So, the Irish voted "no."

Am I surprised? No.

Now, I'll not hide the fact that I am a fan of the EU, it has gone much further to improve things for our nation than it ever could if we were left on our own to get on with things (and yes I will argue that if necessary!)

But I'll be honest, this whole section of the treaty was a farce; and the powers that be need to take a long hard look at where the wheels came off. And I know where I think things went wrong.

Its opaqueness. I mean, it was designed to integrate our nations further to increase competitiveness, drive down cost etc (which in the current climate can only be a good thing) but no bugger understood it.

10 years to write with every nation trying to protect its own interests. That's where it went wrong!

This is a landmark document which affects every person in the European Union; so we need to understand what is being offered before a considered decision can be made; and the only way that you will ever get the people onside is to make the document bloody readable and understandable (or at least annotate it.)

So, the rumours are being bandied around the web about one of our highest level Civil Servants being involved in a same sex fling with someone who now lives in Spain.

Just one thing. Who cares?

Is it just me, or does it really not matter about the habits and / or persuasions that our politicians have (be they unmitigated rubbish, or have some semblance of truth)?

I'm more interested in their ability to do their job and rate them accordingly.

It has been labelled as potentially "humiliating" for the now married public representative.

Now, if it involved something illegal then maybe there's a story and a reason for nort being in their current job. But as for their personal past....... I don't care.

I am disappointed to hear the story of one Dukinfield resident who had her night ruined by thoughtless neighbours last Thursday (5^th June) who considered it reasonable to have a garden party into the early hours of the morning.

As this construed nothing short of anti social behaviour, she contacted the Environmental Health Department’s out of hours service in the hope of getting the problem sorted, and finally some sleep.

But, they would only take a message (the EHP’s were in bed, bless) and said that they would look into it in the morning.

So, onto the police,

“This is a civil matter, not criminal, there’s nothing we can do.”

There we have it; in this day and age, a Police Service with powers taken away, and an Environmental Health Department who didn’t want their sleep disturbing.

The residents of 3 streets in Dukinfield, however lost their sleep at the hands of a minority group of people who have been allowed to get away with their anti-social antics.

Amongst many other things, there is the much maligned Data Protection Act which, as well as the HRA, generally isn't understood that well and tends to get mis-represented on more occasions than I care to consider.

So what does the Data Protection Act mean to those of us with little to no legal training: well, there is an expectation that personal and sensitive data that is stored by companies and other institutions is kept safe, only accessed by those with a need to know, for relevant purposes.

After all, you wouldn't want Tesco trying to access how much is in your bank account so that they could try and decide what offers they make to you in the next clubcard mailing!

So, just what happens if there is a breach?

Firstly, you need to be aware of it. Chances of that are slim unless you write to every institution that has information of you and request access to your file, and then there may be a chance of being declined if

a.) The data officer doesn't know what they are doing.
b.) One of the legal reasons why they can't grant you access to some / all of your information.

It was somewhat refreshing to see that HMRC have noted how many staff were dismissed for what amount to breaches of the Data Protection Laws see story here

Of course, I'm not happy to see this information as someone has lost their job, someone has had their data accessed unlawfully etc. but it is good to see something being done once a breach had been committed and it has made HMRC look like they are taking this matter seriously, which considering their current track record can only be a good thing.

And then it made me think of the whole ID card situation (which as a liberal AND member of Liberty I'm not exactly the biggest fan of.) But, there is a method to my madness.

This database will be controlled by a private company that has been contracted by the government. So, who will police this database, how can we be promised that it will be as strictly controlled as it ought to be when it isn't actually going to be run by the government, and just how safe will your information, which let's face it will be a lot more precious than your Tax Code in the long run, really be?