Liberty

An important milestone was passed today, one I that think is worth noting, routine exit checks been have introduced at UK borders. Fine -- that would be the kind of thing we used hold up as an example of autocracy and routine affront to liberty in the erstwhile USSR and its satellites, cue a Robbie Coltrane jokey Russian accent '...and what is your reason for wanting to leave the glorious motherland, when will you be returning?'. The advent of exit checks implies a power to deny the privilege to cross the border, If that were a general rule it would be a severe infringement of civil liberties and a breach of treaty commitments. Of course there's always a way round these technicalities, probably a suspicion that a person refused passage was liable to commit illegal acts abroad would be cited as justification. We have had a few people travelling abroad recently whose journey has made an impact on the media, I suspect those instances will be cited as justification for this move. So we can expect these measures to be temporary, only extant until the current crisis has abated, can't we? yeah like that's gonna happen. No, I think those checks are here to stay, meanwhile if you wanna wallow in nostalgia for a while, why not look up an old seventies speculative TV drama, 1990 with Edward Woodward. 1990 portrays a near future Britain (near future in 1970 something) where people are smuggled out of the country. One of the reasons for those people wanting to leave is to get treatment for health problems untreatable by a health system in distress, ring any bells?