Let’s get this straight – sexual offences are abhorrent; I am in no way a defender of people who have committed sex crimes. As a psychologist, though, I’m aware that many of them are victims themselves, having been abused as children. But the Government rightly wants to clamp down on sexual offences. But their latest […]
Archive | Politics
What a load of Ed Balls
26th March 2008
Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Education in the UK, wants “cyberbullying” of teachers to be a disciplinary offence. Apparently, school pupils sometimes ridicule their teachers in online chat rooms and on social networking sites. Well knock me down with a feather, there’s a shock. Look, Mr Balls, children have always taken the mickey […]
The Budget News doesn’t make good reading
12th March 2008
Alistair Darling’s first budget didn’t make good reading for anyone who drinks, smokes, drives cars or goes shopping. If you’re a 90-year-old clean-living, self-sufficient hermit, though, you’ll be OK as you’re getting a heating handout. Year in, year out Chancellors produce budgets that we all moan about. And every year millions of words are written […]
Ban illegal downloaders? More evidence the Government does not understand the Internet
12th February 2008
So, the British Government is suggesting that people who download things illegally should have their Internet access cut. Whoopee doo, let’s deal with those naughty people. Cracked it. Er…not. Firstly, people can easily hide their illegal downloads. Even if ISPs could ban people from using their systems, they’d have to find them first – and […]
Does social networking mean anything to the UK Government?
26th October 2007
What does social networking mean to you? Probably, you think of things like Facebook, Ecademy, MySpace and so on. Do you also automatically think of teenagers? Well, the average age of people on Ecademy is mid-40s, for MySpace it’s mid-30s. So, sometimes our views about who is using social networking can be cloudy. Online there […]
Government shows it doesn’t understand Internet shopping
14th October 2007
Hundreds of thousands of Internet shoppers are disappointed this week because Tesco has had to take down its online house sales section. It may sound daft, but people do go “shopping” for the biggest purchase in their life – a house – online. Internet estate agency is big business. However, there are (would you believe!) […]