Voting TaKtiX

Hmmm…

1. Get elected leader of Conservative party
2. Appoint a respected elder statesman to lead an enquiry into renewing British democracy and the constitutional settlement
3. Make a speech proposing a significant constitutional reform
4. Completely forget to even mention it to said elder statesman and thus undermine his whole efforts.

Well done Dave. You impress me less and less every day.

Mr Clarke said the Tory leader would find it difficult to find lawyers who would agree with his plan to replace the Human Rights Act with the new Bill.

Despite heading a Tory task force on constitutional issues, Mr Clarke said he was not forewarned about the plans.

Not the best of plans methinks. In fact, given that the speech itself was completely half baked, I’m given to drawing the conclusion that he didn’t think this one through very well at all.

Mr Clarke said: “In these home affairs things I think occasionally it’s the duty of politicians on both sides to turn round to the tabloids and right-wing newspapers and say ‘you have your facts wrong and you’re whipping up facts which are inaccurate’.”

Said they should have elected him leader. We’re screwed, arent’ we? To get rid of Blair’s New Labour, we need to get people to vote Tory. How can we do that when Dave just hasn’t got a clue and plays to the gallery?

Ok, I’m swamped at work, and Dave goes and makes a speech promising some radical reform. Except that, well, he seems to have fluffed it. I’ve been trawling around; does anyone have anything good to say about it? Blogsearch gives me nothing. Best I’ve found is Liadnan at NM’s:

I am, nevertheless, hopeful, that this could turn into serious thinking on constitutional matters in general. I see it as a major problem with this Government’s reforms that they have been piecemeal and incoherent.

It appears to me it’s miss informed posturing and playing to the gallery. Obsolete has an excellent summary of the principle objections. Of course, a decent, enforcable Bill of Rights would require a new constitutional settlement. Something I’m wholeheartedly in favour of. With both Brown and Dave posturing on the issue, and the LibDems completely committed to such an endeavour, is it possible that the parties may start competing on who can do the best job of fixing the constitution?

I’d love to think so. Odds? Hmm. “This is your captain speaking, we do apologise for the turbulence, this was caused by a flock of pigs getting caught in the engines…”

If anyone does find someone that both knows what they’re talking about and thinks Dave is on the right lines, throw me a link?

The European Court of Human Rights today ruled that it was a breach of the Human Rights Act to deny prisoners the right to vote. The immediate response to this by Lord Falconer was that ‘not all convicts will get the vote’. It struck me later whilst reading the debate on the BBC website regarding giving prisoners the right to vote, how similar the argument of many people who would deny prisoners the vote was to one of the main failures of the work of John Locke.
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