If you have been away, perhaps for 2 years, maybe in a coma, you’ll not yet have noticed that the present government is just as bad as, if not worse than, the last lot.
For dreaming up schemes that invade the every orifice of every person, in order to save 1 or 2 from themselves or each other, this one is remarkable.
It’s the sort of thing that Jacqui Smith, Harriet Harman or Jack Straw would have considered and then backed the hell away from until they needed to one day bury a massive piece of bad news.
First of all, one question should be put to bed: Both men and women can make these enquiries.
Under the scheme, both men and women will be able to apply to check on a partner with whom they are embarking on an "intimate relationship".
But there are a host of questions that immediately spring to mind.
What steps are the police required to undertake to check that this is a genuine and proportionate enquiry?
i.e. Is Sharon, who fancies Kevin who goes in Razzles on a Friday night, able (or indeed supposed) to check his rap-sheet before she decides whether to put her slutty knickers on next time she goes to Razzles?
What details does Sharon need to give the police? A name and address? DoB? NI number?
How do the police know that Sharon is “embarking up on an intimate relationship” with Kevin? Does Kevin know about any of this? Kevin’s wife’s best friend is a civilian officer at the local police station, so perhaps he soon will…
How do the police know that Sharon doesn’t write for the local rag, or The Sun for that matter? How do they know that her name is Sharon? What checks do they do on her? How many times has she made these enquiries now? 8 times this year?
How, for that matter, do the police know that Sharon is not a stalker, a colleague or a neighbour with a grudge?
How does this scheme interact with data protection laws, ECHR rulings, rehabilitation of offenders act etc.?
Precisely what offences will the police be required (or have the discretion) to disclose? If the have discretion, what may be the outcomes of that? An initiative that the CC has inevitably assigned to a DV unit that has come to see all men as offenders? Discretion leads them to disclose too much information about men, and too little about women.
Which brings me to another question: Will men who make the enquiries – as they are equally entitled to do – be treated with a degree of suspicion that women will not be subject to, and therefore more likely to have their request for information denied?”
But it gets better.
Applications will also be allowed from family members, friends and neighbours on behalf of another person if they have a "reasonable" fear that they may be at risk.
Think about that for a moment. Just let it sink in.
Take all the possible problems I’ve alluded to above and raise them to the third power. Now you have an idea of what a monumentally obnoxious initiative this really is.
Honesty. Do you suppose anyone even asked these questions before this travesty of privacy and civil liberties was implemented?
It has all the hallmarks of knee jerk panic. It’s named after a victim who could have been ‘saved’ by this law. Saved. Really?
Either she willingly got into a relationship with a wrongun who she had suspicions about (some damaged people do), or she didn’t have suspicions, and therefore would never have availed herself of this initiative anyway. So in what way would this lunatic scheme have saved her?
And here’s something for The Wimmin to think about while they’re celebrating this latest vicious polarisation of people by gender:
How long will it be before a woman who is a genuine victim of domestic violence is given short shrift by the police (or a desiccated old judge) because she should have checked with them before she shacked up with Steroid Eddie?
I see two forces at play. Firstly is the utterly moonhowlingly insane LibDem wimmins minister Lynn Featherstone. Secondly is Theresa May who has got bigger fish to fry and couldn’t give a fuck about your privacy or liberties.
And as above, if you’d awoken from a 3 year coma to hear about this, you’d completely expect this to have been a Labour initiative.
Our system is diseased. None of these three main parties full of stooges, spivs, leeches, psychopaths and egotists gives a tuppeny shit about your freedom or privacy, compared to their twisted self-serving ideologies.
If you vote for them, you deserve everything you get. Me? I didn’t vote for them. Stop assuming what it is I want and deserve.
AJ
Al Jahom's Final Word 
Welcome back to active posting – your insight has been much missed.
Most kind, cheers :-)