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There should be law against pushing stuff through in the wash-up. If they don't have time to properly debate these things they shouldn't be rushed through.
Parliamentary wash-up washes away liberties
In the mad rush that is "parliamentary wash-up", it is traditional for civil liberties to be trampled to demonstrate that no party fails the "tough on crime" test – and 2010 is no exception. Thus it was that on 7 April, the House of Commons approved the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 (Amendment) Order 2010 – which categorises …
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Monday 12th April 2010 18:14 GMT Graham Marsden
Forget the wash up...
... there should be a law against the Parliamentary Guillotine which allows the Government to set a ridiculously short amount of time for *any* Bill to be discussed in the Commons, hence why the Dangerous Pictures provisions of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act were only ever debated in the Lords.
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Monday 12th April 2010 11:38 GMT Mike Smith
That's what happens when you elect incompetents
"the provisions for the DVPO are laid out in a level of operational detail more reminiscent of a management handbook than a UK Law."
A management handbook. Yup, that just about sums up this ridiculous bunch of second-raters. Where we should have had honed legal expertise, intelligent debate, reasoned argument and a willingness and ability to push back on the demands of the police to ensure a fair level of civil liberty, we've had to endure thirteen years of government by people who simply were not up to the job; and far worse, were too stupid to recognise their own limitations.
There were some outstanding exceptions - the late Mo Mowlam springs immediately to mind, with Robin Cook not far behind - but by and large this government has been an object lesson in what can be expected when you vote for numpties just because they didn't come from Eton and Oxford and were therefore down wid da kidz.
We should expect wisdom, experience, leadership, ability and statesmanship from the people we elect to rule over us. But we don't. We'd rather indulge in inverse snobbery and pride ourselves on voting against The Establishment, conveniently ignoring the fact that the people we're voting for have shown next to no ability to govern other than by straining when the tabloid press and/or the White House says shit.
Sod it, I'm off to join the SNLA.
See you on the barricades, comrades!
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Monday 12th April 2010 13:12 GMT Anonymous Coward
Yes, I remember
When Thatcher was in and seemed like she'd never be out, I looked at who Labour had and figured we were doomed because they were such as you say 'second raters'. I used to watch this lot on Question Time and be so annoyed at how stupid and useless they were I felt like kicking the telly in. And now they're not only the Government, but their level of incompetence is now considered political talent.
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Monday 12th April 2010 13:20 GMT John Smith 19
@Mike Smith
"but by and large this government has been an object lesson in what can be expected when you vote for numpties just because they didn't come from Eton and Oxford and were therefore down wid da kidz."
A delightfully class bound view of the UK political situation.
Tony Blair might not have gone to Eaton but he (and Jacqui smith) are both Oxbridge graduates. It could be argued that Blairs Jurisprudence is more directly useful than Smith's PPE (A popular choice with senior civil servants, wanabee senior politicians and various assorted financial chancers) Gordon Brown's degree was at Edinburgh History (not sure what his PhD is in. Yes that does make him Dr Brown)
All of the above went to *good* universities. I'd suspect most of the rest of the Cabinet did as well.
Forget the "Man of the people" Vs "Tory boy" PR BS. Most of them did well (in fact Brown did better than Blair on grades) academically.
But then some academics cannot find their a"£se with both hands.
Mine will be the one with the Wiki donation form in the pocket.
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Tuesday 13th April 2010 11:38 GMT Rob 114
@WonkoTheSane
Nor would everybody voting for an independent candidate; you would have Government by comittiee which would mean paralysis in central Government. However I appluad you for at least offering a sugesstion.
Actually, I think this will be the last GE wherre we see the two party system. I'd wager you will see a few seats being won by single issue parties and thos who only two GE's ago would have been on the very outside of the political system.
Personally I just feel that a vote for either the Tories, Lab or the Lib-Dems is just a vote for another bunch of robbing shits who happen to wear a different colour.
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Tuesday 13th April 2010 12:59 GMT teebie
""would mean paralysis in central Government"
Surely that would be a vast improvement.
Compare the legislation that has been written over the last 13 years with a big bucket of nothing. The bucket is vastly superior. Admittedly the bucket doesn't provide us with minimum wage, or allow gay people to sort-of marry, but that is more than balanced out by the masses of terrible terrible laws it doesn't contain.
Ideally I would like a government that knew when to shut up and leave things alone, but failing that one that was too busy infighting to much anything up for anyone else would have to do.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
