When there is nowhere to hide…

The little story, ‘For Whom the Bells Jingle‘, is now available in Spanish, thanks to Heber Rizzo. Many thanks are due, since I don’t know enough of any other language to even attempt a full-story translation. If I tried with my painfully limited French it would turn into a story about a pipe-fitter caught behind the bike sheds with a barrel of herrings and a cheese grater… you know, I’m going to file that under ‘future utterly mad story ideas’.

I have been sent a new bank card. This one allows ‘contactless payment’ which I don’t want but there seems to be no ‘don’t want’ option. I only use the card to extract cash from the machines so I can buy stuff without being tracked. It’s best the Puritans have no record of just how much whisky I buy. They’d send the NHS Lifestyle Correction Team straight round to see me.

I also don’t want any kind of ID card, especially not one with a microchip in it. Once those are in place in Scotland (and they are on the way) then we will all have to show ID for every purchase of booze, baccy and food. Every purchase will be recorded. Every overpurchase of anything will be scrutinised.

It will work like this. Shops already ‘think 25’ which means that if you look under 25, they will ask for ID. Even though the legal age for booze and baccy is 18. If you can’t show ID then you get no booze or baccy. Plans are already afoot to apply the same restrictions to salty or sugary foods. Which is pretty much all of them, since the only food that contains no salt is sugar, and vice versa.

The Cheeldren get hold of booze and cigarettes anyway, and will continue to get hold of Coca-Cola when the legal fizz-drinking age is raised to 30. Therefore the occasional ID request is not working. Therefore, ID must be requested at every purchase, even if the customer is on a Zimmer frame and looks seriously in need of ironing.

It’s the fairest response, isn’t it? It’s no trouble after all – everyone will have an ID card and be legally required to carry it everywhere anyway. So who could object? You take your wallet out and hold it to the scanner and the scanner charges your contactless card while checking your contactless ID. You won’t even notice it happening. Who could refuse? It’s for the cheeeldren…

Everything you buy will be recorded and checked. My whisky purchases will flag me up within a week. They will come round to re-educate me, but I will show them my collection of whiskies, untouched, row upon row of bottles full of cold tea. No, they cannot taste it to check. They are an investment and must not be touched. Besides, I cannot encourage drinking! That would be illegal!

In the US, they already track every car’s movement with ANPR. It’s no consolation to know that the UK does this too. It’s not enough for them though. Sure, you know where the cars are going and who they belong to, but who else is in them? Is there a smoker in there, are there cheeldren getting slowly kippered? Pinpoint those and the police know exactly who to harass.

How will they know? Those chips will be scanned by RFID readers as you travel. They will have a database of people who buy tobacco and cross-reference it with car ownership anyway. The scanners will flag up a smoker travelling as a passenger in a car and alert the local patrol to pull them over and check.

Bought booze yesterday, driving today? Expect to get stopped and breathalysed. Even if the booze is at home, unopened.

Driving after buying salty food? You’ll get pulled over by the Health Squad who will check your blood pressure and determine whether you are fit to continue driving. If you’d already been pulled over by the Booze Patrol and the Smoke Screeners you’d probably fail that test.

They won’t actually ban tobacco, booze, sugar, salt, etc. They’ll just make your life impossible if you like those things. You won’t want to give them up but eventually you will have to, just to be able to live without constant harassment.

So the ID cards – with microchips – are coming to Scotland on the sly. The Spiteful Nannying Party are sneaking them through. Eventually they will be implanted and the drones will queue all night to be first to get one. The rest of us will be pressured into it because eventually you won’t be able to open your house or start your car or get a job without one.

The SNP/Labour fight is engineered. There is no real difference between them. It doesn’t matter which of those two you vote for, you will get ID cards and total social Puritan control in Scotland. Vote for anyone else.

I knew I was right to set Panoptica in Scotland. This is where it starts.

(On course for an edited first draft by May despite no days off work this year. I’ve been taking the tiny Acer with me on days I know won’t be busy).