The Lighthouse

A watch on events

Fiona MacDonald

A Freedom of Information request has revealed that commercial organisations are being given access to the National DNA Database. Googling 'DNA Database' I find the Home Office website announcing that ours is the largest of any country in the world at 5.2% of the population compared, for example, to 0.5% in the USA. A House of Lords committee has published a report warning that the plans to extend detention without charge to 42 days blurs the lines between the judiciary and the legislature and could undermine the right to a fair trial. A Commons committee has described a Government-imposed ban on retired diplomats giving media interviews without prior approval as 'oppressive'. It's business as usual in 21st century Britain.

As director of the Young UK and Ireland Programme, during which delegates write and present a paper on a subject of their own choice 'of current interest or controversy', I am always surprised at how seldom growing infringements into our civil liberties are chosen as topics. Recently I was pondering this apparent lack of concern with a friend and told her that during a discussion one delegate said that, for all he cared, the state could put a chip in him because it didn't matter if he had nothing to hide. Now, I'm not saying that is a typical view, but one might expect the age group concerned – most are in their twenties – to be more willing to question and challenge the creeping authoritarianism we are witnessing. My friend and I agreed that since our parents, and many of our teachers, had lived through the war, we had been sprinkled with what she described as a 'fairydusting of remembrance' about the dangers of totalitarianism. We had copies of 1984 placed into our hands in school and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who died this week, was a name we knew, even if we had only a sketchy insight into the world the wrote about. We grew up understanding the need to be vigilant about civil liberties being protected. We grew up understanding that it is not for the state to monitor its people, it is for its people to monitor the state.

SOFT CELL was the front-page headline in the Daily Record on Monday. 'Cons get own phones and showers'. Closer reading of the story reveals that this relates to cells in a new prison block being built at Saughton prison and that even if the phone idea goes ahead – and no decision has been made – the phones will be monitored, will be switched off at certain times, and could be used as a control measure in that access would be a privilege. Since prisoners are allowed to make phone calls anyway, it seems that this is simply a matter of relocation of handsets. 'It's understood that the cells could be given to rapists and killers preparing for release', the piece states in bold type. The article quotes one 'jail source' as asking 'Why should the scum of the earth get this kind of treatment?' If this individual holds his or her customers in such ugly contempt and has a vision in which a 21st century Scotland prizes 19th century standards in its prisons, perhaps he or she should seek career advice.

Delighted to see the Daily Record noting on the same day – without any apparent self-consciousness – that Jackie Stewart has been spotted with a stookie on his leg. As a child I had no idea that this was not a standard English word. It's good to see it is still in everyday usage, though it is most satisfying when heard in a cry of encouragement, for example from the sidelines of the playing field, as in 'Come on ya big stookie'.