Daily Archives: March 28, 2013


Paul Bernal, writing in his blog, comments on Government proposals for ‘food stamps’, noting their similarity to parts of the Home Office’s discredited ID card scheme: The latest proposal for ‘food stamps’ has aroused a good deal of anger. It’s a policy that is divisive, depressing and hideous in many ways – Suzanne Moore’s article in the Guardian is one of the many excellent pieces written about it. She hits at the heart of the problem: ‘Repeat after me: austerity removes autonomy’. That’s particularly true in this case, and in more ways than even Suzanne Moore brings in. This new programme has even more possibilities to remove autonomy than previous attempts at controlling what ‘the poor’ can do with their money – because it takes food stamps into the digital age… The idea, as I understand it, is that people will be issued with food ‘cards’, rather than old fashioned […]

Food stamps and the database state…