From the Chair
MAG's National Chairman
When the war to end all wars ended in 1918, it supposedly heralded the beginning of world peace, but the restrictions and conditions imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles planted the seeds and laid the ground for WW2, the war for the freedom of the world.
Churchill warned of the storm clouds gathering over Europe some five years earlier, nobody wanted to know until it was almost too late, they called him a mad old war monger.
Following the war, we lived under the threat of communism, the state controlling one's every move, still we enjoyed our hard fought freedom, and we can only imagine what life would have been like under the Jack Boot or the Hammer and Sycle. But are we taking that freedom for granted now?
Soon there will be no-one living who actually fought in WW1, and in another generation the same will be true for WW2, there will be no-one to say "I remember".
As our freedoms are slowly eaten away by "Nanny States" and governments with agendas that do not include the liberties of their citizens, I wonder where it will all end.
Recently we have seen Italy and Spain introduce anti smoking legislation, agreement or disagreement, smoker or non smoker, this is not the point, it is still another law of restriction.
The British Government, in order, as they say, to protect its citizens, introduced the Data Protection Act (DPA). Then, to protect a small number of unfortunate people who can not manage their own finances, they break their own DPA and allow Credit Card companies to exchange and share information on their customers. They allow, or should I say, encourage the DVLA to sell information to other organisations. Now I hear that in a straw poll, nearly 70 percent of people in this country are in favour of DNA recording from birth. I say wake up Britain, we are already one of the most covertly monitored societies in Europe. Orwell, you were 40 years out on your estimate but we are getting there slowly.
If we are not vigilant, one day in the future some one will report, " the last person to ride a motorcycle on the road died today at the age of 120."
Ian Moore
MAG National Chairman
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