Bollox Britain

Speaking at a Commons Select Committee hearing this week, ISPs warned that the costs of implementing the system outlined in the government's Snooper's Charter Bill would be huge, far larger than the £175m the government has earmarked for them.

ISPs would face significant additional costs, and would pass those on to its customers, the MPs were told. Chairman of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), James Blessing, said that given an infinite budget he could create the system that the government imagines in its legislation. But, he noted, the bill appears to be limiting the amount of funds available to a figure we don't recognize as suitable for the industry.

Making the point more bluntly, CEO of ISP Gigaclear, Matthew Hare, noted: One way or the other, the citizens of this country will end up paying to be spied on.

Brighton has a reputation for permissiveness and a liberal, laid-back, independent attitude, but it appears to have taken an uncharacteristically authoritarian approach into what you can and can't do for free on its beaches and environs.

For anyone wanting take pictures or carry out an interview on its beach or in town, the city council has decreed that there is a £200 fee.

Civil liberty campaigners and champions of a free press have expressed bemusement after Brighton & Hove city council tried to charge the fee for working on its beach or other parts of the city. Caroline Lucas , the Green MP for Brighton, has investigated and expressed her concern. Index on Censorship is among the organisations that said the move ran counter to the right to freedom of expression.

Jodie Ginsberg, chief executive of Index on Censorship , said:

Journalists should not be charged in order to carry out their jobs. This runs counter to all the principles that should underpin a free and independent media.

Bob Satchwell, executive director of the Society of Editors , branded the move outrageous. He said:

Beaches and streets are public places. If local councils are to start charging for reporting the news, it is time someone reminded them that we are supposed to live in a free society.

When the Guardian asked the council again about the policy, its press office said it stemmed from a decision made by the economic development and culture committee in June last year, at which point the council was run by the Green party.

The council approved new fees and charges payable for filming in the city. In 2013-14 the council was paid more than £33,000 for 135 pieces of filming. It agreed to introduce a new structure from 2014-15 that would include an increase in charges and the introduction of a £50 administration charge and hourly rates.

Immigration laws leave an estimated 33,000 people unable to remain with spouses in Britain as they do not earn enough to satisfy visa requirements.

The rules were introduced on 9 July 2012, and every year dozens of couples who have been separated from their partners and children gather outside the Home Office to protest a law which means around 47% of Britons do not earn enough to fall in love with a foreigner.

Don Flynn, of Migrant Rights Network, which hosted the demo along with BritCits, an organisation for affected couples, said the British economy had suffered because of the law:

The government claimed it would save £650m, but research from Middlesex University found that if, as expected, most of these spouses would have found employment, that would have made a contribution of over £850m.

There was a common thread among those who came to protest on Thursday, regardless of their background. All said that everyone they met thought the law was wrong.

Among those protesting were family members with children living abroad, unable to return because of visa laws.

Nigel Johnson brought his 11-year-old stepson Jeff to the protest from north Devon, with the youngster proudly wearing his British public school uniform. Nigel's wife Burphan, Jeff's mother, is still in Bangkok. J ohnson said:

We don't even intend to stay here long term, but we've scraped every penny together from the extended family to give this boy a proper British education. In just two years, with English as his second language, he's top of his class. But of course, he misses cuddles from his mum.

I've cut grass, I've cleaned holiday cottages, I've worked six jobs to get my income over the threshold and still we are being turned down.

The legal fight against the law is now in its final throes. In 2013, the high court found the threshold of £18,600 was too high, with Mr Justice Blake calling the law unjustified but it was overturned by the court of appeal and the case is now at the supreme court, due to sit this September. That same month will also see a report from children's commissioner Anne Longfield examining the effects of the law on children separated from a parent.

But many of the couples at Thursday's protest who had successfully managed to settle in the UK said they had used a legal technicality known as the Surinder Singh route, after the landmark case. It paved the way for Britons to work abroad in another European Economic Area country before bringing a non-European spouse to the UK, so EEA law on spouses, which is more generous, can take precedent.

Mrs Pineda-Andrews said the system had coloured her view of Britain. I experienced so much bigotry, to be with the person I love. She smiled as she held up her passport, with the British visa inside. We are still fighting because we want change, I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. Well, maybe on Theresa May.

More than 450 high-street head shops and online sellers of legal highs face closure across Britain under the blanket ban on new psychoactive substances to be debated in parliament on Tuesday.

The first Home Office estimate of the extent of the trade in legal highs, which are to be banned from April next year, describes it as an industry making a 40% profit of £32m a year on an annual turnover of £82m.

The psychoactive substances bill, which is to receive its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday, is designed to ban the trade in legal highs, probably from April next year. The legislation includes exemptions for everyday legitimate psychoactive substances including alcohol, tobacco and caffeine and is also expected to include an exemption for legitimate medical and scientific research.

The ban will cover a range of synthetic chemical substances designed to mimic traditional illegal drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy and will extend to cover nitrous oxide -- laughing gas or hippy crack -- the second most popular recreational drug in Britain.

The estimate of the size of the legal highs market is the first indication of the scale of the industry that faces closure as a result of the ban. The Home Office estimate that based on police and local authority sources there are about 335 high street head shops for whom legal highs is a main source of income. On top of this there are a further 115 UK-based websites offering them for sale online.

The Home Office says there are a further 210 smaller suppliers of legal highs including tattoo parlours, sex shops and newsagents for whom the trade is not a major source of income but which will also be hit by the ban.

The bill is expected to receive widespread support in its second reading in the House of Lords on Tuesday. But Lady Meacher, of the all-party parliamentary group for drug policy reform, is expected to warn that the blanket ban will lead to young people turning back to street dealers or the internet, and will not reduce their overall use.

So in a week where the police ARE threatening to jail innocent kids for sexting, they are asking parents not to teach their kids that the police will take them away if they are naughty.

Many an exasperated parent has told their misbehaving child to be good or the police will put them in prison. But now one police force has issued a poster urging adults not to use this common threat. The poster from Durham Constabulary reads:

Parents. Please don't tell your children that we will take them off to jail if they are bad. We want them to run to us if they are scared, not be scared of us. Thank You.

However the kids would be better advised to keep clear of the police lest they get locked up for sexting, bad taste jokes, or even just insulting posts on Twitter or Facebook.

For example jailing them for internet insults

25th May 2015. See article from dailymail.co.uk

The number of prosecutions of internet trolls has soared eightfold in the last 10 years, according to new figures. More than 1,200 people were found guilty of offences under Section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 last year compared with 143 in 2004.

The law states it is illegal to send by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other material that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character .

Statistics released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) show that 1,501 defendants were prosecuted under the law last year - including 70 juveniles - while another 685 were cautioned.

Of those convicted, 155 were jailed - compared with just seven a decade before- and the average custodial sentence was 2.2 months.

Parents are in danger of being reported to police by their children's head teachers if they allow them to play video games for over 18s.

A disgraceful threatening letter sent by a group of schools in Cheshire said that parents would be reported for child neglect if they let their kids play games such as Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto , which have an 18 classification.

It warns that if teachers are made aware their pupils have been playing these video games they will contact police and social services.

The letter, sent by Nantwich Education Partnership, said allowing children to play these type of games on Xboxes and Playstations is deemed neglectful . The letter threatens:

If your child is allowed to have inappropriate access to any game or associated product that is designated 18+ we are advised to contact the Police and Children's Social Care as it is neglectful.

Nantwich Education Partnership covers 16 primary and secondary schools in Cheshire.