The Inspection House

Welcome to Shabana Mahmood's Panopticon. The Australian ban on social media for under-16s has been in force for barely a month, yet the Government there has already declared it a roaring success, leading the British Government to launch a "consultation", and we all know what that means, about introducing it here. Well, of course. Such a ban would be impossible without digital ID for everyone who wanted to use the Internet, which is as good as everyone these days. And then there is One Login for all dealings with the State and its contractors.

That State will not take back the water that it should never have sold off, but it will nationalise everybody's children. It will not give those children throughout the United Kingdom the free bus travel that they enjoyed as a basic fact of life in Scotland, but it will deny them the formative experience of their generation internationally, together with any ideology other than that of the schools and of the official media. All while lowering the voting age to 16, having already raised the school leaving age to 18, at which there is ever-louder talk of conscription.

Pity poor Imam Ashraf Osmani of Northampton, who has been handed a suspended sentence of 15 weeks' imprisonment for having performed a nikah, which has no legal status whatever, so that two 16-year-olds could have a perfectly lawful sexual relationship without sinning. While I do not know how he got away with ignorance as mitigation, nor can I see how he had had any case to answer. A nikah is not a legal marriage. But just as a ban on cousin marriage would be pointless unless sexual relations between cousins were also prohibited, so we need a criminal offence of sexual activity with any person under the age of 18 who was more than two years younger than oneself, with a maximum sentence equal to twice the difference in age. That, along with strengthened and enforced drug laws, is what adolescents need. Not social media bans. Not bans on alcohol-free drinks that may look or taste a bit like alcoholic ones. Not conscription. And not the vote.

Not even in view of the fact of those thus enfranchised would divide almost entirely, and pretty much equally, between the Greens or whatever Zarah Sultana ended up doing, and Reform UK or whatever Rupert Lowe ended up doing, confronting the middle-aged teenagers of, especially but not exclusively, the Labour Party and the SNP with their own absurdity. That would be a beautiful thing, but at too high a price. Reform has welcomed Andrew Rosindell, who did not attend Parliament for two years while sexual assault allegations were investigated, and ultimately dismissed without charge. Yet Labour feels entitled to make a cheap point about that even though its Whips cast Dan Norris's proxy vote every time that the House divides.

Reform is courting James Evans, who went into politics specifically to legalise assisted suicide, and who was interestingly made the Conservatives' Shadow Health Secretary in Wales. But if Labour really feared a Reform Government, then it would not be preparing to bequeath it digital ID, facial recognition, and all the rest of it, including the precedent of cancelled elections, and without even the right to trial by jury, or to appeal from the Magistrates' Court. There is talk of a review clause for if the Crown Court backlog fell below a certain level, but that is not good enough. Only full rejection will do. 

Let that victory initiate the repeal of, among very much else, the Trade Union Act, the Covert Human Intelligence Sources (Criminal Conduct) Act, the Overseas Operations (Service Personnel and Veterans) Act, the Nationality and Borders Act, the Elections Act, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act, the National Security Act, the Public Order Act, the Online Safety Act, the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act, and the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, replacing them with, among very much else, a real Hillsborough Law. Away with the NHS Federated Data Platform, the training in which is provided by Multiverse. Multiverse is Euan Blair, while the FDP is Palantir. Palantir is Israeli intelligence, and Tony Blair is on Donald Trump's Board of Peace. Aided and abetted by Palantir's facial recognition technology, the Tony Blair Institute will be running the digital ID in Britain, and is already doing so. Welcome to Shabana Mahmood's Panopticon.