists, you are barred from working with children or vulnerable adults either on a professional or voluntary basis. End of story.

Quote, “it is not a punitive sanction. It’s a proactive measure to protect children and vulnerable adults.” Oh, that’s alright then. So say I submit myself to the ISA for vetting and they decide to bar me, and I have to go to all the other parents and admit to them that I’ve been blacklisted so, you know, sorry, I can’t give your kids a lift to footie anymore…. they’ll be sympathetic and understanding to my unlucky run-in with a paranoid, faceless state will they? I doubt it. Rumours will spread that I’m obviously totally dodgy, probably a paedophile, too – I mean, the Safeguarding Authority must have had a good reason to ban me, right? No smoke without fire?

Yet smoke is what the ISA are using to come up with their decisions. You see the problem?

In the olden days, if you were convicted of certain offences you would go on the Sex Offender’s register. This would prevent you working with children or vulnerable adults. Fair enough. I have no particular interest in the employment opportunities available to rapists and the like. Their liberty can legitimately be interfered with.

But the new system is more much comprehensive. It’s not just convicted criminals. I’ve read the guidelines for the Safeguarding Authority and I’m reasonably certain virtually everyone meets the standard required to be blacklisted, should they choose.

The Safeguarding Authority are looking for events with ‘relevant conduct’ – awful jargon – which means they’re looking for reports of ‘abusive’ behaviour (and one can argue quite convincingly ‘politically incorrect’ behaviour), irrespective of whether or not you’ve been convicted of a crime. Been on the Jeremy Kyle show? Had an unfavourable story printed about you in the Metro? Someone written about you on the internet? Ever pissed off a social worker? Importantly, has anyone made any complaints about you to the police or the council, whether or not you went to trial?

In stage one, they’re not interested in whether or not the event happened. They simply check whether or not the reported behaviour meets the criteria they’re looking for.

So let’s see what this includes (even the list listed is listed as ‘non exhaustive’ by the way)

Any remark or comment by others that causes distress

Whoa. Any remark? Explain further, please:

Demeaning, disrespectful, humiliating, racist, sexist….

I think I see where they’re going with this…

… or sarcastic comments.

Whoa. Sarcasm? Really?

Excessive or unwanted familiarity, shouting, swearing, name-calling.

Okay, so I’ve gone through their list of ‘relevant conduct’ and picked out the bit we’re all guilty of at one time or another. We all have our bad days, our weak moments… but sarcasm? Being disrespectful? Shouting? If you haven’t, then congratulations. For the rest of us, we need to hope the Safeguarding Authority haven’t heard about our ‘abusive’ behavior.

“But!” you’re saying, “Just being sarcastic towards a kid isn’t enough reason to get blacklisted is it?”

I sympathise, but the guidelines continue:

Experience…

Translation: “Anecdote”

…. indicates that it is unusual for abuse to manifest itself in only one harm category. It can be expected that evidence of a combination of these behaviours will be apparent in more serious cases.

In other words, if you’re guilty of one category of abuse, in this case ‘verbal’ abuse it’s more likely than not that you’ve also committed other crimes of abuse in the emotional/psychological, physical, sexual or neglect categories.

Speaking of which, here’s the Safeguarding Authority’s ‘examples’ of Emotional/Psychological abuse against vulnerable adults:

Inflexible regimes and lack of choice

Ha.

Mocking, coercing, denying privacy, threatening behaviour.

Can you feel that? That’s your irony meter going off the scale.

… bullying, intimidation, harassment

That’s it. Head exploded. All of these things are, of course, terrible – except when it’s the Government doing it to us to protect the beautiful, cute little children (the Maddy McCanns of this world). Quite where this insanity copes with the demonisation and scapegoating of children who hang around outside off-licences because their parents are smack heads and drunks is a question I leave for another day. In terms of ‘easy wins’ protecting children, wouldn’t those sorts of children seem like a better place to start, rather than affording even more “protection” to the nice, middle class kids who participate in lots of extra-curricular activities?

Or is that just me? Are my priorities screwed up?

So let’s say they’ve found out about something you did once and have decided it’s ‘relevant conduct’ – they then need to make a decision about whether they reckon it’s really happened, and the test for this? It’s the balance of probabilities. Not beyond reasonable doubt. In fact, that’s the point – the point of the ISA is to ban people from working with children who can’t be proved to be guilty of anything (the law is such a pain for politicians, isn’t it?)…. otherwise, if you think about it, the ISA wouldn’t be necessary. It’s the Department Of Gossip, Innuendo and Hearsay.

So the Safeguarding Authority have decided an event is relevant and they’ve then agreed amongst themselves that it probably happened. At this point they’re supposed to blacklist you, but first – lucky you – you get to explain to them why you shouldn’t be added. If you don’t turn up, you’re added automatically. If you fuck up your defence – by that I mean fail to prove that the event didn’t really happen – then you’re blacklisted.

It gets worse, by the way – sorry.

Even if someone has been found Not Guilty by a jury, you must always remember that, at most, this means is that [sic] the court did not find that someone did something “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Nope. It means they’re legally innocent, because in the UK we have a principle known as Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Well, we did.

The test applied by the ISA in relation to barring considerations is cause for concern.

Nice, but this next bit made me gasp in horror:

If in doubt, you should consult your line manager.

And my favourite bit of all:

If it is found that the evidence demonstrates on the balance of probabilities that an event happened, then that is treated as a “finding of fact”. However, even if it doesn’t, the evidence may still be highly relevant in the context of the “risk of harm” powers.

In other words, hey, look, even if something probably didn’t happen, you should still consider it anyway. After all, where there’s smoke there’s fire, right. And remember:

If in doubt, you should consult your Line Manager.

Summing up then, this is the proverbial line in the sand. This is the ‘far’ in ‘too far.’ I propose a mass boycott, mass civil disobedience – simply refuse to submit yourself. Refuse to ask for ISA approval, too. This thing needs to be fought, and fought hard.

If you’re in any doubt, try to figure out what you might say to other people if you submitted yourself for vetting and found yourself barred and realise you’re in for a few decades of pure hell trying to clear your name (and being put into the same category as sex offenders as a danger to children and vulnerable adults).

If you know of any organisations or campaigns against this, please can you link them in the comments and I’ll try to do another post later summing up the major points of opposition. But seriously, if you’ve been storing up a bit of civil disobedience for something too appalling to suffer, this is your moment.

Right, first, install CCTV in every single home, office and street in the UK.

How would you monitor all these CCTV feeds though? How could you be sure the children are safe?

Here’s where the plan is genius:  What we need is to vet everyone, and mark those who pass the test – wholesome lifestyle, no unusual sexual practices, no ‘dodgy mates’, no history of once, twenty years ago, puffing on a joint, no smoking, no over-eating, never been fired from a job, never been arrested or cautioned for anything – as “Trusted Workers.”

“Trusted Workers” will be entitled to a license to leave their homes without a permit. The permit system will be handed by Capita through a web interface – put in your request, state your reason for needing to leave the house, put your estimated time of leaving and returning and voila, your ID database entry is updated automatically! Only 50p a go, too!

In addition to this marvelous benefit, “Trusted Workers” will be entitled to a free choice of job, as it will be illegal to employ anyone who does not have “Trusted Worker” status. Everyone else? Well, these are the people who’ll monitor all the CCTV, and they’ll do it from their own homes, see? And because they’re second class citizens with a bitter hatred for “Trusted Workers”, they’ll be especially fastidious in their duties, reporting even the most minor indiscretion – swearing around children, for example, would be the sort of very foolish thing to lose your “Trusted Worker” status for.

I really can’t see the problem with this plan. It creates full employment and a beautiful utopian paradise where everyone is safe and secure forever.

In a chilling move, the Government has announced that it wants to ban the former bosses of MG Rover from ever running businesses again.

The bosses, it’s reported, walked away from Rover with £42 of bonuses and pensions (presumably as part of the deal to sell it).

However you feel about the morality of claiming this money from a failing business, banning them from business for it? They’ve committed no crime here and they’ve not been declared bankrupt.

What possible legal grounds would the Government have? Presumably none – the announcement is their way of getting some populist crap into what they think will be a big story. Yet, if they’re successful, this will set a precedent that you can be banned from owning or running a business by the ‘court of public opinion’.

To make this story worse, on the radio I heard someone say that the £42 million was not the cause of the Rover’s collapse, rather it was the lack of Government intervention when the ‘workers’ needed it.

They’re all wrong. What killed Rover were shoddy, undesirable cars that were overpriced.