Clegg promises liberties restoration
Nick Clegg promised government that will restore individual liberties and value dissent this morning, as he set out his Deputy Prime Minster's brief to repeal Labour laws this morning. Setting out what he called a "big bang approach to political reform", he said illiberal and intrusive laws will be scrapped. Most of Clegg's …
This topic is closed for new posts.
See
*THIS* is why I voted for them yellow liberal types! :-D
Cage rattling time
to show the world who the real slime balls are.
If I thought the man would take me up on the offer
I'd buy him a pint.
Shirley, something wrong here?
This can't be right - he's a politician and he seems to be talking sense. Am I really awake?
Yes..
You have just woken from a 13-year nightmare.. never forget this day! ;)
Indeed, but
don't call me..............
sorry I'll just ...............
i think you mean
20+ year nightmare. or did you forget about thatcher and major? im 35 and we've had tossers in power all my life lol.
i am amazed. i feel somewhat heartened by these 2 poshies (even cameron is coming out with some sensible stuff) my gast is truely flabbered!
Fair dinkum
I don't think Thatcher and Major were ever quite so bad from a civil liberties perspective -- I mean, at least Maggie bust Argy chops fighting for British Liberty in the Falkland Outpost.
That said, I am 5 years younger than you, so the reigns of Mrs "Get some Nuts" T and John "Peas be with You" Major are all mixed up in a haze of Transformers, Boglins, and Hero Turtles...
And another thing to scrap........
ANPR.
Well, not ANPR per-se. I have no problem with ANPR cameras reading number plates to check that the vehicle is insured, taxed, not listed as stolen, etc, but once those checks have been done and the vehicle checks out as "clean" then the record (of where and when it was "seen") should be discarded and not stored as a permanent record as it is now.
hooray.... about time
I would like to be the first to welcome our database-destroying, repeal-hungry old-liberal democratic overlords.
Seriously though, Clegg's really lashing himself to the mast on this one, highly admirable, even "brave..." in the words of Yes Minister.
He is staking his reputation on a number of principles and hard actions, if
nothing else a signal to friends and enemies alike that these aims are inviolate.
Sure they will be watered down a bit, vested interests of Govt, business and hyper-rich will eat into them - that's why he's started with such a concentrated solution.
First bit of good news from Westminster for years, centuries even.
respect.
Where's the catch
I'm only hearing good news at the moment - I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop
@Where's the catch
Its good news to see a lot of this going, but I don't see any mention of Mandelson's total web spying Digital Economy Bill. So until that one is confirmed dead, I won't be celebrating.
Without the *official confirmation* of the death of the spying and censorship plans in the Digital Economy Bill, they might just as well be giving us our freedom back with one hand and taking our freedom away again with the other hand. So celebrating is pointless until that very Orwellian bill is utterly and totally confirmed dead.
Here's his full speech. Sadly no mention of the Digital Economy Bill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8691753.stm
Current status of the Digital Economy Bill, is that it was "Issued Royal Assent on April 12, 2010, it will go into effect on June 12 of the same year." The LibDems have so far said they will replace it with something else but what is that something else? ... replacing it isn't killing it and so its interesting its not in his speech today.
but
I thought this was already up for mandatory discussion in a few months?
Unnerving
Anyone else finding having a government that does what you want it to rather unnerving?
'big bang approach to political reform'
I prefer Guy Fawkes' big bang approach to political reform.
Re Big Bang
Oh noes!!! I can't believe you just said that!
Did you lean nothing from this?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/10/twitter_bomb_joker_guilty/
Please...
Please let them have the resolve to actually push these through. This, and electoral reform so that next election, they have even more power to act.
Give That Man A Cigar
Woohoo :-)
ID database and CCTV aside, I wonder if the 'extreme pr0n' laws will go. To be fair, it would take a politician with very big balls indeed to come out in support of BDSM in the face of bigoted Daily Heil and News Of The Screws readers.
He'd have to
go outside to smoke that cigar of course.... damn Labour government.
Extreme porn solution
Add a clause about consent being a defence, all porn sites be sure to carry consent disclaimers, job done.
No, he won't
He can smoke till he chokes in the Houses of parliament 24 drinking bars.
But WOW if he does what he is spouting Kudos to him. About time too.
Not in the House of Commons Bar He Wouldn't
Since it's officially calssified as a royal household, and not a place of business, it isn't covered by the smoking ban.
Although, they apprently have a self-imposed ban, which is a little disappointing.
devil in the detail
The devil will be in the detail as usual. For instance, an elected house of lords sounds great right? I mean who would back hereditary peerage? Well having been through the last Labour government, I would. The house of lords became an unlikely saviour during this last government's totalitarian rampage, by blocking and watering down several of the worst, most invasive bills.
Make them elected and you politicise them. Politicise them and they will directly align with the house of commons, making their function as a backstop completely redundant. The next Labour will go nuts, and we'll all be tagged, carrying "papers" and have our communications automatically logged by "security services". Think I'm exaggerating? We'll soon see.
I actually liked the old house of lords
Being unelected means you can do what's right instead of what's popular.
Maybe a compromise. You are elected to the upper house, but once their you are there for life.
Thanks, John,..
... that's what I was just about to write. Avoid the risk of political short-termism so that the second chamber can do the right thing, not the Daily Sun thing, by having the people in post until death or retirement.
The old House of Lords
The House of Lords did work as a brake on New Labour but do you remember how ineffective it was between 1979 and 1997 when it had an inbuilt Tory majority?
They didn't stop the Criminal Justice Bill or the Community Charge (Poll Tax) for example.
Life peers? No thanks
I agree with the concerns that an elected upper house could be too politicised and end up rubber stamping legislation from the commons, but life-long peerages mean out of touch incompetents that can't be removed.
Perhaps a house of representatives would be better, where members with specialist knowledge and skills are appointed for a fixed term by specific groups, such as the GMC, CBI, TUC, Chartered Institutes, etc. Some of the more populist, hare-brained schemes of a government could then be scrutinise by experts in the field.
Indeed
That's why the elected local "Head of Police" policy that the new Home Secretary was describing today scares my socks off.
Brake only the broken
"The House of Lords did work as a brake on New Labour but do you remember how ineffective it was between 1979 and 1997 when it had an inbuilt Tory majority?
They didn't stop the Criminal Justice Bill or the Community Charge (Poll Tax) for example."
I do struggle with this - what, precisely, was wrong with the Community Charge? It was a 1987 manifesto pledge, so clearly had a mandate. It ensured that every resident paid a share, rather than penalising those in smaller living units. It was badly administered and badly implemented but it was, in my opinion, considerably fairer than Council Tax.
Clearly, a local element to income tax or, for that matter, just a national income tax and direct grants to local councils, would be preferable, but that doesn't mean that the Community Charge was, of itself, bad.
In fact, despite what has been written, I believe one of the key reasons for the opposition was that millions of people who had escaped paying anything at all in local taxation (due to landlords paying rates) suddenly found they were expected to contribute.
fingerprinting
"consent required to fingerprint children"
Eh? what does this mean you don't need to get consent to fingerprint adults? or is this when you arrest them? I'm confused.
Anyway yeah, go team liberal, I voted for ya!.
he means for
schools and the like so all thouse systems for lunch and labrays and door locks that use kids finger prints are going to be harder to implement
School Dinners
I believe this refers to the fingerprinting of kids in schools to ID them for meals. The idea is that they are less likely to lose their fingers than their dinner money or payment cards.
Mind you, I reckon little miss Cowherd would be quite capable of misplacing her own head if it wasn't firmly attached to the rest of her.....
I voted for ya
Sure, once they're elected, so did everyone else.
Naughty Labour
If you can't play with Government like good little boys then we'll just have to take it off you.
Good News!
Now all he has to get rid of is the ACPO and replace them with elected Officers who do not have the power to run their own private "company" which fronts police FIT (intelligence gathering) teams and is not accountable due to its "private company" status.
Blimey
I'm astonished (and very pleased) that this really seems to be happening. Yeah, I know the proof of the pudding, etc, but this is further than most pre-election promises seem to get.
What I'd really like is if they go beyond the rubbish enacted by the last government and deal with older rubbish too, such as nuisances like the Gatso: and before the "hur hur, follow the rules, /the rules/!" brigade turns up, my hope is that in doing so we'll actually see patrol cars on the roads once again, which seem to have become an endangered species over the past 20 years. The amount of problems caused by overlooking non-speed-related road nuisances while they're too busy compromising everyone else's privacy hasn't exactly made the country a better place.
The likelihood of seeing the end of ID cards, the DNA database, kids being routinely fingerprinted and so on is an excellent start, though. But that doesn't stop me wishing that they go much further.
Go much further ...
Well yopu know who to vote for next time then :-)
Photography in public?
How about the legal right to take photographs in a public place of public things?
Um,
Unless I'm mistaken, you already have that right ?
It's just not being respected by the plods, is all.
Just because it's public, doesn't mean it's free
You normally have to apply for permission (from the local council or similar) to take photographs or film but this detail is normally observed in the breach for private use.
@the government:
please, please have the balls to repeal the "anti-terrorist" shite especially detention without trial.
I prefer
A new law that really punishes the police for harassment and illegal actions. How about fine the individual officers the same amount that football players are fined for misbehaving (but still with their normal police salary!)
Good man.
Wasn't a wasted vote.
Anyone hear Teresa May getting grilled on Radio 4's Today programme this morning? She was asked about the Tories' U-turn on their manifesto pledge to chuck out the Human Rights Act and was being pressed on an answer about whether the Tories - being the leading party in the coalition - would put their foot down if the Lid Dems disagreed but she wouldn't say yes and kept dodging the question. I think Clegg has way more power than he thinks right now. Most of the policy statements I've heard in the past few days have been coming either from Nick Clegg directly, or with a decidely Cleggy coating.
And rightly so...
...for a party that took a quarter of the vote.
Share toy?
Can we borrow him here in the States for a while please?? There's work to be done.
Seriously, a politician with guts AND some common sense. Lucky you.
@raidet
Exactly.
I have no major issue with an elected House of Lords, but it has to be done on a completely different scale, otherwise you get the same system as the US (which itself has some safe-guards, namely that the senate are only voted in, i think, 1/3rd of all members every set term).
You need fixed terms and only incremental voting, such that, for example, you effectively have a 25 year term (so, 20% voted every 5 years or 25% voted every 6 years). This gets away from the terms equating to the government and it makes the full term longer than any sitting government that the UK has ever had, at least in recent memory (18 years for Conservative from 1979 to 1997).
You also need other safe-guards, for example any and all gifts or meetings would have to be declared, to ensure any vested interests aren't all behind closed doors.
However, everything else Clegg is saying sounds good to me.
Need to go further
"You also need other safe-guards, for example any and all gifts or meetings would have to be declared, to ensure any vested interests aren't all behind closed doors."
That doesn't appear to have made much difference to the results when it's come out. If, however, the member and their party couldn't vote where they had an interest (i.e. bribe), they'd have to work a damn site harder to get through unbalanced legislation.
And we'd probably be in a better place now anyway, certainly things like the Digital Economy Bill would be either workable or in the dustbin.
wont be impressed
I wont be impressed until we hear about IMP, reduction in time held before charge, and a look at the extreme porn law and recent amendments to include drawings as real life.
the ID cards/contacpoint/dna are all easy things.
As to getting rid of Human Rights bill, that was always going to be pretty much impossible - anyone that supported the Tories on that mandate was a blind idiot.
This topic is closed for new posts.
