Voting TaKtiX

Tom Watson asks:

Seriously, I’d be interested to know what people think about this stuff. Is it a new way of communicating or just clever marketing and spin?

Both, I think. As Paul Walter observes:

Does he think we were born yesterday? If you were going to do a videcast would you do it while you were doing the washing up?

It’s obviously staged and intended to make him look like a ‘normal’ person, right down to the flat not being 100% clean and tidy. But, essentially, while it is a little cynical, it’s a sign that politicians are learning and adapting to the new media environment. (more…)

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?

Via new blog Escalate, I’m pointed towards a speech given last week on the future of the European Union. Given by

a firm believer that Britain’s place is in the European Union … someone who wants the European Union to succeed

it contains much that I agree with completely. I have some reservations, some disagreements, but overall, it’s a very positive approach that identifies the key failings of Blair’s EU policy and also sets a strong direction for where to go next. Some highlights: (more…)

I’ve never liked negative campaigns. The demonisation of the opponents, the personal attacks, etc. I prefer to see debates on the issues, genuine engagement, open discussion. Of course, that’s not to say that negative posters, etc don’t have a place, but the over-emphasis of them in recent years has, to my mind, been part of the degradation of political discourse that has lead to the widespread apathy that we’re all aware of.
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Robert Philpot has an excellent analysis of the need for the Conservative party to adopt electoral reform as a platform (via): (more…)

Terry Waite (of kidnapped and held as hostage fame) in Wednesdays Independent (not online):

I wish more people would take notice of…
The gradual and insidious restriction of personal liberties in this country as a result of the hype about terrorism. There is a tendency in this government to be reactive without thinking deeply. We’re letting a lot of things slip by. If we allow that to happen, terrorism has won because it’s deprived us of hard-fought liberties.

(my emphasis)

Boris Johnson:

I have been talking to Agnes Callamard, who leads a free speech charity called Article 19, and she tells me that wherever she now goes on her missions, she finds a shocking new phenomenon. She has just been to the Maldives, where the government is engaged in active repression of the press, shutting down radio stations and locking up journalists if they even carry quotations from the opposing MDP. When she remonstrated, she was told that any criticism was a bit rich coming from a British organisation, given that the British Government has just passed draconian new measures against incitement in the Terrorism Bill.

It was the same story in Nepal, where torture has been used regularly against opponents of the regime, and where there are similar restrictions on free speech. “A senior government official told us that they were only cracking down on terrorists, in the way that they do in the UK,” said Callamard.

picking the exerpt to quote on that one was hard, go read the whole article; when I disagree with him, I respect Boris’s writing style. When I agree with him (as in this case)? Brilliance.

It’s reading Boris and similar that has led me to conclude that not all the Tories are evil bastards. That’s still hard for a part of me to accept. But I’d rather have Boris in Govt than the current shower, at least he values the principles we’re supposedly fighting the war on terror to defend.

Final word:

Of course these analogies are opportunistic and false, and of course there is no real comparison between Britain and Malaysia, let alone Zimbabwe. Thanks to the goodness of the editor of this paper, I can say more or less whatever I want, provided it is not too catastrophic for circulation. But what Blair fails to understand, when he promulgates this endless succession of new and ineffective Criminal Justice Bills, and when he curtails trial by jury and freedom of speech, and when he enacts all the other potential erosions of liberty that we have seen over the past nine years, is that he is handing a perfect pretext to the despots of the world.

In an ideal world (ie one where I wasn’t skint), I’d have been in London yesterday for the Power Commission conference. Fortunately, Davide has written an excellent report from which I warm (a little) to Dave (again): (more…)

So, they’ve made good on their promise to “park their tank on David Cameron’s abandoned lawn”

Well, sort of. Guys? It’s not a tank. Even the Telegraph puts ‘tank’ in quotes. (more…)

The bill got passed. We are all to be numbered and categorised. I will not submit. So, we have some heroes, some villains, and some dodgy characters. Heroes (more…)

I just don’t get it. First off, the government tries to say that passports wont be compulsory because people don’t ‘need’ to have passports. The opposition see it for the lie that it is, and rightly oppose it. Charles Clarke gets laughed at in the house of commons for uttering such a barefaced lie.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. Same situation, the government is now trying to convince everyone that everything about the ID card system is fine, because it will be delayed by four years. This time though, the opposition buys it, hook, line and sinker.

Why? Why, after opposing the bill for so long and forcing the government into ever increasing ridiculousness, after laughing at this country’s Home Secretary for the length to which he was willing to lie for Tony and his bill, after it has been proven time and time again that ID card wont help to stop terrorism, wont reduce crime, will be abused by the police and the government, why did they cave in just like that?

I honestly thought this was going to go all the way to the Parliament Act, and at least to some extent I can hold my head up high and say that my party of choice did try their best to ensure this happened. I completely agree with the comments on Spyblog about the lack of trust over civil liberties from the Tories; slim chance though it was, David Cameron has just lost any chance of getting my vote.

I honestly do not think that I have ever got this riled up about any act or bill or law ever introduced, and that includes the fox hunting ban which I campaigned to be introduced quite passionately. This system will not only destroy a good deal of our ‘civil liberties’ and ‘personal privacy’, but it will almost certainly be a huge failure will gaping security holes which will compromise individuals across the whole country.

I will not carry an ID card, and I will not allow my personal information to be held on any register. I would urge everyone to follow Mat’s ideas below and refuse to vote for any candidate in an upcoming election that will not vote to do away with the national identity register.

Update: changed a few misleading titles, nothing deleted, for honesty’s sake.

So, James and Joe ask a very important question and raise some valid concerns; what is the campaign for. By defining it as purely against Labour, James is correct when he says:

If there is to be a “coalition of the willing” on civil liberties issues, then let it be for real civil liberties, not a handful that Conservatives have deemed electorally useful to cherry-pick. Let it concentrate on individual candidates and politicians, tactically opposing any candidate who doesn’t sign up to X, Y, Z rather than letting individuals off the hook and supporting “best fit” political parties who subsequently will be under no pressure whatsoever to carry out their reforms.

We have to be careful to be in favour of something, not just against something. We need to be campaigning for liberty and reform, not just against the current government, we need to be a positive force, not a negative force.
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OK, Unity of Talk Politics has already registered a domain, so part 2 is in progress, completely independently. Link to follow, naturally, when there’s something to link to. He’s also said he’ll post more on the subject over the weekend on his blog, so watch that space as well. Initially, I was put off the name by connotations in modern politics, but then Nosemonkey reminded us all of the title of J.S. Mill’s seminal work, On Liberty. (more…)

Well, that’s stage one complete, get peoples attention. Thanks to all the links people.

Now, stage two. Um, right. (more…)

The problems with NuLabour

The New Labour project started as a method of making Labour electable again, by bringing under control their less, shall we say, thoughtful, elements. In government, it has taken that controlling tendency further. It is taking control of our lives. (more…)

It looks like talk of the death of the Lib Dems might have come too soon. On a total swing of 12800 votes, Willie Rennie and the Lib Dems have yet again dealt a massive blow to Labour.
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So, Dave wants to reform the powers of the Queen does he? Remove the PMs power to declare war without Parliamentary approval? Check the prerogative powers exercised by Ministers? Dave mate, are you sure you’re not really a Whig? What are you doing in the Conservative Party? Changing the way the constitution doesn’t work so that people may respect it more?
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So, Mark Oaten resigns in a rent boy scandal after being confronted by the News of the World. First website to break the story? BBC? ITV? Sky? Nope, Iain Dale’s blog.
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So, Charles Kennedy announces he will not now run for leader:

it had become clear he did not have strong enough support among MPs and had decided to quit with immediate effect.

Good. Having been reading blogs and comments in many locations, it had become clear to me, as with many others, that, no matter how much we like the bloke, his position was untenable. I wish him well, hope he can recover from his problems and, specifically, hope that he can both remain in politics and return to a frontbench position at some point; talent such as his should not be thrown away. So…

Where now?

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