Holy fuck!

This is pretty frightening stuff:

It's not every day that I read something in the newspaper that literally makes my jaw drop, but the Independent has certainly managed to do it this morning:

Britain's armed forces could be used on a regular basis on the streets of Britain to confront the threat of terrorism, under the terms of a strategic defence review announced yesterday.

I beg your pardon? What threat of terrorism would that be? Despite the government's most vigorous efforts to frighten us to death, I hardly feel like I am living in a society under regular threat from terrorism. And even if I were, I'm not sure that having a large number of uniformed, armed men wandering around with completely uncontrolled authority would be any better. The purpose of the military is defence of the realm, and we are under no threat that justifies them wandering around our streets!

And if that didn't put the willies up you, try this:

Stronger, more effective partnership with other Whitehall departments, the intelligence agencies, police forces and others at the national level will become even more important to achieving our security objective.

In other words, the military will become integrated into a bureaucratic monster along with all the government departments, increasingly politicised spooks and the very politicised police, all acting at the behest of our political masters. If that doesn't frighten you to death, then you probably are already dead.

In reading the article, it seems that no-one is in the slightest bit perturbed about this: not the Tories, not the LibDems, not even the Independent's journalists! Am I alone in viewing this astonishing bit of news as a rather worrying development? The Times and the Telegraph aren't even covering the story (yet) and the Guardian hasn't even mentioned this little wrinkle in its rather bland coverage.

Are we really blithely sleep-walking into the genesis of a fascist panopticon Britain? We already have more CCTV than anywhere else in the world, and ANPR cameras to keep track of our cars' movements. Loyalty cards and credit cards can be used to track all our purchases and the data will be happily provided to the government if "the national interest" is invoked. Your next passport will cause you to be registered into the National ID database. If you add a military integrated into the Whitehall "machine" along with the police and the spies, we really will be in a frightening place.

I'm not surprised that the authoritarian Tories or the useless Limp Dumbs have nothing to say about the prospect of the military presence on the streets of Britain, and I suppose you could argue that the Indy have done their job by highlighting this aspect of the SDR.

But fucking hell: military patrols on the streets of Britain? What the fucking hell is that all about? Why the fuck is Labour so keen to big up the boogeyman of terrorism?

Anyway, it simply highlights the need to vote for someone, ANYONE other than the "big three" parties. They're all pretty cool with this kind of machine, because they can insulate the party faithful from the worst of the excesses. We really need to stop them from this kind of bullshit and the only way we can do that is to keep their hands off the levers of power.

We need to remind these utter cunts that they are supposed to work for us. It's not "our turn this time, your turn next time."

Fuck them. Vote LPUK, vote for an independent, or vote for some other minority party. Don't waste your vote on LibLabCon, the fuckers will only use it as an excuse to buttfuck you some more.