And give that power to corporations?

As can be seen by the massive amounts of data Google, Facebook et al collect on their users and even non-users, corporations already have a big interest in tracking everything we do. If they’re also responsible for physical security, they’ll only get worse.

Also—corporations are even less accountable than your average made-in-the-last-300-years democracy, thanks to ‘commercial secrecy’ etc. They never have to justify a decision or action. Governments certainly have large black spots of accountability (especially the secret services), but it’s surely easier to spread openness & accountability from a starting point of ‘part accountable’ than ‘totally secretive and unaccountable’?

Regardless, the UK has started privatising local police services—the people in blue on the streets, but also detectives etc—as seen by recent calls for tendering in various parts of England. Paragons of quality service & high morals such as Group 4 & Securitas are tendering. Wait and see how that goes.

I was thinking that - DAB sets may've been released 10 years ago, but when I was looking for a hifi 5-6 years ago, DAB was hugely expensive. All in all, 24% seems high!

Actually, we can eat it - when it's young and bright red, cut it and boil it like it's rhubarb. Not sure if it tastes good though!

Also, it can be landfilled, but only in special sites, by appropriately-certified waste processors, where it'll be wrapped in several layers of thick plastic and buried more than seven metres underground. Any other means of disposal leaves you liable to be prosecuted for spreading a dangerous/controlled substance.

Does 'housing for homeless' and 'drug shelter' mean something different where you are?! Those both sound like something we need more of....

(To be clear - in the UK a drug shelter is a place people go to receive help with their problem, and housing for the homeless.... well, by definition it's what they need, no?)

Please do point out which fascists have used socialist policies/principles to subdue the populace - I'm fascinated! (or maybe you mean 'subdue' as in 'enable a maximal number of people to be happy, safe and fulfilled, and therefore not go around destroying bank property'?)

Do you comprehend what fascist actually is (or socialist for that matter), or are you merely carrying on McCarthyism? (that was a proud American period, no?)

Sadly, despite having approx 18months of news coverage of the American presidential candidate campaigns and elections, then actual presidential campaigns then elections, then 'obama! woo!' for an extra couple of months, we in the UK have had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING regarding the european elections :(

Thanks to you I know have a date, but who's standing in my area? How do I find out? Where do I vote? The news blackout on this is complete (even from the relatively even-handed BBC) in this increasingly xenophobic shithole of a country :(

Well, MPs from our third party (Liberal Democrats) have suggested an act to repeal/overwrite the acts affecting our civil liberties. This is something that could get cross-party support, and could ‘fix’ the problem in one go (or at least partially fix).

To stop this happening again, I’d say we need a written constitution - we (the UK) currently have a vague concept of a constitution, made up of various laws across many documents spanning centuries. So in the US, detention without charge is limited by what’s allowed under the constitution, but it’s not here with the result that we can now be locked up for 28 days before finding out *why* (and losing your job, scaring your family etc. in the meantime).

In the hope of helping either/both of the above happen, I’m now helping the group I linked to above (March for Liberty). So far we’re working on raising awareness of the rights we've lost, as people are often shocked when they’re presented with the list in one place. With enough support, it will lead to protests and petitions, and hopefully make this something of an election issue.