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liadnanI realise now that when I voted LibDem, in my Labour/Respect marginal constituency, what I was really voting for was the "progressive coalition" and that I should now feel angered enough to be turning to the Labour party.
To discover the views of the "progressive coalition" I look to the voting record of Ben Bradshaw, one of those who has explained it all to me by banging on about this again and again: it turns out that it includes strong progressive policies like being strongly for ID Cards; against laws to stop climate change; for the anti-terrorism laws of the last decade, ministerial intervention in inquests and a stricter asylum system; and opposing an inquiry into the Iraq war.
Yes, that's it. And what I really wanted was for the Ministry of Justice to remain in the hands of Jack Straw, someone I believe to have colluded in torture, and for others who I believe lied to take us into a disastrous war to remain in government as well.
It certainly couldn't possibly have been true that not only did I object to all of that, I put a very high priority on those specific issues.
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Date: 2010-05-12 05:01 pm (UTC)I don't remember the Tories making too much noise about it, and the Libs did actually end up voting for it, so I have a suspicion it's not at the top of anyone's agenda. Which is why it was such a huge mistake for the Libs to let it go through washup.
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Date: 2010-05-12 06:32 pm (UTC)Serious props to Evan Harris, Lynne Featherstone and Tom Watson for doing their damndest to stop what is probably an unworkable piece of legislation.
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Date: 2010-05-12 08:02 pm (UTC)I wouldn't be too optimistic. The problem is that this is now a passed statute. There is a review procedure because of the way it was passed, but as I vaguely understand it, the onus is now very much on those who want to change it to show why.
The Tories are, ultimately, a party that prioritises property rights and entrepeneurship, which is, whether one likes it or not, a principled provision. To get them to care about it it has to be explained, clearly, as a civil liberties issue of the kind that will engage the likes of David Davies. Meanwhile they also have, on the rather less principled side, Murdoch on their backs. So far as the LibDems are concerned, individuals may get it, but does the leadership? Do they actually care enough?
On the optimistic side, if it had been raised as an issue in the talks, perhaps they might have wanted to avoid spelling out that it was for the chop and thus have Murdoch on their backs immediately. It's a nice thought, but I'm not counting on it.
One answer might be to simply not bring it into force. Is it a DTI (or whatever that's called these days) responsibility or DCMS (ditto)? If the former, what does Cable think, if the latter, who got that job? The point is, these days acts are rarely self-effecting, instead they contain a variety of provisions to the effect that a particular provision shall come into force when the relevant minister by Statutory Instrument says so. Not saying so happens more often than one might think. To take a fairly non-political example, vast swathes of the Companies Act 1989 never came into force. But they sat there on the statute book, waiting for an SI, until 2006 when they were overtaken by the new Companies Act.
Other than that: it has to be spelled out, in terms the non-technical understand, as a civil liberties issue. Fast. Otherwise, it'll just go by the board, because there's too much else to deal with.