Have you got a licence to do that?

It seems that the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) is launching a crackdown on illegal photocopying. Yes, the EU national government has taken away our right to "fair use" copying for private study, if it is undertaken for commercial purposes. All, you understand for the purposes of "harmonisation" of the law throughout the nation. As a result, our provincial government in Westminster adopted a set of Regulations in 2003, and set up the Copyright Licensing Agency to administer them. But why yet another Quango? (QUasi Autonomous National Government Organisation). Yokel is beginning to fear that the reason for the proliferation of Quangos is to make their transfer to National Government control direct from Brussels so much easier than dissecting off parts of the direct Civil Service.

So why pick on this bunch today? In a manner reminiscent of totalitarian regimes everywhere, the CLA is today asking employees to "Shop your boss" if the firm is indulging in illegal photocopying. Yokel is having difficulty putting into words the boss's likely reaction to being shopped by one of his employees. But the CLA have thought about that. They will offer substantial rewards. At what point, wonders Yokel, does a reward become bribery? Not that this NuLabour government would know the difference, and if they honestly thought it to be right, then it must be!

Source about CLA: BBC Radio4 "Today" 16 Jan 08 (0840 approx)

Where next?

Then Yokel's thoughts started to go off in two different directions simultaneously. Oh, it can be difficult when you do the thinking bit of sitting and thinking!

• How many other things do we have to be licensed for, these days? What sort of a trail does that leave all over the place for officialdom to rummage through at their leisure?
• What else are we encouraged to report our fellow citizens for?

Licence everything?

Yokel is convinced that all this licensing stuff is part of building a docile population. As well as giving the Thought Police something to get their proboscis into in years to come. Remember electronic data storage is so cheap these days that no-one throws anything away any more. The best we can hope for is data corruption that cannot be recovered, and that is probably an offence under the Computer Misuse Acts!

What else must we be licensed for? Some of it is long-standing and generally accepted for the public good. That includes matters like driving a car, or even the requirement for CORGI registration of gas plumbers. There is quite a bit of debate about the need to licence a television receiver, especially as the BBC is a commercial business. Now a licence to use a photocopier is getting awful close to the requirement to licence/register typewriters imposed by the National Socialists in Germany or the Communists in the Soviet Union. And of course, since Part P came into force (not by legislation, just by administrative diktat) it has been illegal to modify the electric wiring on your house unless you are a licensed electrician. At the risk of provoking another one, at least they have not yet adopted the New Zealand requirement that you be a registered plumber before you can mend a leaking drain in your house!

In the case of the electrician licensing requirements, the local council is now required to record every electrical modification within your home. It is all notifiable! It will all be on the database. What is the likelihood that when, in 25 years time, you have not applied for permission to have your home rewired (in accordance with the recommendations of the IEE Wiring Regulations (which are only a best practice standard)) then they will send an electrician to do it for you, and send you the bill? All for "Public Safety" you understand! And the people will sit idly by, and watch it happen with thoughts of "They had it coming for them!".

Of course this is the Napoleonic legal system at work and being transposed into English law. For under Napoleon everything that is not permitted is illegal. If Yokel understands his history well enough, the English, and then the UK went to war several times to remain independent of that empire! But steadily, English Common Law, with its presumption that everything not specifically forbidden is permitted, is being replaced by Napoleonic. The presumption of innocence during a criminal trial has long been under attack, and is most likely drinking in the Last Chance Saloon as Yokel types this.

How long will it be before anything without a specific licence is unlawful?

Grassing the others up?

What else are we encouraged to report our fellow citizens for? It is, of course, our legal duty to report the occurrence of a crime, so that the criminal can be brought to Justice. And the easiest way for the State to misuse that duty to its own advantage is to misuse the definition of crime. So nobody stands up when self appointed medievalists call heavy industry "Carbon Criminals". Didn't someone recently allege that there are are now some 3000 extra things classed as "crimes" in this country since NuLabour came to power?

But how else is it done? On the basis of the "What I did over the weekend" stories written by kids at school, and anything else that comes to their knowledge, schools must record and pass on to central government ever more intrusive information. Overt spying by kids on parents cannot be far away. It was of course a technique perfected in Communist East Germany and Communist Romania. You will know that it is about to happen when the Ministry of Propaganda impartial BBC drops such information from its schools/education downloads. In the same way that references (other than bad ones) about the British Empire have been dropped.

Of course there is the "Shop a cheat - no ifs no buts ..." campaign that has been run for a while by Peter Hain's Department of Work and Pensions. That will most likely be dropped now that political bloggers are using it to point out the error of Peter Hain's ways in making honest declarations of political campaign funding! Just like the pigs in Animal Farm, once this lot got their snouts in the government trough they decided that standing on two legs was good after all!

How much longer will it take to install a Stasi like internal intelligence structure in the Regions formerly known as England?

Docility

It really used to puzzle Yokel when he was a youngster just why the populations of dictatorial and police states didn't rebel and throw their oppressors out. As he grew older and sadder he began to realise just how these poor people had been conditioned from birth to do exactly as they were told, and that thinking was bad for the health, bullet shaped bad, causing the thinker to die of lead poisoning.

And latterly he has become very alarmed at the ease with which the UK population is being made similarly docile. As well as the points above, with everything be controlled under licence, and everyone suspicious that anyone else could realistically be a grass, there is the ban on smoking, starting in enclosed workplaces and enclosed public places. It will shortly be extended to include car drivers, and they have the home where children live as next target. (Boy you can get away with tons of stuff "for the sake of children's safety"!).

Stupidly low speed limits is another. The Highway Authorities have been charged with reviewing the speed limits on roads under their control. You know the sort of review where the only acceptable answer is to reduce them, all in the name of road safety. So round Yokel's way most limits have gone down by 10mph unless they were already at 30 mph. Road Safety has become a one trick pony. The only answer to any cause of injury on the road is to reduce the speed limit. Funny how income from fines is going up like there was no tomorrow! You did hear that the pressure group the Parliamentary Advisory Committee on Transport (PACTS) has called for the default speed limit in towns to be 20 mph, didn't you? Road safety has become a one trick pony. If there is a crash, reduce the speed limit further. All enforced automatically of course. Uncle Ken Livingstone (just like Uncle Joe Stalin would have done) is calling for area wide average speed enforcement camera systems to be installed. Yokel dreads uttering "Whatever next!" for fear of the response!

The thought police are already quite active. We have seen the prosecution and threats of prosecution of those who merely point out that there is a lot of doubt concerning the central documents of belief of the self described Religion of Peace, and whether these central documents actually support the self description.

How long will it be before thinkers start to die of lead poisoning?