FWIW, squinting at the graphs and guessing from heating oil prices it looks to me like oil has to go to about $200/barrel to be the same price in 'earnings deflated' prices as it was at the end of the 70s early 80s, i.e. an increase of about 50% over today's prices. i wonder if that is true for other countries?

On the back of cheap energy we have had cheap food allowing for more disposable wealth to buy all that essential "stuff" that we send to the landfill shortly afterwards. It seems obvious to me that this will change and no doubt give rise to calls for affordability of energy, but if it was affordable at over 6% in the mid-1960s then it is affordable at less than 6% today.

ID cards can be used for all sorts of things, thanks to Gordon Clown and Tony Liar (remember he wanted 90 days) we now face 42 day incarceration without charge, compulsory ID cards and a DNA database for all. Remember, Walter Wolfgang was arrested under terrorism legislation merely for heckling Jack Straw. Can you see a pattern emerging here? Are we going to a situation where people are chipped at birth and our every move tracked and traced?