Good News, Bad News

On the one hand, it is nice to see some of Labour’s obsessive control freakery consigned to the bin downgraded, somewhat.

The controversial Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) will either be scrapped altogether or dramatically scaled back under plans to treat adults who come in to contact with children as innocent unless there is strong evidence against them.

Indeed. Actually, scrapped completely is the best approach – along with the equally absurd and invasive criminal records bureau. So it’s nice to see the coagulation making headway with its promises, isn’t it.

It isn’t?

Oh.

Every email, phone call and website visit is to be recorded and stored after the Coalition Government revived controversial Big Brother snooping plans.

It will allow security services and the police to spy on the activities of every Briton who uses a phone or the internet.

Moves to make every communications provider store details for at least a year will be unveiled later this year sparking fresh fears over a return of the surveillance state.

Return? Did it go away? I must have missed that one. And did we really, really believe all that rhetoric about scaling back the surveillance state? A bonfire of the statutes? A great repeal act? Okay, I wanted to believe, really I did. Sure, ID cards have gone, but the mentality behind them remains as strong as ever.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. All that can be said of them is that they are marginally less dreadful than what went before. Hardly a resounding recommendation.