Gordon Brown has defended the use of CCTV, ID cards and the DNA database - saying they protect civil liberties.

In a speech to the IPPR think tank, the prime minister said they helped ensure people's right to live free from crime.

This is from the news story via the BBC regarding Brown's speech to the IPPR think tank. It seems as though the argument Brown wishes to deploy is that we're all safer if we're under greater governmental control and security service surveillance. In fact in a week or so's time Brown is going to unveil a policy that says we are all to be chained to our work desks or sofa's (depending on the time of day) to ensure that no-one has the opportunity to take anyone elses freedoms away from them via crime ever again!

How do you solve a problem such as "British Citizenship" and how to encourage us all to feel like we're British? Well you force them to stay in school or training until 18, at which point you "encourage" them to swear an oath to the country in one form or another before presenting them with a series of choices whereby the only realistic one is to sign up to a national ID database. From then on you're golden with plenty of opportunities to keep that individual under check and "British", in fact the only thing missing is a microchip for the brain that forces them to stand up and put their hand to their heart every time "God Save the Queen" is heard.

So ID Cards are back on the agenda again now and actually threaten to be more confusing a policy than the ratification of the EU treaty. The time scales are slipping further and further, ambiguity is rife over the compulsion that may exist, and the politicians are still woefully clueless about the lack of integrity the system will inherently have.

I'm sitting here watching the Oscars and thus getting utterly distracted from making Politalks, so I decided that I would finish off this post I've had for a few days that asks what we could perhaps spend the money that is potentially to be spent on the highly illiberal and unpopular ID card system on instead. The list isn't exhaustive, and I've left out plenty of examples where existing systems could be given more funding to be made more efficient and effective, but it's a start. Anyone else got any other examples? Click continue article to see the full list...