(no subject)

[sarah_orange]

I don't put much politics up on here cos every knows I'm a lib-dem (hell I used to be an active one before I had a nightclub...) and people who only post about politics can be boring/patronising etc. But something a chap I know posted on Eddy's facebook suggesting the lib-dems didn't actually have any policies *really* pissed me off.

here's a link to their policy pocket book - an abridged (ie mostly lacking figures) version of their fully numbered manifesto.

I was just reading through it and I came across this bit. I knew all this already but I wondered how many people who aren't rabid lib-demmers like me knew it:

Introduce a Freedom Bill to restore and protect our civil liberties – Liberal Democrats
have put together all the freedoms that have been undermined by Labour and the Tories
in the last twenty years to restore them in a single Act of Parliament. We will scrap ID cards;
get innocent people off the DNA database; regulate CCTV; allow people to protest at
Parliament; stop councils from spying on people; and stop unfair extradition to the US. See
http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/

End plans to spy on your email and internet use – Labour want companies to store
information about your email and internet use – even storing data about what you do on
social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. This is a huge waste of money and
time, which we will scrap. We will ensure your private data is kept safe.

there you go that's me for today :)

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

:( It's the sad thing about being a third party -- because election coverage dominates the first two parties stupid people assume your party has no policies because those policies are rarely reported.

Our local PPC for the Lib Dems is excellent and I've got the Lib Dem diamond up in my window already.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_pyromancer_/]

This needs to be more widely disseminated. One of the Tories' big claims (and to be fair to the, it is in their manifesto, which will make it hard for them to go back on it) is to scrap the ID cards and database, partly on privacy grounds and partly on entirely sensible and very conservative financial ones, as if done as Labour would do it it's certain to be yet another spectacularly expensive govt IT disaster.

But they're not promising the rest of it, speeches about "Labour's database state" not withstanding.

Now the question is, how high up the agenda will the Bill Of Rights be in the event of a hung parliament?

I'd not realised this was still core LD policy. They talked about a written constitution and bill of rights back when I was an activist, but I've not heard much about this since.

[sarah-orange.livejournal.com]

this sort of thing is VERY big with the Liberals. even among the little old lady mafia that run the local party.

[thatmakesmemad.livejournal.com]

Would these policies actually appeal to the majority of voters ? We have an increasingly aging population and it's the elderly who are most likely to vote. What are the prevailing political attitudes in the populace ?
I get the impression that every group (Guardian readers, Daily Mail readers, Alf Garnets etc etc) believes that they represent the true majority and their opposing groups the minority and none of them have a realistic idea of what the majoity think.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_pyromancer_/]

Good point. An increasingly aging population who take their news from "Trevor down the pub" and the Daily Wail.

[orkney-rob.livejournal.com]

And the main one for me:

Getting rid of First Past the Post elections - which is a complete travesty of democracy - the "Will of the People" which the parties are all enjoying banging on about just now should be more accurately reflected.

Given that at the last election the break down in popular vote/seats was:

Labour 36.1% = 349 seats (Should be 235 seats)
Conservative 33.2% = 210 seats (Should be 216 seats)
Lib Dem 22.6% = 62 seats (Should be 147 seats)
Others 8% = 29 seats (Should be 52 seats)

I would rather see some dodgy Nazi types... sorry... BNP (spit) get a couple of seats (and MPs to be roundly mocked) as a result, than stick with a system where if you want to get in power you have to be in either the Labour or Conservative party. It would force a refresh in politics, and hopefully new parlimentary thinking. Oh - and given that mass majorities would be less likely then perhaps less stupid fucking legislation would be passed... haven't the Labour Party managed to pass more laws since coming to power in the 90's than ALL other governments EVER or something utterly rediculous?

[thatmakesmemad.livejournal.com]

Most proportional rep governments are based on lists ordered by the party so bang goes the idea of a local MP unless you live in London. Helps to filter out anyone who might cause the leadership problems.

[orkney-rob.livejournal.com]

I am sure you could work something in to get around that - even have each county having it's own list would be reasonable.

Given that I think all of our prospective MPs have been shipped in from elsewhere for this election it doesn't make any real difference anyway ;-)

[steer.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately PR never quite works properly at a constituency level. In the worst case, let's say the BNP get 0.5% of the vote everywhere. That's enough for an MP somewhere so some place is going to get a BNP MP they did not even nearly vote for. OK, that's an extreme case but anomalies like that will happen in whatever version of PR you come up with.

I still think it's a better system but it's going to be bad for some.

[sarah-orange.livejournal.com]

I believe the ld model is larger regional constituencies

[http://users.livejournal.com/_pyromancer_/]

That would be a big improvement. Get all the minor local stuff and NIMBY-ism booted into local politics where it belongs and let the national government be voted for by party and policy instead of some irrelevant local personality issue.

[thatmakesmemad.livejournal.com]

Most people don't know who their local candidates are (I don't) and vote on National policies anyway. With a party ordered list you would end up with even more professional politicians and a greater concentration on London. You'd replace nimbyism with not south of Watford Gap.

[prosperine.livejournal.com]

and a free magical unicorn for every child!!!! You can promise anything when you really arn't ging to get in.

Repealing laws is not easy - thats why we still use Peel as the example. Scrap ID cards is fine - but wheres the passport control changes to counter act that? The DNA database is also used to identify unidentified deadbodies and to remove people from tbe enquiry and speed up the investigation process and get bobbies back on the beat and off the paper work.

now, in fairness I have read all three manifestos and none of them appeal this time. I was also unbearably annoyed at the patronising article by the Shadow Minister for women in stylist today.

I get to be a little smug as we have an independent - who has been vted in twice!

[steer.livejournal.com]

Scrap ID cards is fine - but wheres the passport control changes to counter act that?

We would not need such as almost nobody in the UK has an ID card currently. If the UK did not need ID cards then no changes to passport control would be necessary.

[prosperine.livejournal.com]

The id card proposals were instead of changes to the infomration and the additional bimetric passport system. The system is outdated and needs a haul - either by cards or some other system . Personally, I'm happy with the card in principle.

[steer.livejournal.com]

OK -- still leaves the claim that scrapping ID cards will cost money because of changes to the passport system as untrue. Perhaps it is true that some limited part of the cost of ID cards will be needed should the UK adopt a biometric passport system.

[prosperine.livejournal.com]

Not really. Scrapping them will cost a lot of money. Labour have already spent a lot of time and money getting the system into place and amending the passport control to reflect the changes. A biometric system that covered the scope of id cards hasn't been quantified, neither has a system that would cover alternative limits. I don't see the lib dems rushing to explain what they would do instead - presumably ride their magic unicorns into parliamnet wave their rainbow wands and repeel the systems over night with absolutly no waste and no cost (save for the 2p rise on taxation which seems to cover everything!)

[steer.livejournal.com]

Actually they also plan to scrap the biometric passport. No magic unicorns necessary, simply not actually paying the vast amount of money for the system. Really, it's pretty simple and it saves money.

[prosperine.livejournal.com]

Wow. So just a scrapage of public spent moneys and a return to an outdated and already outmoded system which has been half implemented. Woot. Yep - that's definatly better than a magical unicorn.

Still, I guess when you have no hope of getting in you don't have worry about the maths making sense

[steer.livejournal.com]

The moneys have not been spent yet -- far from it. If you were right on that you'd have a point. However, since the ID implementation money has not in fact been spent it's pretty much pure saving however you slice it.

I don't know what you believe biometric ID cards will bring since their security has already been broken but there you go -- to me it's the ID cards which are the magic unicorn in this scenario and expensive magic unicorns at that.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I don't know if you follow UK politics at all but the Conservative party are also committed to scrap ID cards (and the national identity register). Some people believe they have a chance of getting elected.

[edwards.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't scrapping the biometric passport cause a few issues with popular tourist destinations? For example, you can't enter the US without an existing machine readable passport (if issued after 2006, "Biometric", though the standards are still inconsistent).

People pay for passports. Correctly managed the system should be low-cost; I can see no reason why passport renewal every 5 years instead of every 10 would be a significant issue if it moved the system closer to self-sufficiency. Extending the full biometric data to an ID card as well (bearing in mind we already have photocard licences for driving/riding motorbikes) would mean little additional data being retained by the state yet provide a useful legal document.

I'm against the mess that Labour have historically made of such schemes, but an ID card in itself really doesn't scare me. I can see it being more useful, than damaging.

[glennkenobi.livejournal.com]

Yup... knew that, but I categorise myself as a "rabid Lib-demmer" ... which sounds like a terifying fetish act. :-D