Politika u UK

[Dr Arslanagić]

Verovatno, jedan je od urednika UK Breitbarta.

[Marvin (Paranoid Android)]

Da, sećam ga se kad je sijao u Njuznajtu dok su ga pitali o Trampu. Što ti je žao, jel čovek razumniji nego što sam ja imao prilike da sklopim mišljenje u tih 5 minuta?

[Dr Arslanagić]

bož sačuvaj. žao mi je u smislu kompletnog cirkusa koji bi tada nastao sa UKIP-om

[Marvin (Paranoid Android)]

A, okej :D

[Prospero]

https://theintercept.com/2016/11/22/ipbill-uk-surveillance-snowden-parliament-approved/

 

 

 

 

Take back control!

How the UK passed the most invasive surveillance law in democratic history

Paul Bernal

 

Fr 25 Nov 2016

 

You might not have noticed thanks to world events, but the UK parliament recently approved the government’s so-called Snooper’s Charter and it will soon become law. This nickname for the Investigatory Powers Bill is well earned. It represents a new level and nature of surveillance that goes beyond anything previously set out in law in a democratic society. It is not a modernisation of existing law, but something qualitatively different, something that intrudes upon every UK citizen’s life in a way that would even a decade ago have been inconceivable.

 

The bill requires internet and telecoms companies to keep records of every website or app we use and all our phone calls and messages for 12 months. It leaves us in the unenviable position of leading the world in the legalisation of surveillance. And it will likely be used by more authoritarian regimes around the globe as evidence that mass surveillance, online hacking and encryption backdoors are perfectly fine.

 

Because of the way we now use the internet for almost every element of our lives, this is not like a few carefully chosen wiretaps on suspects. It’s granting the authorities the capacity to spy on pretty much everything done by pretty much everyone. And yet we have let this law pass with very few headlines and barely a breath of resistance from our politicians.

 

There are still some legal avenues to prevent it from coming into effect, most directly through the European Court of Justice (while the UK is still in the EU) and the European Court of Human Rights (which is separate from the EU). But more likely to be our saving graces are the inherent problems with implementing this poorly conceived legislation and the constantly developing technology that can potentially by-pass the law.

 

A well scrutinised bill?

 

The Home Office may well say that it has been one of the most highly scrutinised and analysed bills in recent history. And on the face of it, they would be right. The UK’s surveillance activities have been the subject of a long series of reviews by a wide range of bodies. What the Home Office won’t say is that they have responded to these various reviews with a mixture of sidestepping, ignoring, refusing and paying lip-service to their recommendations.

 

For example, the Intelligence and Security Committee’s recommendation that “privacy protections should form the backbone of the draft legislation, around which the exceptional powers are then built” was responded to by changing one title from “General Protections” to “General Privacy Protections”.

 

The bill itself remains substantially identical to the one that was initially proposed and was highly criticised by many of the reviews. There are limits built in – such as the need for a judge and the home secretary to sign off warrants to intercept communication – but whether they will be more than a rubber stamp is questionable and will need to be carefully watched.

 

Most of those in parliament who knew how bad this was allowed themselves to be distracted. Conservative MP and civil rights campaigner David Davis was seduced by his new role as Brexit secretary. Labour deputy leader Tom Watson was focused on the conflict within the Labour Party. And former Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti was seduced by a peerage and the allure of a Shadow Cabinet role.

 

Quite why those who should have known better – in particular, Jeremy Corbyn and shadow home secretary Diane Abbott who have been the subject of inappropriate and politically motivated surveillance themselves – waved it through remains a mystery. The only real resistance came from what is left of the Lib Dems, the SNP and Green MP Caroline Lucas. It wasn’t nearly enough.

 

In the end, parliament failed through a combination of incomprehension and political cowardice. After all, who wants to be seen to prevent something that might save us all from a terrorist attack? Aside from this, the House of Commons was preoccupied with issues that were well established, such as protection for journalists, or staring them in the face, such as the confidentiality of their own communications.

 

That meant that they missed both the nature of the new style of surveillance and its impact on people’s lives. The biggest issues, such as the impact of mass hacking, were missed entirely or fundamentally misunderstood. For example, the data that will be gathered – known as “internet connection records” — was characterised as the equivalent of an itemised phone bill for the internet. In reality, it’s a record of our movements, interests, friends, health, sexual preferences and even our tastes in music. And even more information about us could be derived from that data.

 

Saving graces?

 

Legal challenges to the bill at the European courts of justice and human rights are certain to happen and quite likely to succeed. The courts have a strong recent track record of finding this level of intrusion incompatible with fundamental rights. Although, in the current anti-European climate, it is equally likely that the courts will be largely ignored by the UK government.

 

That leaves a technological solution, and here lies both the route around the bill and its fundamental problem. Some of the worst parts of the bill –- the internet connection records in particular -– will be both difficult and extremely costly to implement, and may take years. Technologically able people will find ways to bypass the bill. The use of encryption and anonymisation will increase in response to the clampdown, as will other ways to avoid being tracked and then tracked down. That includes most of the “bad guys” that are ostensibly the targets of this legislation.

 

As David Davis said, before being distracted by Brexit, this kind of surveillance will only catch the innocent and the incompetent. The innocent should not be caught and the incompetent can be caught any number of ways.

 

What this surveillance is good for is monitoring entire populations for social control: monitoring naïve opposition groups, shutting down popular protests or dissidence, and political manipulation. In a world where Donald Trump can be elected President of the United States this is something that should disturb us greatly.

 

[MancMellow]

Kladim se da su Laburisti bili u fazonu: a pa cekaj, doci cemo i mi u posed ovoga.

[Dr Arslanagić]

Labour calls on foreign secretary to explain why he took time to discuss The Churchill Factor and sign copies at Belgrade store

 

[MancMellow]

Laburisti stešnjeni između Brexitera i Libdemsa

 

 

 

Sleaford proves Labour isn’t connecting with the 52% – or the 48%

John Harris

"Clearly for us, this was not the result we might have hoped for,” says a senior Labour MP of the party’s grim showing in the Sleaford and North Hykeham byelection. “The challenge for us was because of Brexit. Everything was about Brexit. The messages about the A&E, the NHS, the messages about infrastructure, all of that got lost to an extent in the swirl around Brexit.”

Well, there it is: pesky old Brexit. If only Britain were not in the midst of its most highly charged political period for decades, if only leaving the EU had not captured the political imagination of a sizable part of Labour’s old core vote, if only many remain voters weren’t cottoning on to the much more primary-coloured message of the Lib Dems … well, then all would be for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

But, obviously, that’s not the case: deep changes in British politics are now coming to a head – and if a byelection amid huge political turbulence sees Labour drop from second to fourth place,and lose over 40% of its previous vote-share, the party should be very worried indeed.

Sleaford, let us not forget, comes only a week after Richmond Park, where Labour was so squeezed by the victorious Lib Dems that they got fewer votes than the number of people who are local party members.

Up in Lincolnshire, some people thought that because Labour had come second in 2015 (and indeed been a real contender back in 1997), some kind of anti-Tory coalition might coalesce around Jeremy Corbyn’s party. But no: as well as the inevitable win for the Conservatives, the night’s biggest story was the Lib Dems’ increase in support from 5.7% to 11% of the vote, and Labour’s corresponding collapse.

I went to Sleaford a couple of weeks ago, and followed the Labour candidate – a refuse collector and trade union activist – as he canvassed. He was giving it his all, but his pitch on Britain’s relationship with Europe – for which read the UK’s immediate future – felt flat.

As we knocked on doors in the village of Metheringham, he repeatedly collided with the view that Britain had to leave Europe as soon as possible, with no messing about. At the same time, it was pretty unclear how Labour might appeal to the 38% of local people who voted remain – many of whom, as far as I could tell, were very worried about what Brexit meant for their future.

Yes, Ukip’s support dropped a bit, and the party came second chiefly because of Labour’s fall. But in Sleaford, the Tories seemed to have the anti-EU vote mostly wrapped up: “Brexit means Brexit,” screamed their election literature, and that seemed to do its job.

What will happen in traditional Labour heartlands, where the party now led by Paul Nuttall is the dominant anti-EU force – or where, possibly, events are led by the “people’s movement”, which the Brexit-supporting tycoon Arron Banks will launch in the new year – should still be a massive worry for Labour.

And now, to add to those anxieties, the party has a new headache: if Richmond Park and Sleaford are anything to go by, there exists a swath of liberal, pro-EU voters to whom Labour does not speak, and who are willing to put aside any bad feelings about the Nick Clegg years and vote for the Lib Dems.

 

još

[hazard]

Da parafraziram Budju kada je komentarisao smrt Kastra - kraj 20. veka. Raspad moderne levice nakon sto je iz one klasicne mutirala u ovu kosmopolitsko-liberalnu jeste na neki nacin, kraj politicke ere 20. veka. Za liberalne glasace u srednjoj klasi tu nema zime, oni imaju partije kojima mogu da "predju", npr. LibDemsi u UK. Ko ce da "pokupi" glasace klasicne, radnicke levice, e to je pitanje. Za sada ih uspesno preuzimaju raznorazni FNovi i UKIPi i to tesko moze da bude dobro.

 

Ja imam utisak kao da je (post)moderna levica jednostavno mislila da ce ti ljudi izumreti...kao, svi ti radnicki poslovi ce biti ili automatizovani ili preseljeni u neke Kine i Filipine, a deca radnicke klase na Zapadu postace srednja klasa, obrazovani profesionalci i sl. A onda je dosla Kriza™...

[MancMellow]

Malko su požurili. Mislim, ok taj sloj je definitivno mnogo "tanji" nego što je nekoć bio. Ali 1) uvek će se nešto proizvoditi 2) inovacije (e to je ono!) - u njih nije ulagano dovoljno da se izbegnu "makaze". I to može sve zajedno mnogo skupo da nas košta. 

 

Jedan zanimljiv govor verovatno najodgovornije (ja bih nazvao konzervativne, i ipak političke) ličnosti  tj deo koji se bavi i time (inače ne slažem se sa celom poentom, ali vredi preslušati kad se nađe vremena)

 

[Budja]

Ja se, eto, ne slazem u ovom konkretnom slucaju.

 

Byelections su uvek bili izraz trenutka. To sto stu LAB sada cetvrti je u siroj slici nebitno, ako uspeju da se pozicioniraju kao zastitnici radnikih prava.

Brexit ce doci i proci, UKIP ce nestati, a LibDems ce sa proEU pricom zvucati za jedno pet godina kao Ceda.

 

Podsecam, pre nego sto su se sunovratili, RIchmond je bio LibDems uporiste (Susan Kramer) i konzerve su morale da dovedu mladog i zelenog Goldsmita da ih pobedi. Ovde na severu, skok sa 5.7% na 11%  na mizernih 37% izlaznosti, no news.

[MancMellow]

Libdemsima je u pitanju opstanak tako da every little helps. Za naredne izbore im je ok strategija. Posle...ko zna. 

 

Inače EU tema neće nigde otići, ni u SRB, ni u UK, sve dok EU postoji. To je prosto gigant pored tebe (tj oko tebe) koji je nemoguće ignorisati, a čije prisustvo ima političke, ekonomske, kulturne i sve druge reperkusije na javni život. 

[Prospero]

The Home Office is considering cutting international student numbers at UK universities by nearly half, Education Guardian can reveal. The threat is being greeted with dismay by university heads, who say some good overseas applicants are already being refused visas on spurious grounds.

 

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, pledged a crackdown on international student numbers at the Conservative party conference in October, to include tougher visa rules for “lower quality” universities and courses.

 

But senior university sources are warning that the cutbacks could be far more severe than expected. They say they have seen Home Office plans that model slashing overseas student numbers, with one option to cut the current 300,000 to 170,000 a year.

 

The Home Office says a rumour it had modelled even more severe cuts of two-thirds, to 100,000 students a year, are “categorically untrue”. The rumour was discussed at private seminars last month by leading figures at the government’s Higher Education Funding Council for England.

 

International students bring more than £10.7bn to the UK economy, according to Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ umbrella group. The head of one leading university, who asked not to be named, denounced the potential scale of the cuts as “insane”, adding: “politics is trumping economics”.

 

Prof Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, agrees: “The Home Office seems to have decided that cutting international students is the only way of delivering the manifesto target of getting net migration down to the tens of thousands. But it doesn’t address people’s concerns about immigration. The problems people are seeing on the ground are certainly not caused by international university students or staff.”

...

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/dec/12/uk-halve-international-student-visa-tougher-rules

 

[MancMellow]

Njavise pogodjena Indija. Tacno sam znao da je to Mejkin tzv. "prvi instinkt"

[hazard]

Pa cim nista posebno nisu dobili od one posete Indije (izgleda da je tako, Indijci ih kulturno odjebali)   , onda udri po Indusima. Jebiga, to su visible immigrants.