Archive: 2008-03-08
Cracking open the iPlayer
The world’s most intrusive airport?
I already make a point of avoiding Heathrow, one of the worst airports in the world. (My next flight, for example will be from London City via Schiphol in Amsterdam.)
Pay no attention to the database behind the curtain
The introduction of ID cards has been, so to speak, on the cards since the instinctively authoritarian Tony Blair and David Blunkett were in power. Since first proposed, the ID card has gone through many changes of identity, being promoted as a solution to a progression of bogeymen, including immigrants, benefits cheats, and terrorists. It wouldn’t surprise me if paedophiles were in there somewhere, too. Throughout all this, it’s been clear that it’s been the idea of identity cards that’s come first, with the rationalisations being very much ex post facto.