More government tinkering….

I had to laugh this morning when I saw a feature on the news carried a story about the government’s latest education plans.

Now I may be missing something fairly basic here but as I understand things, the situation is as follows…

Most employers now appear to believe that A-Levels and GCSE’s no longer adequately separate the more inteligent from the average. This is due to the perception (real or otherwise) that exams are getting easier and as a result no one fails GCSE’s and A-levels any more.

In addition to this, most employers now regard vocational qualifications as second rate.

And what are the government going to do about it??

The government’s master plan is to keep A-Levels and GCSE’s as is. They then propose allowing the less intellectual students study vocational qualifications in place of A-levels.

And my question…

How in hell will this change anything? A-levels will still be viewed as too easy and vocational qualifications will still be viewed as second rate. In fact, this change only serves to reinforce this perception, spoiling it for anyone who already has an NVQ!!!

And how have the government justified this non-change???

They say they are keeping GCSEs and A-levels because "you don't transform education by scrapping what's currently good". Surely that’s the point, GCSE’s and A-Levels are NO LONGER viewed as being any good!!!

More political theatre!!!!

ID Cards - Political theatre at its most transparent...

I see that the ID card legislation is being debated (sic) in parliament again. Unfortunately I don’t hold out much hope for the democratic process with this one as the government have stated that they intend to introduce ID cards as a matter of urgency. I guess that with a 3-line whip and the parliament act to fall back on, ID cards can’t possibly fail to become law!

I’ll say at this point that I am not in favour of compulsory ID cards in the UK. It’s not because I have anything to hide, it’s just that I can’t see what benefit there is in introducing them.

I used to object to them on civil liberties grounds, as I believe that they will provide a very powerful tool that could enable the state to keep track of its citizens, regardless of what politicians say to the contrary. Lets face it; the current government hardly inspire trust, do they?

I then realised that this is a pretty poor reason for objecting to ID cards. After all, what can possibly be wrong with carrying a card that you can use to prove who you are at a moments notice? After all, the politicians have assured us that we will not have to produce the ID cards in order to do tasks we currently do without ID and if we are asked to produce it by the boys in blue and we don’t have it on us, we’ll be given time to produce it at the local police station (as is the case with driving licences and insurance details at present).

When all said and done, we all know that anyone with a mobile phone has their position monitored 24/7 by the phone companies. We also know that text messages and e-mails are routinely scanned for keywords and that anything we buy on plastic is monitored to look for unusual activity. And you would have to be very naïve not to think that this information is shared!

So why do I really object to ID cards? Quite simply its because I fail to see what benefit we will get for the astronomical cost we will be forced to foot in order to introduce them. I would even go further and say that the ONLY effect will be to criminalise previously law-abiding citizens.

So why do I say this? Well if you listen to the rhetoric on the subject of ID cards (and by that I don’t mean President Blare telling us that he thinks ID cards are a good idea, so there), then they will help in the fight against terrorism, identity fraud, misuse of services, social security fraud, the fight against crime, etc. etc. But will they really make a blind bit of difference? How can they make a difference when we will not be expected to produce the cards routinely?

Unfortunately, I have to say that I fail to see how they can help in the fight against any of these…

Lets start with terrorism… Most terrorists are ordinary citizens until they commit their atrocities at which point they become known to the authorities. Now if said terrorists are British citizens then they will already have an arrest warrant out for them (if the authorities know about them) and so why bother to apply for an ID card? If you apply you get arrested and if you don’t you possibly get arrested further down the line… nothing to lose there!

If the terrorist is a foreign national then they will be picked up at the port of entry as once in the country they will be using their own ID as is currently the case. As we seem unable to pick up foreign terrorists at entry ports at the moment it’s difficult to see how issuing ID cards will change that.

Unfortunately ID cards have failed to stop terrorism in Spain for a number of years now and I fail to see how things will be any different here!

But ID cards offer so much more. They will stop identity fraud… not sure how this will work however, as the documents we will have to produce to prove who we are can still be stolen or forged! And then with us not producing ID routinely, what difference will it make?

Misuse of services??? Again I fail to see how ID cards will help. If someone staggers in to a hospital bleeding all over the place, are we really going to turn the person away if they can’t produce and ID card? I think not.

Social Security fraud... Aren’t all payments made into the recipient’s bank account there days? If so, surely they can only be received by the person making the claim and any mistake is made by the DHSS (or whatever they are called this week)?

Crime? How will this work if you are going to be given a grace period to produce your documents at a police station? Anyone who has been involved in an accident will know how well this one works! If the police can be bothered to follow up a failure to produce they generally come unstuck when they find out it’s a false name or address they have been given.

If you are intent of committing a crime, you get your story straight to start with so that you don’t raise any suspicions at the scene (a mate of mine used to get all his drivers to memorise his name, address and DOB so that he could produce the insurance documents when they were stopped). Once you walk away with your producer in your pocket you are home free (so to speak).

The only way ID cards can have any sort of effect on our lives is to demand their production on a regular basis, be it by the police, employers, shops, banks, post offices (remember them?) or anywhere else we go regularly. But the politicians have said that this will not be the case and so how can they have any affect?

The trouble with this situation is that you end up criminalizing the poor sap who rushes out of the house without his wallet and then can’t produce his ID card when asked to.

What you will end up is with a huge database that will be impossible to make secure so peoples ID information will become even more easily obtained by those inclined to misuse it.

Innocent citizens will be prosecuted by kangaroo courts for not applying for their ID cards in time (as this will prove a point). Then citizens will be prosecuted for failing to produce their ID cards when told to do so by the police. There will be prosecutions for damaged cards (when the chip falls out or fails) as this will be deemed to be tampering, or of people caught with a second ID card on them.

Will it stop the terrorists or crims in our society? Of course it won’t, as they will remain one-step ahead of the security services, just as they have always been. Within months new forms of ID crime will appear and forged cards wills tart to appear on the streets.

So will it be worth the billions it will cost? Of course it will not. You could do much more to tackle the problems ID cards are supposed to tackle for very little expense. The money you save could then be better used to build more hospitals or to employ more police…

But it looks like the current government are forging on with the more expensive, less effective solution regardless. So I do find myself wondering why? Do the government really believe their own rhetoric about ID cards? Do they think ID cards are a vote winner? Surely you only believe this if you are really naïve…

Or are there more sinister motives behind the introduction of ID cards?…

Premium rate abuse

A few months ago there were several news articles about people whose phone lines had been redirected to premium rate numbers whilst they connected to the Internet. What happened to that then????

Have you noticed how this subject has gone very quiet recently? I’m sure this activity continues (in fact I’m absolutely bloody certain of it) yet its not news worthy now.

To remind everyone of what happened here… Several people made the news when they were presented with huge phone bills after dialler software redirected their dial up Internet connection to a premium rate number. The first these people knew about it was when they got their phone bill.

Unfortunately, in all the cases highlighted, BT did nothing about the abnormally high phone charges other than to bill the people for them. They then demanded payment on the pretence that the calls had been made and so the customer was responsible. If the activity had been fraudulent they were to take it up with the company concerned or they could complaint to the premium rate number watchdog, ICSTIS.

In a few cases people did get some or even all of the phone charges refunded but buy and large you are screwed if this happens to you (as has happened to me a few times now).

I have actually had my ISP dialler software redirected like this on a couple of occasions as well as finding myself on the mailing list for a premium rate text message service a couple of times. As with the people mentioned above, when the activity was reported to the phone company I was told that the calls had been made so I had to pay for them. And that was it.

I reported the numbers to ICSTIS but got no response at all from them. Apparently they do not mediate in specific cases and tell you to take it up with the company that carries out the redirection.

Two problems there, the first is actually tracking the company down. Secondly is getting the company to talk to you. If they are happy to fraudulently redirect your phone line to a premium rate number, what are the odds of them caring enough to actually talk to you when you complain??? Answers on the back of a fiver to my address please!

So why is nothing being done about it?

Unfortunately the slightly jaded person that I am believes that it is simply because the only person to lose out is the consumer. The person carrying out the fraudulent activity makes a fortune out of the calls, BT gets a cut of these call charges and ICSTIS stay employed under the pretence that they are actually doing something about it! Everyone wins… apart from you and me as consumers!

Unfortunately it is of little consolation to log onto the ICSTIS site months after reporting some of this activity to find out that the phone line has been closed down. It still doesn’t get us our money back, does it?

You get what you pay for…

Someone said that to me yesterday, after I complained that an MP3 player I had bought on ebay didn’t work. This got me thinking that saying “you get what you pay for” is an interesting statement to make when something doesn’t live up to expectations. You pick what you want, agree a price, pay for the goods and walk away with them…

But that’s not what the statement means any more, is it? The saying has been usurped to justify charging a premium for something that can be bought much cheaper elsewhere. If you question why something costs so much the standard reply is “well, you get what you pay for”.

But in this context does the statement really hold true? Is it always worth paying more for goods or services?

A couple of examples here I feel…

Bought one pair of ‘Maine’ sunglasses from Debenham’s - £20. 8 years on and they are a little battered but still in one piece and doing their job. Purchased one pair of ‘Oakleys’ from Sunglasses Hut - £140. 6 months on and they are sitting there in 2 pieces as the arm has fallen off.

Bought one Casio watch from the market for £10. 10 years on and its still working fine and keeping good time. Purchased one Casio divers watch from Argos for £90. 4 years on and its been back to Casio twice for repairs, the battery lasts about 18 months at a time (and costs £20 to replace) and it doesn’t keep good time.

Yes in both cases the more expensive goods do look and feel like good quality but based on those examples I would say that you do not get a better product by paying a premium for it. If you want a pair of sunglasses (rather than an image) then why pay £140 for them when a pair for £20 will work just as well (and last longer). If you want a watch, why pay more than a tenner for it?.

I freely admit that under certain circumstances I am prepared to pay a premium for somethings, if only to avoid buying from Dixons or using ntl, but buy and large I tend to buy the cheapest product that’ll do what I want.

Unfortunately I am a little old fashioned too and expect the product to do what I bought it to do, regardless of how much I pay for it…

Happy shopping….