You can, I am sure, imagine my thoughts on the ISA. But whilst I am in the process of setting up the new blog (which will be specifically about home education, as well as parenting from a personal perspective) and sorting out this one (which will retain a broader libertarian focus) it's over to others.

Matthew Parris gets much right in this piece, here - before he starts blathering on about his belief in a strong state. His concept of a strong state, of course, that he will duly impose of the rest of us. For that illogicality, he gets marked down.

Charlotte Gore is far more sensible and on fisking form here:

 It gets worse, by the way - sorry.

Even if someone has been found Not Guilty by a jury, you must always remember that, at most, this means is that [sic] the court did not find that someone did something “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Nope. It means they’re legally innocent, because in the UK we have a principle known as Innocent Until Proven Guilty. Well, we did.

The test applied by the ISA in relation to barring considerations is cause for concern.

Nice, but this next bit made me gasp in horror:

If in doubt, you should consult your line manager.

And my favourite bit of all:

If it is found that the evidence demonstrates on the balance of probabilities that an event happened, then that is treated as a “finding of fact”. However, even if it doesn’t, the evidence may still be highly relevant in the context of the “risk of harm” powers.

In other words, hey, look, even if something probably didn’t happen, you should still consider it anyway. After all, where there’s smoke there’s fire, right. And remember:

If in doubt, you should consult your Line Manager.

Summing up then, this is the proverbial line in the sand. This is the ‘far’ in ‘too far.’ I propose a mass boycott, mass civil disobedience - simply refuse to submit yourself. Refuse to ask for ISA approval, too. This thing needs to be fought, and fought hard.

"Mass civil disobedience" - is it possible? I hope so.