The Culture of Blame

Do you remember the good ol’ days? The days where we enjoyed our lives because we were entrusted to make decisions for ourselves? Not all that long ago, the proles were in the box seat – we understood everything that was going on within our jobs and our societies, communication was the key and everyone had a part to play. Because everyone listened to each other, our communities were stronger, more powerful and they GREW because everyone listened to each other.

So what happened? Well the jury is still out on that one. Who was responsible for the collapse in society? Who caused the recession? Where did we all go wrong? Who was to blame?

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And therein lies the problem. BLAME. Our modern society is increasingly feeling the need to identify specific culprits and hang them out to dry. People are scared to think and act for themselves in case they unwittingly break some law, some rule, and get sent to jail.

During the last fifteen-to-twenty years there has been a definite shift from collective responsibility towards cultural responsibility. Twenty (or so) years ago there used to be more of a culture of collective responsibility. People within a community stood together. Nowadays it’s every man for himself – instead of growing together, communicating, living according to our individual consciences, the tendency is now to see individuals as heroes or villains of the hour. Where rules are broken, the situation invariably results in witch-hunts, with the authorities and/or the media desperately searching for someone to blame. But IMO the problem is not who is to blame, but the fact that our governments chose to perpetuate this culture of culpability and liability in the first place.

There is a new trend in our western societies towards increased regulation. We are not allowed to make decisions for ourselves as individuals. Instead our governments think for us. As the population of the planet balloons, our authorities seek to keep control the only way they can – by inventing ever more laws to keep control. In densely populated countries such as the U.K. we are particularly susceptible to exponentially increasing amounts of legislation. The burden of the people to comply with ever-increasing numbers of new RULES is immense. America and the rest of the world are rapidly following suit. 2257 was just a smaller symptom of a bigger disease. Behold the rise of the nanny state! As individuals, we are no longer trusted to choose how to live our lives, do our jobs, what to feed our children or how we spend our leisure time. Instead our governments are choosing for us.

The society we grew up with has changed beyond all recognition. The desire to govern effectively is seen to be achievable only by legislating for all eventualities. As a result we have an audit-based society where the authorities are forever checking that we have complied with their rules. So our governments are spending more and more of our hard earned money (which should be used to fund economic growth, healthcare and education) on creating compliance organisations whose function is to check and certify individuals and companies comply with all the new rules. Governments are creating more process, more systems, more legislation and ever more red tape.

The world is moving away from trusting individuals to think and judge for themselves. Increasingly the ability to make decisions is being stripped from us, and with it, our power over our own lives.

Things will never be the same again, but it is my belief and hope that eventually we will reach a tipping point, a point where our governments will decide not to see the worst in its citizens and instead have the courage to trust us again. One day our rulers will realise that the best way to govern is to cut legislation and restore the principles of individual responsibility and freedom.

It is only then that we, as a society, will grow strong again.

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Images are of Ifat

Swathed in Blue

“Change has come to America.”

Barack Obama, President-Elect of the United States

I imagine ya’ll be too busy partying right now to read this, but I just wanted to congratulate all those of you who have been fighting so passionately for change. You did it! You have (literally) re-written the map.

If you want to see a fascinating blow-by-blow account of history being made, Stephen’s blog from last night makes for gripping reading.

Congrats to all, and to Obama too. The poor bloke has certainly inherited a mess. As Time magazine observed so accurately: “America is drowning in debt. Getting square again will be painful.”

Change is long overdue. As to whether Obama can rescue America from its watery depths, only time will tell.

In the meantime, here in the U.K. we have a little while to go yet before our own “new dawn.” Personally, I can’t wait for the day when we too re-write our own map. Blue ink, of course :-)

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Ivory flame, dancing for joy

Why Artists Should Rule The World

So we’re nearly at the finish line. The policies have been analysed to death, so much so that in these final End Of Days the only thing left that will sway the floating voter is sheer force of personality.

Now don't ask me to predict who will win on Tuesday. Originally I figured Hillary Clinton for president, but that was based purely on logical economic policies, and clearly I overestimated the American population (either that or I am the harbinger of doom) as the poor woman was kicked out shortly afterwards.

Now it seems clear that most floating sheep, sorry I mean undecided US voters, will vote on personality alone. Obama has operated a very slick marketing campaign, so I’m guessing that he will emerge the winner, especially since there are an alarmingly large number of blogs out there who are hailing him as The Next Messiah, the man who will save the world because he is "a man of resplendid vision with the wisdom of Solomon." Some impressively zealous religious admirers are even able to quote relevant parts of the bible as proof that Obama is indeed the second coming of Christ. As we often like to say here in the U.K…only in America…

So if you’re throwing common sense out of the window, who would you vote for?

Well, my dear late mother, had she still been alive and living in America, would have been a dead cert for McCain. Why? Because his favourite musician is Roy Orbison, so of course he is therefore by definition PERFECT because my mother worshipped dear Roy as devotedly as if it was he who would save the world from certain destruction.

As for me, I’d probably vote Obama (despite the fact that he has a few vaguely alarming hints towards totalitarian policies) simply because a) he’d make an excellent male art nude model and b) any man who lists his favourite musician as Miles Davis can’t be all bad and at least shows some degree of taste. But more than this, Obama also lists his main source of personal inspiration as none other than Pablo Picasso. I’m guessing this is not because of Picasso’s infamous womanizing, but rather because of his enlightened philosophies, not to mention his art.

If Obama has artistic leanings, then maybe all is not lost. Picasso represented a dynamic, radical new vision of the world, and let’s face it, we could all do with a new creative vision around about now. Let’s just hope he doesn’t follow our dear Pablo’s famous mantra of “every act of creation is first an act of destruction” hmm?

So if he does emerge victorious this week, it will be interesting to see what Barack does with his shiny new toy called America. Let’s hope he uses his creative vision to create a new and better world.

“I see little of more importance to the future of our country and of civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.”

John F. Kennedy

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Iveta

Money Mayhem

What has a front has a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back.

Macrobiotic theory

Sorry folks, no photography today. I know, I know, this is a photography blog, not an economics blog. However I’m a money-woman by trade, so I’m just sitting back today and watching the financial world collapse around my ears. So far the FTSE 100 has fallen 5% today. The Dow Jones is about to open. Things are going to get pretty nasty.

Hot on the heels of Fred and Fannie, Lehman’s could be enough to trigger a catastrophic economic collapse, similar to Black Thursday which triggered the start of The Great Depression. Am I being overly alarmist? Well, that rather depends on how the US Government reacts to this latest crisis.

Barack Obama commented that the Lehman bankruptcy posed "a major threat" to the US economy. Of course he blamed the Bush administration's economic philosophy and said, "This turmoil is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for the future and make their mortgage payments." No kidding, Barack. Really? So how are you going to fix it, eh?

One thing’s for sure, the fallout from this ongoing financial turmoil will be huge. Socially, financially and politically, the world will never be the same again.

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Althaia contemplates the latest banking collapse

Photographic Politics

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Today's model bears a remarkable resemblance to Ms. Palin. Just look at that sexy pout!

On the whole I try to stay out of politics, both internal (within the photographic community) and external (in the wider governmental sense.) However, whilst observing The Greatest Fishbowl On Earth, I can’t help but notice that most American photographers appear to be Democrats. Not all of course - I know a few who love McCain - but on the whole most photographers (and models who admit to a political persuasion) appear to openly be Obama-lovers.

Often political leanings are explained by geographical location, but I don't think that explains the trend, as you’re all widely splattered across the U.S., plus you all come from very different backgrounds. It can’t just be that most of Americans are sick of Republicans because your two parties are said to be neck-and-neck in the polls according to our UK media. So it must be something else.

Why do photographers prefer Democratic principles? Is it because of your artistic natures that you’re all libertarian-orientated? What is it specifically about Democratic policies which capture your loyalties? Personally, if it were me, I’d vote for anyone who promised free national healthcare, but that’s just me, and I guess we all have our individual views of what is important in our little fish tanks. As with photography, politics are entirely subjective.

Please forgive my ignorance but those of us looking in on The Greatest Fishbowl seek to understand the little fishies within. After all, the future of the world is at stake, and it might just be the collective political power of the photographic vote which determines the entire future of our planet.

No pressure though.

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Angel fish and sharks. Pretty but deadly. Both species will eat each other given the chance.

Incidentally if you want to read about Life In A Fishbowl (the photographic variety – nothing to do with politics) photographer Dennis Camp has a wonderfully soothing new blog by that name here. Wise words, beautiful landscapes, portraiture and the occasional fish.

Panem et circenses

Panem et circenses, "bread and circus" games, were the only remaining cares of Roman plebs who had long given up their political freedom. Bread was distributed amongst the poor people but everybody liked the circus games. This strategy was an efficient political instrument in the hands of the Emperors to keep the population peaceful, and at the same time giving the citizens the opportunity to voice themselves via the popular entertainment channels of gladiators, exotic animals, chariot races and sports competitions.

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Recently I came across one of those new fangled CCTV cameras with loudspeakers attached, which barked at me when I got out of my car. It warned me VERY LOUDLY to remove all valuables and lock my car because there were thieves operating in the town that day. Well one assumes that if they were watching me, then they’d watch the thieves too (and apprehend them) so why the need to make me jump out of my skin with fright? A friendly warning from Big Brother, or something more sinister? It was at that moment that it really hit me just how far we had come along the road to totalitarianism.

The US, the UK, China and Russia are "endemic surveillance societies," according to a study last year. The 2007 International Privacy Ranking gave Britain the "black" or "endemic" ranking for the second year in a row. The US fell to the bottom rung for the first time due to increasing government surveillance and decreasing federal oversight.

As I have blogged many times before, the UK is now a totalitarian state. The UK had long been on the razor’s edge between liberty and tyranny and in recent years it has tipped over the edge into an anti-utopia. Through the development of legislation, the media and sophisticated technology, the Government now controls nearly every part of our lives. They tell us how to live, what to do and how to think, all in the interests of national security of course. Citizens are not seen as freedom loving individuals with rights of their own, they are not even seen as citizens. Instead we are all now “consumers.” The Government just have to keep us happy with panem et circenses (bread and circuses) and nobody lifts a finger just as long as they can veg in front of their fave t.v. soap and pig out on pizza. Let's face it, most people don't care whether they are watched by the State because they believe they have "nothing to hide." Who cares if you’re caught on camera an average of 300 times every day? It’s all for your own good right?

Nowadays, cameras aren’t just instruments used to create fabulous images, they are also tools of oppression. Nowhere is this more evident than in China, another surveillance society and the first totalitarian state. In China photography is seen differently than in the western world, less of an expressive art form and more of a way of recording things. Because of the omnipotent role of the State in every aspect of Chinese life, their culture developed differently to ours and the development of cameras was never equated with creating or expressing the character of an individual, or exploring aesthetic views of reality. Forms of artistic expression were originally discouraged because the State was the only one allowed to dictate the development of “freedom of thought.” The role of the camera in Chinese society was to objectify, rather than in our capitalist society, where right from when the camera was first invented, individual artistic freedom was encouraged and the role of the camera rapidly developed beyond a simple recording device into a subjective tool for creating art.

So it will be interesting to see how the current social change will affect the development of photography in the new totalitarian countries like the UK, and eventually the US. How will the photographic surveillance change the way we think about cameras, and what will it mean for the future of photography? As Sontag observed, “any social change is replaced by a change in images.” How will the transformation from freedom-loving capitalist society, where our whole culture is based on images and where art is a subjective form of self expression limited only by one's imagination, translate into a totalitarian state, where cameras are seen as tools of the state, whether to protect or oppress, depending on your point of view?

I would argue that society’s view of the camera is starting to change already, as is evident in the new hostility to street photography, which is still legal (so far) but is increasingly viewed with aggression by the general public. As in Orwell’s vision, citizens are starting to turn against each other. Nowadays, people carrying cameras are viewed as suspicious and street photographers are treated as potential pervs. Society considers it perfectly acceptable for the government to use cameras to watch people, but definitely not O.K. for the general public to use cameras for the same purpose. What does this mean for the future of photography, I wonder? And what will happen to us, the photographic art community?

But not to worry, Comrades! Cheer up! No need for sad faces! Our Government has our best interests at heart you know, and it wants to protect you from those fearsome terrorists who are attacking your precious freedom.

And what better way to stop terrorism than to eliminate "freedom" in the first place? Simple, sensible and effective. And coming soon to a town near you.

Think about that the next time you are pigging out on pizza in front of the telly.

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Images are of Ifat

The Grass is Always Greener

The UK sucks. We wanna emigrate. The credit crunch is making the British population miserable, the taxes are humungous and there is one surveillance camera for every fourteen people. Did you know that there is currently draft legislation that will result in the recording of every email, phone call and internet search in Britain? The information will be stored on giant server farms at an as-yet-undisclosed location. It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell’s vision of a future where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements is finally here.

So Canada it is then. Free healthcare and the land is cheap (note that everywhere is cheap compared to the UK) and Canadians are recruiting skilled workers, unfortunately only about 50,000 of them though. My guess is there are about 5 million of us who would like to go. The only problem with Canada, or in fact the US or Australia, is the healthcare issue. In order to qualify for entry, you have to be free of disease, and of course there’s the whole health-insurance issue in the US. What are the chances of me getting a job or health insurance anywhere? A snowball's chance in hell, I suspect. But even assuming we could get past the paperwork and get into the US (our preferred choice), then there is the thorny issue of what would happen to Rich’s photography.

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Some of you may well have noticed that there is a big difference between American and British nude photography. It’s primarily a difference in style, not dissimilar to the difference between American and English interior design. Contemporary American nude photography is…how do I put it?...more arty, more fashion orientated. It features more unique angles, trendy cropping techniques and it is more dramatic and emotional. I would moot that British nude photography is less hip and is actually more traditional in style (fellow British nude photographers, please feel free to send me hate-mail now.) American boobies have a whole different culture than British boobies. I’m not sure our own boobies would comfortably make the leap.

There’s also the effect that emigration has on the photographer’s psyche. Remember my thing about Paul Strand? Well, Strand loved America to distraction. His “Time In New England” reflected his passion for his country and the people he loved. He was compelled to record everything he saw in terms of light, and the resulting portraits and landscapes were masterpieces of illumination. His American photography was the best work he’d ever done, it was his life’s achievement. But in 1950, when he was approaching old-age, the country he loved had changed so much that he could no longer bear to stay, and so he left and emigrated to France. The problem was that his photography never recovered from the move. Because he hadn’t grown up in France he didn’t intimately understand the people, their culture or how they thought and felt, so he always felt excluded, no matter how friendly the locals were. This distance, and the inevitable culture gap, meant that his French work was perceived as being disjointed, sentimental, idealised and lacked the intimacy and insight of the original photographs from his homeland.

So even if by some miracle we bypassed the paperwork and health issues and we finally managed to emigrate, it is my deep suspicion that Rich’s photography would suffer irreparable damage. As Robert Adams observed, photographers are especially vulnerable to dislocation. It is not possible for them to transfer to a new country the fundamental ingredient of their art – their love for their people, culture and way of life.

Rich and I are both British through and through. We love our people and their foibles, their stubborn and repressed intellectual snobbery, their inability to admit when they are wrong. And we are probably rather too fond of the British stiff-upper-lip culture and our class ridden system with all its eccentricities and flaws. It’s the way we think, it’s who we are. Despite the injustices inflicted by the current oppressive regime, how can we bear to leave? And even if we did go, what would happen to our art?

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Images are of American model Clayre McKinnen, photographed in a very British style of course.

The Law of the Jungle

Can freedom ever exist in the world of creative art?

This is not as stupid a question as it sounds. As artists, photographers and writers, we try to produce art because we love it, because something inside us compels us to create a fragment of beauty or meaning that we can give to the world. However conceited it sounds, we want to make our mark, leave part of ourselves out there, create our own legacies. This process of creation is, IMO, a vital act of freedom. We are free to interpret anything and everything from our imagination. If a photographer or writer loses that psychological sense that he is free, then his ego is injured, his work is below standard, and his creativity dries up because he cannot dream. Effectively he has lost his power, not just his mojo.

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Freedom is synonymous with power. When you want to produce a piece of art, you crave the ability, the choice and the freedom to do it. Whether or not you actually have that freedom depends on if you exercise your power over others, or let others have power over you. There’s truth in the old adage that no-one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

I know a gifted glamour and nude photographer (let’s call him Luca) who prevents himself from producing the best work he can possibly do because he lets others tell them that he isn’t very good. Luca’s photographs are beautiful, but he won’t show his work and even though his friends try to bolster his self-esteem all the time, he still remains convinced that he is a crappy photographer and unworthy of recognition as an artist.

So as a result of listening to the opinion of other rival photographers (who have their own self-interests at heart), then those rivals have taken power over Luca’s self-esteem, resulting in loss of freedom. Luca’s mind is racked by insecurity and self-doubt and he has effectively built his own mental prison driven by his damaged ego. Trapped within his self-made cage, he has practically stopped producing new photographs because he thinks he is useless.

Luca needs to turn the tables on his opponents. He needs to take the power back and exploit the insecurities of his rivals. He should harden his heart, push back, exert his will over others instead of himself being coerced. In the glamour photography jungle, Luca’s potential success is produced not only by self-confidence, but also by toughness, by manipulating other people’s dreams and dictating to them what they should think of him. If Luca learns how to become good at power games, then it won't matter if his current rival is a better photographer than him (which he’s not), because Luca can still be more successful than his rival if he learns how to pimp himself, how to bullshit, how to schmooze and bend others to his will.

If this sounds incredibly cynical of me, then I do apologise. I’m simply calling it the way I see it after spending much too long (obviously) in this entertainment business. The glamour and nude photography world is not a pretty place. It’s a narcissistic cesspool of artistic egos and Luca needs to exploit that to his advantage. He needs to learn to play the Game, because at the moment he is losing. He has to harden his heart and learn to be the predator, not the prey.

The problem is that Luca is too nice. He is a gentleman, a professional, and he believes in mutual respect and freedom. For these reasons, he’s probably much less likely to ever be the outstandingly successful photographer he dreams of being. The Jungle does not care about Luca’s freedom or his dreams. It prefers to eat him.

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You make your own rules, you define your own reality, and you can be free but only if you give yourself permission to do so. You have to choose not to be enslaved by others. Take back your own power, believe in yourself, know that you can produce some really great art if you practice long and hard enough, trust your dreams and don’t let other people push you around.

Freedom and dreams are not a natural God-given right. You have to fight for them, every single minute of your life, or the Jungle will chew you up and spit you out.

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All images are of Pirate Maiden

The Biggest Show in the World

O.K. So it’s 4 a.m. and once again I’m racked with insomnia, courtesy of my head. Seven days straight with practically no sleep. Bleh. So you’re gonna get my sleep-deprived incoherent ramblings on…American Politics. Zzz…

Now, I know diddly-squat about American politics, although the BBC tells me, quite unobjectively, that it’s very important. The Race for the White House. The most powerful man in the world. Or woman, apparently.

I thought it might be interesting for you folks to see how your little goldfish bowl is seen from the outside. The world’s media is NOT objective. Quelle surprise.

According to the newspapers and the t.v. news here, the next president is going to be Democrat. Either Mrs Clinton , or Barack Obama. A white woman or a black man. That’s it. Gender, race and personalities are what hit the headlines over here. I have no idea who the Republican candidates are, or even if they exist. The UK media is predicting that the backlash against Bush will be so strong, that the Democrat candidate will win by a landslide. Who are the Republican candidates? Do they stand a snowball’s chance in hell? Personally, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger should be allowed to run. I can picture him saying “Asta La Vista Baby” to our Prime Minster (who SO deserves to be nuked by Arnie for turning this green and pleasant land into a totalitarian state.)

The U.K. media is concentrating on American personalities and celeb-backings. The U.S. policies (if they even exist) are glossed over, forgotten. Would Barack Obama actually stand a prayer without the mighty Oprah? Should Oprah be running the world instead? Maybe she does already. Now there’s a scary thought. Why do American politics appear to be run by the celebrity factor? What happened to …gasp…real policies? How do the candidates feel about global politics, green issues, energy, religion, security, science, space, healthcare? It’s all very well promising to save the planet (a sure-fire vote winner) but how will the changes in energy infrastructure be paid for? Does anyone running for president actually credit the American public with intelligent thought or do they assume Americans are soap-loving sheep who just like a bit of drama?

Is this concentrating on personality-before-policy a feature of global media-misreporting, or is this really what it’s all about? A contest between a black man who is not actually black (but pimped by a chat-show-queen), or a woman who is so dry, brittle and power-hungry that she’ll stoop to nothing to rule the world? And if it’s personality that counts, do you really want to give the global domination of the world to a woman who can’t even keep her husband in check?

From an accountant-like-me’s point of view, I'll side with the economists who say the elections should be all about the economy. If the global economy is ever going to grow, then whoever wins must find a way to reverse the catastrophic failures of the Bush presidency, notably the screwed up and overly aggressive attempts to use hard military power, and the bovine attempts at diplomacy. The world needs free trade. As far as I can tell, none of the candidates so far have given a hoot about free trade, whether it be Republicans mooting blocking immigration, or Democrats waffling on about the need to prevent jobs going offshore. Frighteningly, Mrs Clinton has even talked about re-writing the North American Free Trade agreement, which was one of Bill’s main achievements in the first place. Why is it that she appears to be forgetting her husband’s mantra of “It’s the economy, stupid?”

The only remotely objective source of information for me is, you guessed it, the blogosphere. I am following the varying political threads (with accompanying gorgeous naked laydeez) with great interest. Maybe someone out there could please do a tutorial for the non-Americans? You know, a basic idiot’s who’s who. Their policies, the world implications, and so forth. And subjective opinions too please. Who do you think should win and why?

After all, the whole world has a stake in the US elections in November. And it all depends on your vote. You’re not voting for yourselves. You’re voting for the entire planet.

So, if the world goes to hell-in-a-hand basket in 2009, I’m blaming you lot.




Lou-Lou.

Power to the Children

In the1920’s the evolution of printing lithography and the birth of the Leica gave birth to Photojournalism and the concept of the illustrated newspaper. This new technology resulted in the most important persuasive visual medium (before television) and subsequently changed the way humans viewed the world around them. From the 1930’s onwards, magazines such as the British "Picture Post" and the American "Life" publications had enormous status and were able to mould public opinion and the way they shaped society. Behold the power of the visual image!

Nowadays of course, the web is similarly changing human behaviour at a fundamental level. Humans spend large amounts of time online, reading, accessing, researching and assessing information. Then they use what they learn to collaborate with each other, refine the information, and use it to shape their own opinion as to the way the world works. Consequently they are learning vastly different thought processes and ways of viewing information and society than the older pre-internet people grew up with.

Our kids are now “the net generation” and because they are learning in a different way to the methods by which Rich and I learned, they are effectively re-wiring their brains with different software. In the book “Wikinomics”, Don Tapscott calls them the “integrity generation,” because they are learning to demand integrity from the institutions they deal with, whether they be governments, companies, or educational institutions.

Growing up with a constant source of information on the internet means that our children now take transparency for granted. If they hear something on the news on T.V., and they think it sounds suspicious, they check it online. They collaborate, they look for the truth, they gather all information, and they find the real answer for themselves.

Although it is possible to lie online, because of the vast network of millions of people, such falsehoods can be discovered and disproved very quickly. It is much harder for governments to cover up scandal and spread misinformation than it was before the birth of the internet. Nowadays, people do not automatically believe everything they are told by authority. In the words of the X Files, “the truth is out there,” and it is a heck of a lot easier to find than it ever used to be.

If I find out my local council is going to build crappy houses in a beautiful and hitherto protected area of outstanding beauty, I can go online, help form a protest group, organise meetings, raise funds, publicise and gather support, and through this collective gathering of minds, we can put a stop to the development. Which is exactly what has happened several times in our local community inside the last year.

Do you realise what immense power this is?

The power to the people to think differently, to discover the truth about the world, and to change it into something better. This is the power that our kids are learning. They will use this new technology to shape a society which will be a very different place from the one Rich and I grew up in.

And the most wonderful thing about this power is that it seems to be overwhelmingly a force for good.



This is Kate, from last year.

Raptus regaliter (Royally screwed)

We interrupt our usual witty art-nude and porn (sorry I mean erotica) related repartee for a brief political rant. For those who are not remotely interested in UK politics, please skip to the next blog on your Google Reader.


Tonight, 25 million Britons are really, really pissed.

It seems that our omnipotent tax authorities, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, have lost confidential personal information on every single family in the UK who receives Child Benefit. Since everyone with kids receives this by default, that’s practically everybody.

The password-protected CDROM's, which contained all of the information on the HMRC's child benefit database, were sent unrecorded and were LOST IN THE POST!!!
The missing information contains the details of all Child Benefit records for 25 million individuals and 7m families. This includes dates of birth, national insurance numbers, bank and building society details. That effectively means the personal details of every family in the country with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The head of Revenue and Customs resigned this morning. Our esteemed Prime Minister (not renowned for his honour or integrity, but instead famous for being Machiavellian by nature) has warned of the possibility of identity fraud, and warned everyone to monitor their bank accounts.

That’s it. That’s all the help we get. No guarantee if identity theft occurs, or if money gets stolen from our bank accounts. No reassurance at all.

As you know, Rich and I run an internet software company. We take information security very seriously. Protection of customer details is critical to our business success. Our customers’ and resellers’ bank and credit card details are kept behind military-grade encryption software, and is deleted once the transaction has occurred. For regular customers who pay monthly, the encryption techniques are even stronger. No expense is spared to keep their details safe.
If I ran my company like HMRC, we’d be out of business within a day.

This government has no fucking clue! Just HOW can they get away with this? And why the hell are they still in office? How the hell are they supposed to be trusted with biometric data for identity cards next year?

Just what does it take to get rid of these idiots that run our country?


O.K. Rant over. Thank you for your time. Please also excuse the use of the “F” word, which is reserved only for when I’m suffering from extreme apoplexy induced by incompetent morons.