Harrow Council’s Lie Detectors To Catch a Benefits Thief
THE BBC reports that lie detectors are being used by Harrow Council to try and catch out benefit cheats. Apart from the fact that lie detectors don’t actually work there’s a couple of other points at issue here, the most important of which is why do they get to test us?
Currently, they’re being used to try and deter people from claiming benefits to which they are not entitled which, in the grand scheme of things, is a very small problem indeed.
A few hundred thousand here or there, even the few £ billions that the whole benefit system leaks is a pittance compared with the £500 billion and rising that they take from us. So a far better use of this technology (for the moment we’ll accept their assurances that it works) is that we use it on them.
The vote stealers, those who tax us, should have their every public utterance filtered though these machines. When they say they’ll save the NHS, or improve education, then we’ll know when they’re lying and be able to prove it.
When it’s announced that the conker trees will have to come down in the name of elf ‘n’ safety, we’ll know, when we’re told that Britain’s place is in the heart of Europe, or that the Reform Treaty is very different from the rejected Constitution, oh my word yes, then the self-interested casuistry will be apparent to all.
There’s only really one problem I can see with this happy state of affairs. We don’t actually need any new technology to reveal the truth of these matters, we have a perfectly reasonable and usable one already. We are talking about politicians here, so knowing when they’re lying is quite simple: their lips are moving.
Posted: 27th, September 2007 | In: Money, Politicians Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
