David Blunkett gets a job at ID Card firm

The man who pushed violently for ID Cards during his time as Home Secretary and helped the government write a cheque for £20 billion for the damn things, is now about to earn his keep from a firm that will make buckets of money out of the scheme. Keeping up New Labour’s strong ties with Texas, Blunkett will soon be getting a paycheque from Entrust which already has done very well out of the Spanish ID Card Scheme and has now formally registered an interest in the British ID Card Scheme. Blunkett has kept himself busy since he “resigned to save his party embarassment” (twice) writing a regular column in the Sun. What might have tipped the balance between himself and other disgraced authoritarian lunatics vying for the job was an impartial piece he wrote in the Sun 2 weeks before he got the job: “ID Cards… will protect our identity from fraudsters, stop illegal benefit foreigners in their tracks…” and all the other usual drivel on why we need to give the state ownership of our identities. Clearly David’s plug in The Sun worked and he’s now off to Texas to work for American money, following the lead of Tony Blair and John Prescott.

2 Weeks to picture lock.

Yeah right. Film now standing at a whisker under 2 hours which is still too long. Really, really not keen to loose any further stories. In fact have actually added in a cheeky story that we have been chasing for ages… Riz Ahmed, actor and musician. He played one of the Tipton Three in Michael Winterbottom’s excellent film Road to Guantanamo. He went out to the Berlin Film Festival last year where the film deservedly won the Silver Bear. Anyway, Riz flew back to England and was detainted under the Terrorism Act at Luton Airport. The Police knew he was an actor but decided to cause him some grief as he had acted in a film that critisised the government. This McCarthyite incident happened last year and is just one of the tens of thousands of incidents of unwarranted Police behaviour towards young Muslim men. Riz maintains a healthy sense of humour about the whole thing, and still laughs at the irony. The incident inspired him to write the brilliant song The Post 9/11 Blues which was banned on Radio (yes another McCarthy parallel) but has got a massive following on MySpace. The video is also superb and we may be using a little bit of it in the film. Or not.

Note to self for future films, do not keep shooting 2 weeks before picture lock!

Oasis are on board! Not sure if we’re allowed to make this public yet but no doubt I’ll get shouted at if not. The Iraq War montage has always been crying out for a massive epic number. We cut it to Whatever (my favourite Oasis track by miles) and it works perfectly. Ian (our sensational music supervisor) pulled some favours and managed to get a DVD of the cut to Noel Gallagher. Noel gave it the thumbs up and the track is in the film… still can’t quite believe it. The soundtrack is shaping up really well, with confirmations from Annie Lennox, The Stranglers, Franz Ferdinhand. All the artists have agreed to let their music be in the film for basically pennies, and for every copy of the soundtrack that is sold £1 goes to Amnesty International. We are still awaiting some more confirmations, so hopefully in a couple of weeks time we can announce some more big names…

The book has finally been delivered!

Now we just have to finish the film. Not much work there then - 150 hours of footage, and countless violations of the rights of our country, all to be shoehorned into an hour and a half. Oh and it needs to be funny, informative and make people want to get up and do something about their government.

Who’s bright idea was it to make this film then?

Bollocks, that was me.

Oh, and the government decided to change the tax laws this week, decreeing that Sale and Leaseback was no longer possible and therefore wiping out half of the funding of our film (and about 50 others) with a stroke of their pen. Fortunately, one of the other films affected was Casino Royale so the Treasury got out their Tippex and sale and leaseback was back on again. Whew, James Bond saves the day again.

Altogether, a pretty quiet week.

Taking Liberties the Book is officially not finished.

Admittedly it was probably a considerable error on our part last November to promise Revolver unconditionally that we would be able to deliver a book on time on 7th of Feb. But we’re film people for chrissakes… and we never for a second expected them to take us seriously. There is an abundance of legal precedent showing categorically that film directors talk cobblers and will promise absolutely anything to get their film made.

Anyway, legal defences aside, we will be pushing what we laughably call the deadline back another week, in order to cut some of the dross, sort out the references, and make sure the thing actually works as a complete book.

The basic plan was to break down the destruction of civil liberties into 5 main chapters:
-Freedom of Speech/Right to protest
-Surveillance
-Detention Without Trial
-Extradition
-Torture

But of course this went through the mangle a bit…

Originally conceived as a 100 page concise addition to the film, it currently stands at over 300 pages and that has taken some brutal editing. It seems that the destruction of liberties has been greater than even we anticipated.

Anyway, off into the night armed with lots of black coffee, an ever growing case of RSI and resisting the temptation to find inspiration through alcohol.

Welcome to Taking Liberties.

Here, not only will we keep you uptodate on the progress of the film, we'll also post news about the ongoing civil liberties movements we're related to.

ABOUT THE FILM

Right to Liberty. Right to Privacy. Right to a Fair Trial. Right to Freedom of Speech. Prohibition from Torture. TAKING LIBERTIES will reveal how these five central pillars of liberty have been systematically destroyed by New Labour, and the freedoms of the British people stolen from under their noses amidst a climate of fear created by the media and government itself. Uncovering the stories no-one wants you to hear so ridiculous you will laugh, so ultimately terrifying you will want to take action.

THIS IS WHAT YOU DON'T READ IN THE PAPERS.
THIS IS WHAT YOU DON'T SEE ON TV.
AND IT'S HAPPENING TO YOU!

IN CINEMAS NATIONWIDE JUNE 8