For many years now I have been watching a trend develop in the way in which our present 
Government is pushing through reforms.

Whilst most of these reforms appear on the surface to be benign, and in isolation 
for the public good, when you join all the dots up, and look at the reform programme 
from the top down, it presents itself in a totally different light.

We are seeing the establishment of the building blocks for when the Queen dies or 
abdicates, presenting the opportunity for a seamless move into the world of a 
technologically advanced, but old political style eastern bloc authoritarian state. 

There is no suggestion here that this is the objective in these reforms, however, when
building blocks are put in place, it is usual to assume that someone will build
on them, and if we should ever move to become a Republic, this is not the kind
of republic that anybody would want.

The UK’s population is no longer being governed, they are being ruled.

We see at every opportunity the distancing and removal of any reference to H.M. in 
the Ministries, except where it is either convenient or necessary.  

The working part of Ministries are now established as semi-autonomous ‘Departments’ 
or ‘Executive Agencies’, each making a grab for authority and powers above and beyond 
their original Ministry remits.

The in progress change from an Attorney General’s Office to a Department of Constitutional 
Affairs and removing the Law Lords as the ultimate in legal challenge with a Supreme Court.

Removing Peers for elected or party selected members of an upper house.

Police Forces being turned into political bodies, and whilst giving them unprecedented 
powers over individual liberties, they are still applying for or taking more.

Smoking Ban, hunting ban. ID cards, chipped passports, Solicitors reporting rules, 
roadside eyesight tests, TV licensing on mobile phones, new pub licensing, all encroach 
upon our personal lives. The UK is now the most licensed country in the world,
along with the most rules to say what we cannot do.

Regional Parliaments means that eventually the Act of Union can be disposed of, the 
Act that underpins our constitution, The ODPM acting like a Politburo, and although its
name has now changed, has its remit?. 
Vast new Local Authority powers, including powers to question people under caution using 
PACE and access to your bank accounts, closed council meetings and in camera committee 
meetings.

The increase in uniformed quasi-official agencies, such as the Highways Agency in fast 
patrol cars, Traffic Wardens and Community Officers is creating a government led army
of watchers in uniforms.

We are spied upon, tracked, traced, watched, and listened to more than any other country 
in the world, our emails are scanned, our phone calls are scanned, our text messages
logged, our personal and traffic movements are tracked by camera 300 times a day and with 
proposed chips in cars and mobile phone tracking our exact location is known at all times, 
(but isn’t it strange that when a camera clocks a traffic offence your fine is in the post 
the next morning, but when its to catch a mugger or kidnapper the pictures have to go to 
the US for analysis). 

Our spending habits and amounts are logged using credit and loyalty cards and reported to 
the HMRC and the Treasury. HM Revenue and Customs now wants stronger powers to investigate 
Tax returns including authority to take fingerprints to avoid delays in finding a police 
constable, the right to charge suspects, and simplified procedures for obtaining search
warrants.

A consultation document setting out how these powers would be used in investigations of 
tax returns was published by HMRC 9/8/06.  
Also watch out for the HMRC tax-bot on your web sites. (The Register 10/8/06). 

Holland Park School in London is to build a fingerprint database for their 1500 pupils, 
DfES says it has the powers to do so, without parental consent, although the school denies 
that the database will be part of the governments proposal to build a Children’s Index, a 
national database of under 12’s. 
I’m quite sure that eventually it will, when they are told to that is. 

In the same way that Photo ID driving licences were never going to be mandatory, or DNA 
testing, or Biometric Passports or ID cards, because we were assured of this by Ministers 
in Parliament.  
We now find that mandatory fingerprinting of new UK passport applicants is to begin next 
year, as a "building block" for a future ID card scheme, and the Government is said to 
contend that as passports are issued under royal prerogative, it doesn't need
legislation to demand fingerprints from passport applicants. (Ahh, the Queen’s name when 
it suits). 
Police will now be able to keep DNA and fingerprint records of innocent people on file 
indefinitely, and a new trial scheme to be launched this month will allow passengers to 
skip queues at Heathrow airport for flights to Hong Kong and Dubai if they hand over their 
fingerprint and other biometric data, but you need to pre-register and undergo a UK 
government background check. 
It overlaps with, or more possibly is part of Project Iris, an iris-recognition pilot 
being run for frequent fliers in the UK, originally intended to have been rolled out to 
ten airports by December.

It seems that every section of government, national and local, is taking powers on the 
basis of opt-out rather than opt-in, i.e. if the legislation does not specifically say 
they cannot do something, they will try to take the power until challenged, and it would
appear that Acts are now written with enough grey areas for them to do so, with many of 
the details being considered and defined by committee’s out of the public eye in the 
background at a later stage.

Regulations for businesses, Companies Act 2006, Sarbanes Oxley (an American bill that we 
comply with), Mifid, IR35, all further reduce innovation and entrepreneurialism and
increase govt control over what we do and how we do it.

Every government department and agency now has a ‘shop your neighbour’ telephone hotline, 
how very shameful and disgusting. 
UK Governments have historically berated and publicly condemned other countries for 
encouraging neighbour to inform on neighbour, and have worked tirelessly to bring such 
governments down, so what is this Government trying to do to our population with these 
hotlines. It can only be described as divisive.  What next?, Government hit squads?. 

To make matters worse, the information provided, or the details of the provider is not
even safe, we regularly hear of government databases being hacked or crashing, and the DVLA 
even go so far as to sell your personal data, so even if we perceive that the government 
‘need’ all this information, its just not being taken care of.

I am sure that there are many many more examples of the government invasion into our lives 
that I have overlooked here, including examples of where they get it wrong, not maintaining
the databases properly, putting the wrong Fred Bloggs on the sex register, or the wrong 
Joe Soap on the national fraud register and totally screwing up their lives, or even 
worse relying on outside agencies like Experian for information that is often incorrect, 
rarely qualified and still acted upon.  

Whilst I understand and appreciate that fighting terrorism and crime or collecting the 
right tax is important, at what cost does it come.

The argument that if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear does not apply here, 
as this is about power and control. The criminals and terrorists outside of the ‘system’ 
go unnoticed and unchallenged, but those of us who are being tracked, scanned and watched 
only have to forget to renew something by a few days and we get dumped on.

Govt Regulation, Govt Control and Govt Knowledge. And Knowledge as we all know is Power. 

The UK is now beginning to mirror all the elements that we found so distasteful and
disgusting about the former East Germany and other Eastern Bloc countries, that we 
reviled so much and worked so hard to bring down, yet we find ourselves here in the UK 
being slowly sucked into the Socialist dream of total government control over our everyday 
lives, and the tentacles of control are becoming more invasive, restrictive and personal 
every day.  
What is the amount of time, effort and money being spent on watching our own people that 
could be better utilised on providing services for them.

Winning the right to be called Citizens instead of Subjects now seems insignificant. 
At every level, in every walk of life, by every government agency, national and local, we 
no longer are being asked what we want, we are being told what we are getting. 
We are no longer being Governed, we are being Ruled.