The argument for these goes that if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear. Really?

Imagine if Hitler had access to a biometric database. How could any Jew hide? No one knows the future. Germans didn't wake up one day and decide, 'ooooh let's elect a mad dictator'. People are victims of their fear. Politicians know this, and use it to their advantage. This government is ruthlessly using the fear of terrorism to bring in draconian measures, including the really frightening ID cards. How many people did terrorists kill last year in this country? How many people were killed by cars? Yet I can't see any new laws governing car use. People don't seem afraid of roads or Corsas. Fears are irrational, and shouldn't be used as a basis for legislation.

I have done nothing and have nothing to hide. Why should anyone want to know anything about me? The only crime I'm planning to commit is to refuse to have an ID card. However little money it costs, it costs far, far too much.

Terrorists don't need to attack us to remove our way of life. Our governments are happily doing it for them.

I do vote, even though my vote is currently pointless because the party that best represents me is the Green Party, and they've no chance of getting in around here. Whilst the government pretends it is interested in encouraging people to 're-engage' with politics, really they don't give a damn, since they got in under the current system of no real choice and no real point (unless you are a Tory, in which case you're spoilt for choice).

I heard Harriet Harman on local radio this morning, and she has the cheek to blame people for not being interested in politics, citing the poor voting turn-out as evidence. Yet when she was challenged over how the government ignored people when they did exercise their democratic rights by marching against the Iraq war, her response was that the government had the right to do so as they had been elected, and were elected again (erm, but didn't she just say that more people abstained than voted New Labour?) afterwards. Her point was that people (especially young ones) are just plain apathetic, and don't appreciate democracy. Or they are too lazy to get to a polling station, so text votes, postal votes etc. will solve the problem.

Well sadly for her, a new report disagrees. Whilst the BBC has concentrated on its suggestion to lower the voting age (a good idea too), the more important recommendation is that of an end to the 'first past the post' system. At the moment, certain seats are 'safe', and so people don't bother to vote because their vote doesn't count. Or they support a minority party, so their vote doesn't count. Some form of proportional representation would mean that every vote counted, and so people would see the purpose in voting. In this country we tend to see hung parliaments as a problem, but after so many years of first the Thatcher and now the Blair dictatorships, I'd be grateful for anything that would limit the power of any one party and better represent the views of all the country.

Helena Kennedy, the Chair of the commission that produced the report, was on BBC Breakfast this morning and discussed an aspect not mentioned at the link above. She pointed out that power is currently centred in Downing Street. To increase Parliamentary powers, people should be able to petition Parliament, and if a certain number of signatures was reached, Parliament should be forced to address the issue in legislation. I think this is a fantastic idea, and would really increase democracy and people's participation in it.

The first petition would have to be about proportional representation. Not that any government will be willing to give up its power, I suppose.

On Friday all the parents got a letter form school highlighting the need for correct uniform. The highlights were the 'reasons' for certain rules. Trainers are not suitable footwear 'for hygiene reasons'. Hair gel is not allowed as 'spikes are dangerous to other children.'

I know I live a sheltered life, but I missed all the reports of hairdo maiming. Gareth Gates should have come with a health warning.

There was no reason given for banning 'unnatural haircolours'. I might write to suggest that these may distract other children, leading them to fall into holes or bang into trees.

I'd have far more respect if the headmaster admitted that 'these are an arbitrary set of rules designed to remove all individuality. Get used to it, because when you grow up, society will do the same to you anyway.'

There's been loads of hoo-ha in the papers and Richard and Judy etc about when women should have children. You know, lots of arguments about how having them early meaning you lose money in your career, and how having children late means you are less fertile and might 'miss your chance'. No one so far has suggested that women have children when they personally are ready.

Whatever you choose can work out fine. My friend is 25 and is now returning to her career after having two children (the youngest is three). I would have hated being tied down any younger than I was (37); I was never maternal at all until my mid thirties at least, and even then didn't really feel sensible enough to have a child. Some people are happy to have a child alone in a rented flat, others want marriage and a house before they'll consider it.

We're all different, why can't we be left to make up our own minds without it being a media issue?

I'm really fed up with smartgroups. Not only do they go out of their way to make sure that listowners get loads of spam, but now their e-mails aren't working properly at all, and I'm having to trnasfer my humungous Eastendersfans list over to Yahoo Groups, because I have had enough!

And I've got to transfer loads of pictures and files, and I can't find an easy way to do it. I am so annoyed, like I don't have enough to do anyway. But it was that or the incessant whines of dissatisfied list members. I don't even watch Eastenders any more. All that Alfie, Mo and Kat rubbish, then killing Dennis - a bloody step too far for me. Also I have to save myself from ever seeing that Grubby Moon boy ever again (he's coming back, you know. That's a spoiler, not me being psychic, I hasten to add).

Call me stupid, but until recently I hadn't realised that New Labour believed '1984' by George Orwell was a 'How To....' manual.

On Start the Week Alastair Campbell has just been saying to the guy who's done the documentary on Eugene Terreblanche that he'd find it impossible to be so close to someone with such obnoxious views.

Evidently Fiona and I have no such qualms.

[whisper] I am at war with my computer this morning (I am whispering so it doesn't realise and fight back). I've just downloaded Real Player because I missed Alastair Campbell on 'Start The Week' yesterday. So an hour later I've finally got the whole 'listen again' thing working. Yet for some reason, whilst the silly tart who introduces RealPlayer is LOUD, the programme itself is really quiet, and I can't seem to make it louder.

So I am sitting here with a speaker wedged between my neck and my shoulder (as a physio, I do not advise this).

Hehe, Alastair Campbell murmuring in my ear, even if not exactly the way I planned it.

...it is because I am stalking Alastair Campbell again, remembering a pink dress this time it is half term and I will be stalking Alastair Campbell with Little 'Un in tow. And We know how men can't resist women with small, noisy children.

I'm just not going to be satisfied until they put an MI5 tail on me, am I?

Is apparently this, according to the Scotsman online (can't access the full article as you need to pay):

A Une Robe Rose by Theophile Gautier

Que tu me plais dans cette robe
Qui te déshabille si bien,
Faisant jaillir ta gorge en globe,
Montrant tout nu ton bras païen !

Frêle comme une aile d'abeille,
Frais comme un coeur de rose-thé,
Son tissu, caresse vermeille,
Voltige autour de ta beauté.

De l'épiderme sur la soie
Glissent des frissons argentés,
Et l'étoffe à la chair renvoie
Ses éclairs roses reflétés.

D'où te vient cette robe étrange
Qui semble faite de ta chair,
Trame vivante qui mélange
Avec ta peau son rose clair ?

Est-ce à la rougeur de l'aurore,
A la coquille de Vénus,
Au bouton de sein près d'éclore,
Que sont pris ces tons inconnus ?

Ou bien l'étoffe est-elle teinte
Dans les roses de ta pudeur ?
Non ; vingt fois modelée et peinte,
Ta forme connaît sa splendeur.

Jetant le voile qui te pèse,
Réalité que l'art rêva,
Comme la princesse Borghèse
Tu poserais pour Canova.

Et ces plis roses sont les lèvres
De mes désirs inapaisés,
Mettant au corps dont tu les sèvres
Une tunique de baisers.

********

Am I not good at French, or is that a bit steamy? I am sitting here fanning myself with my instructions for Sims 2. Bloody hell, why is Alastair Campbell so damned sexy???

We've just been sent a letter inviting us to the school Parent's Evening. Or rather we have been invited to apply for a five minute time slot between 3.30 and 6pm on one of two days. Then we are given two days' warning what slot we've got. Don't bring your child, on pain of death. Of course, the type of parent who cares what their child's teacher thinks of their little Einstein isn't going to be satisfied with five minutes, so there'll be endless wating around, I just know it. And 'the public' says that GP opening hours are inconvenient.

Yet still the next day the sheep were lining up, desperate to jump through the hoops.

Little 'Un has been at that school for six weeks of his four and half years of life. I'm tempted to jump through a hoop or two myself, just to see what his teachers can possibly tell me about him in five minutes that I don't already know. Not that tempted.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~Noam Chomsky

Lots more quotes that are relevent in the light of current discussions at:

http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html

Well I've only seen the one with the bomb turban, so maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there was a cartoon which was inciting everyone to hate Islam. Maybe the other cartoons were much more inspiring and exciting and captured the imagination in such a way as to render their viewers incapable of independent thought. And of course, I am not a Muslim.

I am a human though, and I know that there is not a thing in my life that could be so 'insulted' by a cartoon that I would threaten violence over it. It's yet another one of those instances (and there are far too many of them) where people cry 'I'm a victim' and we are meant to drop what we're doing and apologise. It is my Mum writ large.

It isn't just Islam: look at how no-one's meant to take the piss out of Jews because of the Holocaust; or look at the violence outside Birmingham Rep theatre because a Sikh dared to put a play that other Sikhs didn't like; or the way that Christians went mental over 'Jerry Springer the Opera'. Every time it is this big hoo-ha about free speech versus people 'taking offense'.

The easy answer would seem to be to leave the offence where it is. Let people do and say stupid things and prove themselves the twats that they are. Rise above it. Say your piece with all the dignity and intelligence that your detractors are incapable of. Then you suddenly find that you don't need to be the victim - you can be the victor instead. Surely it can't take much in the way of brain cells to make the likes of Nick Griffin look small?

As it is, if the Danish cartoonist wanted to paint Islam itself as a root of violence in the world, he has achieved it in a way he couldn't possibly have imagined.

Went over to Mum's yesterday, and after all my fretting she was absolutely bloody fine about it. I went in and checked the calendar dates and said, 'Mum, we're going to sit him from the Sunday to the Tuesday, then take him into the kennel until Friday, then pick him up and sit him 'til you get back.' I explained it was all my fault, I should have told her how awful it was before, and I was really sorry, but I'd promised Husband we wouldn't do the week. I agreed he was an old dog to be in kennels for nine nights, but this would only be three. 'Is that alright?'

'It'll have to be, won't it.' AAAAAARGH!!!! I though, this is the start: as my ex-brother-in-law used to say, "pack your bags, you're going on a guilt trip."

'Thank goodness, I thought you'd have a real mood with me, I've been terrified of telling you. I almost made up a good reason to not be able to do it at all, but then I just couldn't.'

'No,' said Mum, 'it's better to tell the truth.'

And she genuinely was fine, started telling me about her medication problems and chatting like normal. I kind of can't believe it.

She's been taken over by an alien, hasn't she?

Campbell lets cat out of the bag over his memoirsThe Independent, 03 February 2006

When Alastair Campbell joked that his memoirs will one day provide a handsome "pension" fund, colleagues guffawed at his cocky Lancastrian wit.

They won't be laughing now, though. For Tony Blair's favourite spinner has for the first time confirmed that he really does intend to publish an autobiography.

It won't just gloss over the gory details, either. Rather than restricting himself to one volume, Campbell intends to "publish a series of books" on his time at Downing Street.

The admission was made in a letter to the Commons Public Administration Committee, which is holding an inquiry into political memoirs following the controversies over Sir Christopher Meyer and Lance Price.

In the letter, Campbell pledges to delay publication until Tony Blair leaves office. Depending on who you believe, that could be as soon as next year.

"I do intend to publish a series of books about my experiences in politics at some time, but I would consider it wrong to publish... at a time detrimental to the interests of the Government or the party I serve," it reads.

"I'm in little doubt that publication would be used to try to damage the Government, the Labour Party, the Prime Minister and others. For that reason alone, I have decided against early publication."

Although Campbell wrote the letter before Christmas, details of its existence only slipped out yesterday at a meeting of the PAC. The hunt is now on for a publisher.

Well I for one am really looking forward to this, and I hope it will provide a lot more juicy details for my Alastair Campbell pages. I've got a strange feeling he'll gloss over the Riviera Gigolo days though.

Interesting to see if he'll spill the beans about what he really thinks about Blair's policies. My pet theory is that Campbell is so afraid of a Tory government (understandable after Thatcher) that he totally put aside what he believed in to spout Blair's crap. There's no way Fiona Millar would put up with a bloke who really believed that stuff. Unless he was incredibly good in the sack, which of course he must be, so I've totally undermined my own argument there. Umm, time for a cold shower and less obsessive waffling, I think.

Introducing world's sexiest men: Bloom, Pitt...and Cameron

He is one of my unsuitable men, and I saw him first and have more posters of him than the rest of you, and we are obviously meant to be together because I once lost my shirt at a Smiths concert(anyone who thinks they got hold of 'Morrissey's shirt' at the Tower Ballroom in Birmingham in 1983 probably hasn't) so HANDS OFF!

Ok, I am a grown woman of 41. So why am I shitting myself about telling Mum I won't dog sit for the whole week over Easter? Because she will go in a mood with me. Her last big mood with me was when I was 18. I took some cakes to a party and left the tin there. She only began talking to me again four weeks later because I got glandular fever.

My Mum's dog is the most vile animal anyone could ever meet. It is the same type as the one the Barlows have on Corrie, but it is fat, has no hair, has rotten teeth and a stinky mouth, has epilepsy, bites people, and pays no attention to the Parents. It obeys me, but I think only because it senses the depth of my hatred. It howls all night if left alone.

Last Easter we sat it for a week, and this was when Little 'Un developed his hatred of it. By the end of the week I was having to carry the poor little mite everywhere, he was so afraid of the vile animal. Mum says 'you can go out all day, Pat will pop in and let him out and feed him.' But when you get back, he has refused to go out for Pat, and has shat everywhere. So he has to go for a daily walk. Fine, unless he sees another dog, then he slips his lead and savages them. 'He'll come and get you at night if he needs to go out,' says Mum. But he doesn't, he just sneaks downstairs and shits by a door so you tread in it the next morning. So you spend all night hardly daring to sleep, listening for the patter of little feet.

I promised Husband we would never sit for a week again. But the Parents had such a nice time on holiday, I didn't like to put them on a downer, and I didn't mention it.

Since then he has been in kennels, because Mum booked a long weekend away without chekcing we were available to sit. We weren't (genuinely - we can cope with a weekend sit), so he went in the kennels and was fine.

Before Christmas our TV broke. When Dad found out he said we could have their spare one (they had four). When I went ot pick it up, I asked how much money they wanted for it, and Mum said, 'nothing, just dog-sit at Easter.'

'No way, Mum. Husband will make me take the TV back rather than that. If you don't want money, we'll have it as a Christmas present.'

'No, just dog sit, that'll be fine.'

'Why can't he go into kennels again?'

'Because it's shut over the Bank Holiday and I'm not putting him in there for nine days.'

'We'll do the weekend then, and put him in after that.'

'No you won't.' At this point, being Mistress of Passive Agression, she went into a sulk. I didn't press the point, as they were coming to ours for Christmas and I didn't want it to be spoiled by a mega-sulk. Then Steven died, and again I didn't want to upset her 'til she was feeling better.

Little Sis volunteered to speak to her for me. She always takes things from Little Sis that she won't from me, so I agreed. Mum fell out with her and is sulking, insisting that I agreed to do it in return for the TV, and saying Little 'Un isn't scared of the dog. Even though I still have to carry him around the house when we visit.

I am annoyed that she is putting the damn dog ahead of her grandson. I am annoyed she won't compromise, and is pushing ahead with this even though she knows I don't want to do it. So today when we visit, I am going to tell her. I really am.

If I don't chicken out.

If I make her go on Jeremy Kyle for the 'It's Me Or the Dog' show, d'you think I'll get to boff the host?