The government is compiling a database to track and store the domestic travel records of millions of Britons.

Computerised records of all 250 million journeys made by individuals within the UK each year will be kept for up to 10 years.

The government says the database is essential in the fight against crime, illegal immigration and terrorism.

But opposition MPs and privacy campaigners fear it is a significant step towards a surveillance society.

The intelligence centre will store names, addresses, telephone numbers, car licence plate numbers, train tickets, hitchhiking signs and credit card details of travellers.

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said: "The government seems to be building databases to track more and more of our lives.

"The justification is always about security or personal protection. But the truth is that we have a government that just can't be trusted over these highly sensitive issues. We must not allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society."

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "This is another example of an intrusive database without any public debate about safeguards on its use.

"We are sleepwalking into a surveillance state and should remember that George Orwell's 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint."

A spokesman for campaign group NO2ID said: "When your travel plans, who you are travelling with, where you are going to and when are being recorded you have to ask yourself just how free is this country?"

The 'Nightwatch' scheme covers cars, flights, ferries, bicycle, taxi, ambulance and rail journeys and the Home Office says similar schemes run in other countries including North and South Korea, China, Iraq, Cuba and the historical Nazi Germany.

Minister of State for borders and immigration Phil Woolas said the government was determined to ensure the UK's homeland remained one of the most watched in the world.

"Our hi-tech electronic travel system will allow us to count and record all movements of UK citizens and [it] targets everyone," he said.
Answering concerns about the security of the database he went on to say, "The government has learnt from previous mistakes and we can categorically state that there will be no new data losses. Nor will there be any abuse of the RIPA rules to allow local councils to spy on their citizens".

He concluded, "If you have nothing to hide then you have nothing to fear citizen. Beware the terrorist and the illegal immigrant for they spread heresy".

The original, and just as scary, article is Here. If you look at the number of people that the actual scheme has caught it's 0.0036% of all travellers scanned. Is that cost effective when it comes to (a) money and (b) the damage to civil liberties?

So, apparently it snowed a bit in England, and in some places it is still snowing.

And so we find ourselves watching the TV with indignant sounding news presenters asking those in power 'Why wasn't something done!'. Sadly none of those being interviewed gave the answer I would have, "How much extra tax would you like to pay so that this one in twenty years event has no impact on your life?"
We aren't Russia, or Denmark or any of those cold countries, and the cost to fully prepare for aberrant weather conditions like this would be too high.

But.

It did seem that the London Ambulance Service was a bit unprepared. Did you know that we don't have anything to go on the wheels of an ambulance to stop it slipping in the snow? We have some covers for the officer's cars, but nothing for the vehicles that actually take you to hospital. To be fair, I'm not sure if this is economics, or down to a technical issue that they aren't able to be fitted by staff themselves.

The other problem that I heard over the radio was that some hospitals have ramps leading to their A&E department, and that the ambulances weren't able to climb them - so at least one 'blue call' had to bypass one hospital and head to one further away, one that had a ground floor entrance.

If you look closely at the ambulance on the right, you can see that it's a bit damaged. What you won't see is the damage caused to my ambulance by some idiot driving into it (and I'll tell you that story tomorrow).

Locally at least, we do have more blankets than we had this time last year, so it's not all bad.

The snow did seem to have taken LAS management by surprise though - there was only one Duty Station Officer covering the entire East side of London. Given that we were the third ambulance to have an accident, and that an officer should deal with each of those I would suggest that the next time severe weather is predicted the resourcing of officers might need to be improved a bit.

It was also about midnight when 'Gold Control', the people who normally worry about how much of our ORCON targets we are hitting decided to suspend the rest break policy. The message that was sent down the vehicle computer terminal seemed to suggest that forced overtime would be compulsory.

I doubt that that was the case, but it's definitely what it read like.

As NeeNaw says,

"I’m watching the TV before my nightshift tonight. They keep saying “the ambulance service is under severe pressure and will only respond to life threatening calls”. Surely we should only be responding to life threatening calls anyway?"

Which is sweet, but I suspect that, were I working tonight, I'd still be going to the usual twaddle of runny noses and one instance of vomiting.