Tory attack on Big Brother state

A FUTURE Conservative Government would drastically scale back the intrusive and ineffective “Big Brother” state, according to a Warrington party spokesman.
David Mowat, prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate for Warrington South, (right) said his party was pledging to offer an alternative to Whitehall’s curtailment of civil liberties and stop taxpayers’ money being wasted on expensive and ineffective IT databases.
This comes amid growing concern about the Government’s new Independent Safeguarding Authority. This scheme could force 11 million adults to be vetted and monitored – even if they just give lifts to children as part of a school run or local football club.
Conservative proposals include scrapping the National Identity Register, which will contain personal details of every citizen, and abolishing the Identity Cards that will accompany the database.
They would also ditch the ContactPoint database – which holds the names, dates of birth, schools and home addresses of all 11 million children in England until the age of 18, but is entirely separate from the children at risk registers.
The permanent retention of innocent people’s DNA on the National DNA database would also be ended and councils would be prevent from using controversial anti-terror laws to spy on local citizens.
Mr Mowat said:”The Labour Government’s approach to our personal privacy is the worst of all worlds – intrusive, ineffective and enormously expensive. Labour’s surveillance state and over-reliance on databases has exposed the public in Warrington to greater risk, not less.
“The Government’s nanny-state attitude will do nothing to safeguard the children most at risk. Checks are needed on those who have jobs working with children, but vetting one in four of the population is complete nonsense.”