Matthew Henty

Terence Eden was stopped this morning at Waterloo Station under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (excellent guide to your rights under the act from Liberty), and he had the presence of mind to stream it live from his Nokia N95 via Qik. Result, a full recording of a random stop and search, something I had never seen before.

James Bridle has already asked a question of the Metropolitan Police Service under the  Freedom of Information Act. I will be interested to see what the MPS have to say in response.

Polly Toynbee “makes a case” for carbon credits in the Guardian this morning, while ignoring all the potential problems. Funny that she concludes that they are definitely a great idea.

The proposal:

…each year everyone gets equal carbon credits to spend on petrol, home heating or air travel. People exceeding their quota can buy more credits. People who use less can sell credits. It encourages home insulation, energy saving and less driving or flying. Since low earners use less – 20% have no car, 50% don’t fly – they can profit by selling to those with big houses, foreign holidays and gas-guzzling cars. It would be a powerful but voluntary agent for redistribution.

Here are some very simple questions Polly might consider:

• Who gets a carbon ration? Citizens, or residents too? What about visitors who hire a car in London and drive to Scotland, or do they buy from the expected surplus?
• If all residents get a carbon ration, where is the list of all residents to whom rations should be issued? Or will everyone have to apply for them, in order to generate this list? The lessons from low take up of pension credit would need to be learned and overcome.
• Will a central database of credits, balances and debits be held? Will this be tracked by name, by identity or just by some number? Will the database therefore provide yet another means for the mass surveillance of the population?
• Even if the database is anonymised somehow, how long would that last? I’m assuming the carbon ration will become valuable as carbon gets expensive (otherwise what’s the point) so the system will be targeted by fraudsters. It won’t stay anonymous for long.
• Who will manage the database? Will it be outsourced, who will have access?
• Why not just tax carbon, which requires no additional databases or additional tracking of the population?

Carbon credits may be a good idea. But they really are an idea ahead of their time – there are just too many questions yet to be answered, or even asked.