News that the Data Communication Bill has been shelved will be welcomed by all those that have campaigned against it. Needless to say, the government claim that it has nothing to do with those that are against this Big Brother Britain bill and everything to do with the fact that MP’s need to concentrate on the economy.

I suspect it has far more to do with the fact that the government needs a controversial bill like a hole in the head, the estimated cost of £12bn is going to be criticised in the current climate and they want to clear the decks for an early election to take advantage of Labour’s poll bounce. Whatever the case, it is unlikely that any attempt will be made to reintroduce the bill until 2011 and hopefully, by that time, New Labour will be history. Predictably, the police are complaining that it will hinder their efforts to fight crime and terrorism, well perhaps if they got off their backsides and did what they were paid to do, there would not be a need to spy on 65m people.

The police in this country have more powers than virtually any other country in the world and yet they still whine. They also have 167,000 police officers, but I have to confess, I haven’t seen one in the last 2 weeks, plenty of community support officers, but no real coppers, no wonder they want to spy on us all. This bill should actually be scrapped and its predecessor, which provides many of the same rights, save a legal requirement that service providers must keep the information for 2 years, should be repealed. Only then can we be certain that state sponsored voyeurism is being rolled back.

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have a real bee in my bonnet over the way our civil liberties are being eroded by a government completely obsessed with turning our country into Big Brother Britain. I have also made public my concern over the general apathetic views of the majority of British citizens to this massive infringement on our right to privacy and to get on with our lives without state interference.

The announcement that this government wanted to spend £12bn on a ’super’ database which would collate information on every call, text message, email and the browsing habits of every individual in this country, in spite of our dire economic position, had me raging. I wrote a number of posts on this topic and then decided that it was such an important issue it really needed its own dedicated blog, so I set up Big Brother Britain.

However, this blog is not about me, if it is to have any value whatsoever, particularly in terms of educating and informing those who do not understand the implications of this governments inteference in our everyday lives, then it needs unique content and as many contributors or supporters as possible. I am delighted that we have already had a number of respected political bloggers that have agreed to support the Big Brother Britain blog and these include, Will Rhodes, Shrewd Mammal, The Secret Person, British Politics and David David from The Libertarian Alliance. This is a none partisan blog, it really doesn’t matter what your political persuasion is, Big Brother Britain affects us all.

I am also very pleased and would like to thank David Davis from The Libertarian Alliance who has kindly agreed to post articles on this topic, some of which are already on the site. He is actively encouraging people to visit regularly and comment. It is great to know that I am not having to try and do this all on my own! 

I would respectfully ask anyone else who has a shared interest on this subject to offer their support using any of the following initiatives; become one of our supporters and allow us to add your site to the Big Brother Britain blogroll, add Big Brother Britain to your blogroll, write a post similar to this one announcing the launch of the Big Brother Britain blog, include the tag ‘big brother britain’ in your on topic posts, add some of your own articles on this subject to BBB and/or offer to provide unique content as an author. You could also reference any Big Brother Britain posts on related issues on your own future postings of course. I am not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs, I am just indicating that all offers of assistance, no matter how small will be gratefully received.

Posts on the Big Brother Britain site can also be further publicised by adding articles to Digg, Technorati, Reddit and so on. All articles from Big Brother Britain will also be added to Big Brother Britain at Google Groups and Big Brother Britain at Reddit.

In addition to my own efforts, Shrewd Mammal has introduced a similar campaign, headlined and identified by the tag RESIST. His concerns and issues identify closely with the Big Brother Britain campaign site and I would urge fellow political bloggers to also consider using this tag in any posts on this subject.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post and if you get a moment please visit Big Brother Britain, we know that Hazel Blears has a real problem with people like us, so why not antagonise her further?