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Well Darlings,

We certainly had it busy here in Blackpool last weekend. Graham Curry, Blackpool ambulance station manager, has revealed that extra staff and vehicles were called in from Preston, Broughton and Blackburn to help our crews cope with the biggest demand they had seen since New Year's Eve. At one stage, we're told, the ambulance service was so overstretched that there were 41 emergency calls stacked up and waiting for attention. Some of the call-outs were attributed to drunken fans behaviour after England's first World Cup match, but apparently a lot of the call-outs were simply thought to be to people collapsing through the heat.

Now whilst we have enjoyed some really lovely weather, I would not say it has been excessively hot - we have all experienced much hotter days. No, we have merely had some really good summery days where, when it get likes that, people have naturally headed for the coast. At the coast, whilst some will lap up the sun, many of the sporty types will seek out the big screen bars in order to watch the sport and later they will either celebrate a victory or drown their sorrows. It's not an unusual occurrence. So I find it quite a failing that a coastal resort like Blackpool can find itself hard-pushed to cope with the "to be expected", and I dread to think what those poor people with emergencies were going through whilst waiting for the backlog of 41 cases to be cleared, or assessed for order of importance. God help us should England win the World Cup on a hot day!

The whole point of emergency services is to cope with emergencies. Something tells me there have been far too many cut-backs to some of our essential services. Should we be blessed with a blazing hot summer this year, or come to that any year that coincides with some major sporting event, will we be expected to accept this kind of shortfall on a daily basis? And what happens should Preston and Blackburn have their own problems to deal with when we urgently need them to bail us out? What then - an even larger backlog of cases all stacked up and waiting?

Of course Blackpool wasn't alone in being caught with her knickers down - there were many places throughout the country where there were similar shortfalls, and alarmingly long waits for assistance. Too many places have been cut-back too far. Our emergency services, whether they be police, fire, ambulance or coastguard, are essential to our quality of life, and all too often to actually sustaining our lives. They need to be adequate at all times - and to hell with the man with the cheque book!

To hell too with the idea of double taxing our rubbish - another tax on top of a tax that this government would love to impose! Can you imagine the cost of a system where our refuse collectors would have to stop and weigh each bin or bag of rubbish - and then try to find out who it actually belonged to? Imagine an empty street on collection day, devoid of black bags, apart from outside the house of the poor old granny who lives all alone at the end of the road where forty bags of rubbish are piled high, or where her little bag of rubbish at the bottom of her council bin has been buried under a ton of other people's rubbish that is spilling out everywhere. Today you may imagine it - but with this tax tomorrow you will experience it. Like we already pay for our sewerage to be dealt with, we already pay for our rubbish to be removed. We should not have to pay twice! A second tax will only encourage people to dispose of their waste illegally. If we let them get away with this one then the next second tax could quite easily be on our sewerage - and just how many jobbies people do! Won't granny get a lot of visitors then!

A new study of UK and US companies with more than 1,000 employees suggests that about a third of the companies hire employees to read and analyse the outbound e-mails of workers who typically have no idea their correspondence is being monitored. The figures rise to 38 percent in the UK and 44 percent in the US when it comes to larger companies with over 20,000 employees.

Gary Steele, chief executive of Cupertino, California-based Proofpoint Inc., which along with Forrester Research conducted the study tells us: "The top concern was protecting the financial privacy and identity of customers followed by compliance issues and a bid to prevent confidential leaks." Really? So how do they cope with these employees divulging this kind of information outside of work - at home, down the pub, or to friends they meet who may easily work for competitors? That has yet to be revealed - but you can bet your life it is covered.

A bucket whether it has one hole or many will never hold a full bucket of water. There is little point in plugging one hole, unless you are going to plug all the holes. We live in an age of snooping; of Big Brother who ferrets around until he knows everything about us from what we put out in our rubbish to what brand of cornflakes we buy. It's a frightening age where spying on people has become a multi-billion pound industry, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. When we trust nobody, then nobody will be trustworthy and society will suffer.

Big Brother has his place. CCTV cameras in our towns and cities to protect the public and to deter crime are welcomed - but recent evidence, and public stories, reveal that this reason why we accepted this kind of spying on us is being abused on a large scale. The cameras are being turned into being merely money-making accessories for local governments in their quest to relieve the motorist of the last pound in his or her pocket. Fixed penalties are being issued for minor motoring offences caught on camera, and often incorrectly perceived, whilst someone suffering a crime is likely to be told that nothing was seen.

It's time Joe and Jill Public caught up. We are suffering abuse by officialdom, and those who employ us, to an ever increasing degree. To protect the rights and the privacy of common people we need a Big Sister to keep a watchful eye over Big Brother. The good news is: we have one. The bad news is: we don't support her enough. Her name? Liberty.

Liberty's aim is to secure the equal rights and liberties of all individuals and groups (insofar as they do not infringe the rights of others), and oppose any abuse or excessive use of power by the state against its people. Liberty identifies current issues it considers crucial to the protection of civil liberties and human rights in this country and campaigns - through litigation, media and lobbying - to influence government policy.

The more of us who join this organisation; the more it can and will do for us. Membership isn't found to be expensive by most people, but if it is to you then it matters not - you are still welcome to become involved and to support them without it costing you a penny. There is little use to be found in complaining about any issue if you are not prepared to support those who are fighting for you.

Support Liberty. http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk

If you are reading this outside the UK, and many thousands of you do each week, then please check around for your own similar organisations and support them.

Remember, it is usually easier to hold on to a freedom or a right than it is to fight in an attempt to regain it once it has been lost.

See you next week . . .

"The Bitch!" 17/06/06.

About the Author

"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not specifically gay in content. More information on the author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory: http://www.astabgay.com.