They’ve been pushed forward by the Conservatives, the only party to suggest such a plan in their manifesto.

The plans put forward are to “shift power directly into the hands of the public as they elect police and crime commissioners to lead the fight against crime and disorder in their areas.”

If the public feel they are influencing the police force, albeit making them happier about the force in the process, this doesn’t also mean the police are more effective at their purpose and stated aims.

In fact it does run the very real risk of the public thinking they should be having more influence than they ultimately will end up having, potentially damaging approval ratings, and trust in the force.

And there is very real evidence that people that intend to get in to this position will do so by playing up to populist stances, without it necessarily being the right direction to take. Take this research conducted on the actions of public prosecutors (mostly elected) in the US.

The theory predicts that when re-election pressures are high prosecutors increase the number of cases taken to trial and plea bargain less. Data from all forty-three districts in North Carolina over twelve years provides empirical verifcation.

As a job, it’s not comparable, but it shows us really what we already know… It’s not a remote possibility that elected police commissioners here would seek to tie up police budgets on schemes that aren’t cost effective but do provide favourable figures in the eyes of the public…or at least the area of the small handful of the public that is likely to return them for a second term.

For a start, what do the public know of the nuances of police budgeting and crime fighting strategy? Some may have very detailed knowledge, many will have none. As I say above, the public will rely on trusting parties, at which point the public are merely delegating their voice to a party machine rather than having a true say of their own.

What the public should have is confidence that their communities issues are being listened to and dealt upon, something that doesn’t need a directly elected official, and confidence that where there is wrongdoing or incompetence on behalf of the police force that it will be quickly and comprehensively dealt with. What it needs on the issue of crime is that common sense is applied as to who is being brought to justice, a remit not even in the hands of local police forces themselves.

With criticisms of both the IPCC and CPS, as well as the invisibility of the police authorities that currently run some of the tasks that the police commissioner would take over, there are much more concerning areas of policing that could be improved and bring trust in the entire crime and justice system up another level.

Nick Herbert, a Minister involved in pushing the legislation forward, has called views like this “Elitism”, which is a very crass way of trying to switch off the political debate about such a potentially large change to the way our police attempt to do their job.

I for one don’t think it’s elitist to ask that we don’t make policy up on the hoof, that we set out a proposition (That the police could be reducing crime faster, and improving public relations quicker), and then carry our appropriate research in to similar models, how they’ve worked, how frequently they’re used, and if the model isn’t used then why not; to legislate potentially for small scale pilot study of the model that seems most in tune with out aims.

—
A longer version of this post is at Lee Griffin’s blog

This outrage is bollocks.

You only have to take a look at the sentencing history for “Violent Disorder”, coupled with Mr Gilmour’s nature in court (allegedly giggling at scenes of his actions), tempered by the fact he pleaded guilty and apologised for certain (but not all) actions.

Attacking a police officer by throwing bottles – 10 months
Encouraging others to KILL police officers – 12 months
Revenge attack on property, with “attack” of person, person of good character – 18 months
Taking part in a riot, repetitive attacks on riot police with state of mind to “re-arm” with projectiles, second offence – 3 years

16 months, given that Charlie doesn’t exactly seem remorseful of the main elements of the charge (which is the threat, as little as it was in reality, he put members of family of the head of state under, and the encouragement for others to break the law vandalism of property), seems pretty much bang on all things considered, doesn’t it?

Now, perhaps the sentencing range (maximum 5 years) for this offence is too harsh, that’d be a fair stance to take.

But to call this sentencing “political” or “outrageous” is to just not have bothered to check what is normal in sentencing this kind of offence, as it stands in law.

It’s ironic the amount of bashing the Lib Dems have to go through about “propping up” the Tories, by a Labour party that are doing just that on the single greatest barrier to public participation in politics – the General Election.

Labour should look in the mirror when they’re taking their opportunistic and “opposition for the sake of it” counter-gerrymandering and I hope they feel ashamed.

The cries range from the more acceptable (but most Tory) ‘AV is terrible’, to the ridiculous ‘I WON’T vote for AV while my party’s artificial seat count is under threat’.

In both cases the future of political participation is being threatened because there are those in Labour that would like to support the Tories in their quest for conservatism on this.

How? Through ridiculous calls for a split bill to placate their needs, purely so they can more accurately say they supported one part but not the other. But few could perhaps be as eloquent as Diane Abbott in explaining how one can “support” something while opposing other parts of it, especially when a particular type of outcome is inevitable.

Both bills split, or both bills together, will pass with or without wholesale Labour support.

Yet some Labour supporters, members and even MPs have had the childish gall to suggest that such a difference in presentation, regardless of result or process, may mean the difference in how they act at a referendum.

Labour are showing how they cannot be relied on to support the electoral reform movement, as opportunism and greed for political capital trump the chance to make our electoral system more open, more fair.

If you support the chance to make a step towards a fairer voting system and a greater say in who runs our country, get involved with Take Back Parliament.

However, while those organisations would put publicity ahead of their very reason for existence their credibility can only be shot to pieces; indeed the GMB have managed to do just this in spectacular style in response to Cameron & Clegg’s letter to public sector employees to help find alternative cost saving solutions, by blurting out their faux-fury at the way the situation is being dealt with…:

Cameron and Clegg have a damned cheek in asking public sector workers to cooperate in sacking thousands of them. It is an utter outrage.

We have news for Cameron and Clegg – public sector workers are organised in trade unions and we are perfectly capable of speaking up on their behalf.

The GMB will be joining other organisations and communities to resist the savage cuts in public services.

On the face of it the appearance the GMB is giving is that discussion about cuts with those affected is antagonising and heartless, that now a decision has been made on cuts the only outcome they will see is either complete government withdrawal of their plans voted for by parliament…the ultimate democratic structure of our nation…or for the government to do what they want without consulting employees with the GMB opposing them.

Anything more collaborative is, it seems, just “damned cheek”.

This is obviously strange given that the standard practice of unions during such talks is usually to rightfully stall a redundancy process by demanding that the employee is given a fair opportunity to understand the proposals, and to help devise an alternative that may save that person’s job.

To ensure that fairness is delivered within a decision about organisational employment first of all workers need to be informed that a process is about to be undertaken so that they are able to prepare for what is to come, to get representation if they want it. Then, armed with information about the organisation’s situation, they should be given the opportunity to through consultation and discussion come up with an alternative for the employer to take that they may not have considered.

Only then can an employer reasonably say that they have gone through transparent and fair process to deal with any staff lay-offs or restructuring…to say that they have truly considered all of the options open to them, yet here is the GMB actually arguing such a process is an insult, an aberration. It is everything that is wrong about modern trade unionism that would put a desire to make a statement and gain publicity ahead of advising their members (and potential members of the future) of the smart thing to do.

There is always a danger that such consultations about alternative ways to make savings will be seen as a placatory move with no substance behind it; this is precisely because we rely on trade unions to save our jobs through sheer bloody-mindedness and legal threats. Right now trade unions actually have a stage to make real claims about ensuring impartial assessment of how “fair” or “justified” redundancy action would be. Instead they are choosing to take a step backwards, away from influence and control.

For those that understand a decision has been made on cuts, that this is what is happening, and that the sensible way to fight it is to speak up about the waste that you witness on a day to day basis, excesses in capital spend by management that could go towards someone’s wages, and mismanagement that leads to inefficiencies…take the opportunity that the Government have given you, before July 9th, and speak up about how the coalition can save money without cutting jobs and ensure this is a process truly about finding a better way, and not just the government being able to claim that they did everything they could before letting the axe fall anyway.

So perhaps the bigger question here is “What do you mean by ‘won’?”.

Five polls were out last night, and you can see all their details here (all top line results are put handily in one post over at PoliticalBetting.com): Angus Reid, Populus, ICM, YouGov, and ComRes.

When looking into the polls these pollsters (except ComRes) didn’t just ask who won, they also asked questions like who performed best (a slightly different question from who won), who was strongest on certain subject, etc, etc. How did they turn out?

Angus Reid

Despite putting Cameron as winner, the other results in this poll suggest that the public thought rather much more highly of Clegg in the debate. When asked who performed well Nick Clegg scored 81%, while Cameron only 71%, Brown on 58%. While Cameron can marginally claim to be most improved, he can also claim to have appeared to have worsened more than those thought Clegg had.

The most interesting part of the AR poll, however, is undecideds. Not only did they overwhelmingly say they’re more or just as likely to vote Lib Dems with 69% compared to the Tory 52% and Labour 46%, but the undecided voters are actually a whole 46% less likely to vote Tories after last night, compared to 37% for Labour and only 20% for Liberal Democrats.

Result: A Cameron win, most improved even, though he was out performed by Clegg and turned off more undecided voters than any other party.

Populus

This poll had Cameron neck and neck with Clegg, though only by virtue of Cameron’s stronger support in the 55+ age bracket. Clegg is clearly ahead in the youth vote. In the question of being more or less likely to vote 41% are more likely to vote Conservative, but 39% less. For Labour it’s 31% and 49%, and Lib Dems 50% and 24% respectively.

Statistically it is also close on who people want to see as Prime Minister, 38% of people would prefer Clegg as PM compared to 37% for Cameron, and 2% for Brown. This is up an impressive 15% since before the debates, while Cameron’s stock has actually gone down 10%, and Brown’s 5%.

Result: Cameron and Clegg head to head winners, but Clegg is liked more, has improved more, and is thought to have won in a key Tory/Lib Dem marginal area.

YouGov

Again, Cameron win. But how much confidence does each leader have to make the right decisions for Britain? Brown 44%, Cameron 52%, Clegg 56%. There’s not much other data here, but YouGov does look at evasiveness, and I think it’s telling… Clegg 19%, Brown 29%, Cameron 49%.

Result: What exactly does a win mean if at the same time you’re seen as being extremely evasive, and can’t beat the relatively unknown Nick Clegg on Prime Ministerial trust?

ICM

ICM was the only of the pollsters to keep a consistent position on Cameron, though largely this is because 77% of the people polled had already decided on their voting outcome.

Result: Cameron won, but in voters that were watching who changed their minds, 15% of people, they were very much going for the Lib Dems (38%) rather than the Tories (15%)…especially among the 35-64 age bracket.

Conclusion

We can look at the final debate and say Cameron “won”. But the overall story is the significant win for Clegg, and a loss for Cameron and the Tories. Clegg has soared in popularity, ability and strength in people’s minds; even on issues like ability to be Prime Minister Gordon Brown has roughly stayed the same compared to pre-debate opinion, while Cameron is the only one to *drop* in the public’s estimation of his abilities.

To spin this campaign as a win for Cameron is just that, disingenuous spin. Down in popularity from three weeks ago, down in people’s opinion of how he’ll perform, this whole election campaign has been an eye-opening month for the public and the truth is they don’t like what they’ve seen in Cameron.

Cameron may well end up performing better than Howard in 2005, but his star is most certainly fading.

Perhaps you’re wondering why the party of the “Great Ignored”, the “Big Society”, and of course “Change” is now spending it’s time fear-mongering about the Liberal Democrats and electoral reform?

The reason is simple… the Tory support around the country is collapsing, and in some regions it is actually getting worse than it was in 2005. And, of course, it’s all down to the Liberal Democrats.

First up, prime yourself with this polling data (carried out by YouGov for PoliticsHome) for the governmental regions from 11th-18th of April. Note that this means the majority of the fieldwork took place before the first Leaders’ debate. Below is the breakdown, all figures are changes in the public support compared to the 2005 election…

The analysis for this is fairly simple; Labour are losing out, the Tories are taking the gains, and there is a definite improvement nationwide for “Other” candidates (the exception being Plaid in Wales). So far so very much over-reported.

So how much difference does a week make?

Check out the results for the same regional style poll, but from the 19th-24th April. Again, figures are changes from the public support in 2005. change from previous week is in (brackets).

It’s a complete change with the Lib Dems taking share away from Labour, but also clearly away from the Tories. In fact the situation is now so bad for the Tories that out of the 11 regions here they are polling either no better or worse than 2005 in 8 of them.

The only regions they are improved in are London, the West Midlands and the South East.

The Great Britain total itself taken from all these regions stands at Con 33 (-4), Lab 28 (-3) Lib 30 (+6) Other 9 (0); so as you can see it is entirely in line with polls that have been marginally back and forth for the last half a week.

Yet it is the regional data that makes it interesting.

In the South West, an area traditionally Tory that was supposed to make huge gains after local election victories is starting to slip away from them; all the good work they have done up until the election campaign in the North East, North West and Yorkshire and the Humber has been completely reversed in just one week of the public realising the Lib Dems are present and willing.

But perhaps most shockingly is the state of the South East, not entirely made up of the locations ripe for the traditional immigrant bashing, it is still a Tory strong hold polling 46% of the region’s support, but this is now only 1% better off for the Tories than it was in 2005, easily within the Margin of Error.

Could it be that not only the scandal of expenses, but that (unfortunately) specific Lib Dem policy on moving immigration to different regions may be the cause of this lack of improvement?

Unlike most areas where Lib Dem shares are increased slightly more by Labour losses on last weeks polling than the losses made by the Tories, the South East is moving more significantly from the Tories to Lib Dems than from Labour.

They need a sensible and effective strategy, both for the party AND the supporters that are directing both the ground and internet campaign for hearts and minds. Who or what should they be targeting?

My first instinct would be to say “Not the Liberal Democrats”. Here’s why (though, in advance, forgive the broad generalisations):

Of the top 25 target seats for the Lib Dems in May, Labour seats therein lie in either Scotland, the North East, or London. The only exceptions are Watford and Norwich South. Let’s be clear that the fight in Scotland is between the SNP and Labour.

Lib Dems might be sniffing around at a few extra votes but there is nothing that they can offer above the border that the SNP can’t in terms of electoral strategy. In London the battle is almost exclusively between Labour and the Tories.

Compare the above situation with the seats Lib Dems will be fighting the Tories for, Somerton and Frome now notionally a Tory seat despite being the seat of a Lib Dem front bencher, Solihull also notionally Tory despite being held by long term Lib Dem in an area Lib Dems are gaining at an equal if not better pace than the Tories…

In fact out of the top 25 target seats that are Tory there are only Guildford, Ealing and Central Acton, Eastbourne and Meon Valley that look like tough nuts to crack, down in the South Eastern heart of anti-EU anti-immigration sentiment.

The differences here are night and day, while Lib Dems will hope to achieve wins in the Lib/Lab marginals that they’re contesting the reality is that support in these areas is already high and isn’t going anywhere. I mentioned scotland above, but in the North East and London Labour are still polling a 53% and 39% share respectively.

The trend is downwards for Labour, that much is true, yet their supporters need to realise that these highly marginal seats are not worth butting heads with the Lib Dems over…it is the Tories that hold the threat. These regions are simply not turning Yellow just yet. They may do in the future, but not yet.

More pressingly the Tories first 8 target seats, all around the London area, are all virtually guaranteed to turn Blue due to their location, go further down their list to a more “current” swing likelihood and you have seats like Bury North, Ribble South and Pendle.

These are supposedly Labour’s strength and traditional support, yet unless they work out how to reverse the tide of support flowing from them in regions like this (North West) and the North East then they will also lose these to the Tories. It is here that the Labour party must be most careful and most proactive.

Meanwhile for the Lib Dems it is the Tories that must be the target of attack for greater parliamentary weight, constituencies already predisposed to voting “Liberal” and in regions that are seeing the vote share swing to the Lib Dems.

There are also three way marginals in the mix, and every bit of common sense suggests that in these areas the Lib Dems will win, most likely due to a Watford style crumbling of support for the main two parties, the latest Yougov poll suggests that where Lib Dems can be seen to have a significant chance of winning they get a massive 49% of the vote.

What it ultimately has to come down to is funding for the Lib Dems, and it’s the seats like Weston-Super-Mare and Devon Central that the local Lib Dem supporters and party are going to have to really take seriously now. A 2% swing against a resurgent Tory party in a fairly blue or yellow part of the country might have been daunting a month ago, but now there is no reason to fear that battle.

Money and time is what it all boils down to. If the Lib Dems want to capitalise on this recent bounce, however long it lasts, then they’ll need donations, they’ll need support…and they’ll need a local party that wants to go out and win.

What they don’t need is Labour denting their chances at taking a swathe of Tory seats, and what Labour don’t have much choice in is the number of seats they’re almost guaranteed to lose to either party in the South. Labour need to be smart now, and in all honesty I think the main party is already on their way to the right strategy.

Their focus, just like the Lib Dems, has to be the Conservatives and stopping the overall majority they’re aiming for.

Both the red and yellow party have significant differences on a variety of issues, but the one thing that I have always believed they are closer on is the lack of desire to see another Tory government given the chance to ruin this country.

The Digital Economy Bill has many problems, it is poorly worded, it is detrimental to our liberties in a way that would not be tolerated if the liberties being thrown to the wind were ones we exercised in the streets rather than virtual highways, and furthermore it is in part drafted by corporate lobbyists in the form of the BPI.

There was some hope earlier this month when Harriet Harman “promised” that there would be debate on the bill, however those words have turned (predictably) in to shallow and hollow shadows of themselves. Harriet Harman has given the House of Commons less than one day to debate a bill than similar sized bills of the past (Harman’s own Equality Bill had a good 12 days worth of parliamentary time for scrutiny). Labour (through Harman) have effectively said today that the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for our laws matters less than their own authoritarian decision that the law must pass before the next election. The BPI come before the concerns of the people.

Yet no party is coming out looking good on this subject. The Tories want this legislation to pass, they have too many close ties with the industry and too limited a knowledge about technology to stand up against it; and despite grassroots protests by Lib Dem members the party powers have been curiously quiet on the whole subject. Yet this is why it is so confusing as to what the rush is.

Democracy means nothing if after we’ve elected our MPs, and after any of them have stated that they want to debate this bill properly before it is passed in to law, this bill is still forced in to being. It will not have been democracy that passed this bill, it will have been the executive decision of the Labour party left to pass by a Tory party unconcerned with our civil liberties. And worse still it will not have been our MPs that draft the final and representative form of the law, it will be those with corporate interests and lobbyists such as the BPI that have money to burn on ensuring that their wishes supersede that of the UK population.

If our MPs don’t vote down the bill at second reading stage, or successfully table some form of motion or amendment to run the bill out of time, then on April the 6th we might as well have not had a representative democracy at all. Write to your MP and (calmly) tell them how angry you are with this affront to our democracy, let them know that while you know the second reading is conventionally a vote on whether to “consider” the bill, that due to the lack of parliamentary time it is effectively a third reading vote…whether they want it to pass in a form that is completely and utterly out of their control.

The Government here has one hope and one set of plans, get the Digital Economy Bill through to the “wash-up” in such a way that they can add bits and pieces to an already illiberal piece of legislation without the proper scrutiny of parliament. Instead of our elected representatives ensuring that we are protected from bad law, it would come down to the front benches and the party political whims of the main parties. In short, representation takes the back foot in place of backroom dealing to pass the bills, even if they are slightly watered down in the process. It’s for this reason that we have to stand our ground and ask our MPs to ensure this controversial bill receives proper scrutiny. If they do not provide that scrutiny, if the law goes through on the nod, then the government will have every power to do what they wish, opposed only by the minority Lib Dem party and the Tory party who are surely not the best example of a party beholden to public democracy over business interests.

For those that are writing to your MPs, specifically point them to the areas of the bill that are problematic (and do so in your own words, it has more impact!):

1. If you dislike the idea of OFCOM becoming a UK internet regulation body of any “editorially controlled” content “service” – see Clause 1
2. If you dislike vague law that would allow unscrupulous ministers to restrict your internet access without warning after ZERO warnings, if they so chose – see Clause 6
3. If you dislike the idea of being cut off from your internet because someone in your house/university/workplace allegedly broke the law – see Clauses 10 and 11.
4. If you a) Don’t want the BPI to draft law for us or b) don’t want websites blocked by ISPs because the ISPs are blackmailed with threats of legal costs if they don’t block access to the site – see Clause 18
5. If you don’t want the government to have the power to take ownership of uk domain names on a vague concept of “fairness” – see Clause 19
6. If you dislike leaving the door open to require online games to be regulated – see Clause 41
7. If you’re concerned about new law being made (re: Orphan Works) that is weakened by old law not being enforced – see Clause 43

Here we have a shopping list of concerns that have still barely been touched by the lengthy debate in the Lords. The main problem that has been doing the rounds is clearly the issues posed by point 2, the “three strikes” law that is worded in such relaxed language that how often someone has to “infringe” copyright is able to be amended in a manner that receives almost no scrutiny in parliament. They may say 3 strikes now, or maybe 50…but it doesn’t mean that they couldn’t say NO strikes, in the future. We have to, as with the Coroners and Justice bill before it, take the law at it’s wording, not it’s intention.

It is for ALL of these above reasons that we need debate to happen, we need to ensure that there is contention…the reason is that where there is disagreement before the wash-up, there is unlikely to be any passing of those parts of the bill during the wash-up without serious amendment. That is if the bill even makes it in to the wash-up. Our best chance to ensure that these potential afflictions against our human rights, afflictions without proper due process and through collective punishment, is to make sure MPs stand up and show the Government that not passing bad law is the only outcome to not being able to discuss it and amend it properly.

Alas, wait! What was that? Internet is not a human right? Who says so?. Well if we put aside for a moment that it is clearly, legally, not an enforceable right…aren’t there other factors? First is public opinion about internet access being a right. Overwhelmingly the global populace believes internet access IS a fundamental right. So while the Government may be able to petulantly claim that they are right in a legal sense, they are still legislating against the general mood of the public. Normally this might be acceptable if it were “for the public’s own good”, but in this case it is clearly only for the good of big business.

My personal feeling is that the internet is only not a right in the same way that being able to walk out of your house is not a right. When I put this to twitter the response I got back from alexwilcock was: [Digital Economy Bill] penalties written by music biz are as if Thatcher brought in indefinite house arrest to stop home taping.

This goes along with a lot of feelings I’ve had about how the internet is dealt with for a long time. Is the internet a tool, or is it a “virtual environment”? I lean towards thinking the latter. Reading blogs are like participating in group get-togethers, going to the BBC news site is like buying a newspaper, buying some shoes online is akin to taking a trip to your highstreet, emailing your parents only a step away from sending them a letter. This duality is why it concerns me as to the prospect of the various points above coming in to fruition; cynically I might ask “what does it say about what our law makers would prefer they could do in the ‘real world’?”

Take point 1. OFCOM regulation. It may be the case that it won’t go as far as the law wording would seemingly allow (it is fairly vague, even after scouring the original Communications Act 2003)…but regulating blogs, youtube videos, podcasts isn’t the same as regulating the content that is broadcast on TV or through the radio, it’s like a guy with a clipboard being present with you down the pub to ensure that no-one strays in to too risque a territory.

Then there’s point 3. Would you appreciate being put under house arrest not because of any court determined guilt, but because of someone making accusations of copyright infringement against you for something that may or may not have occurred in your property at the time? Is it even remotely justified to put you under house arrest, to stop you from going to the library, to work, or to socialise with your friends because of those accusations alone?

Or how about point 4…how would you feel if the police were stopping you from accessing your local community centre because a single individual or organisation had threatened the local council in such a way that it is too much for the council to risk the financial cost of allowng it to continue functioning for the community? Imagine arriving at your local pub only to find it inaccessible to you, even though anyone that is visiting from another town can use it freely; not for anything that you or your town have necessarily done, but because of the implications made by an individual in a completely unscrutinised manner?

Finally, point 5 would be very interesting. Could you imagine the police coming and turfing you out of a building you’ve legitimately bought, and putting it back on the market without paying you a penny, simply because you knew it was in a good location and could make some money off of the future sale? Somehow I don’t think that’s all too likely!

Yet practices parallel to these are trying to be made law simply because what we’re talking about are the highways of the internet instead of the highways of our local ward, town or city. It’s about time that we showed the Government that, just like our every day lives when not sat next to a computer, it is not acceptable to over-regulate and over-police the every day lives of our more “virtual” selves. The internet is a part of this world now just as the roads and pavements are, and it’s time to start acting proportionately to the problems and challenges that brings. We already are lumped with a system that says that our every web page visit and email must be stored in a database “for the children”, yet if the government tried to pull a stunt like chipping us, recording every movement we make and storing every conversation we have with one another there would be nationwide uproar.

The Digital Economy Bill is a step back for all of us, and another shot in the foot for our very democracy; a heavy handed approach to a relatively small issue. So again, if you haven’t done so please write to your MP and let them know you simply want them to do their duty in representing you and protecting you against hastily crafted law that isn’t in your best interests. If we’re lucky then we may make sure that it is only the few uncontroversial parts of this law that make it on to the books.

If you can’t remember the problems with Clause 17 then you should take another look and be thankful that due to yesterday’s controversial amendment getting through such measures are being weeded out.

I am certainly not saying the bill is good, or even adequate, in either it’s original or it’s amended state; indeed once the bill is passed to the commons I intend to go through it on Liberal Conspiracy in detail. There is a lot more that is bad about the bill than just the file sharing aspects, areas that will unlikely be debated properly in the commons as they have barely been touched in the Lords, and unfortunately barely touched in public opposition. But there are some things that need to be understood about where we are now.

1) Things like this amendment (120a) are not fundamentally bad, certainly not so much that we should spend all of our efforts on them compared to the much greater risks to personal freedom present in the bill.
2) We need to be careful not to over-react because we are ourselves making assumptions about the language used.
3) There has to be a distinction between the law and the practicing of law, and a realisation that no legislation on an issue like this can cover every eventuality.

So, why isn’t this amendment quite as bad as people are saying?

So far there have been few people commenting on the real dangers of this amendment, the main one being the lack of foresight in to the effects of allowing copyright holders to make demands of ISPs that may force their actions due to cost implications, and more people over-reacting on the potential for mass censorship. Unfortunately these people clearly haven’t read other parts of the bill that allow the government to take control of domains for “fair use” conflicts, and should see the ability for censorship by this government is much further reaching, and already rooted in other sections, than this rather tame amendment by comparison.

Take a look at the amendment below, wall of text does follow but you can skip it if you think you already have the gist of it…

Amendment 120a

LORD CLEMENT-JONES
LORD HOWARD OF RISING

Leave out Clause 17 and insert the following new Clause—
“Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement
In Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, after section 97A insert—
“97B Preventing access to specified online locations for the prevention of online copyright infringement
(1) The High Court (in Scotland, the Court of Session) shall have power to grant an injunction against a service provider, requiring it to prevent access to online locations specified in the order of the Court for the prevention of online copyright infringement.
(2) In determining whether to grant an injunction under subsection (1), the Court shall have regard to the following matters—
(a) whether a substantial proportion of the content accessible at or via each specified online location infringes copyright,
(b) the extent to which the operator of each specified online location has taken reasonable steps to prevent copyright infringement content being accessed at or via that online location or taken reasonable steps to remove copyright infringing content from that online location (or both),
(c) whether the service provider has itself taken reasonable steps to prevent access to the specified online location,
(d) any issues of national security raised by the Secretary of State.
(e) the extent to which the copyright owner has made reasonable efforts to facilitate legal access to content,
(f) the importance of preserving human rights, including freedom of expression, and the right to property, and
(g) any other matters which appear to the Court to be relevant.
(3) An application for an injunction under subsection (1) shall be made on notice to the service provider and to the operator of each specified online location in relation to which an injunction is sought and to the Secretary of State.
(4) Where—
(a) the Court grants an injunction under subsection (1) upon the application of an owner of copyright whose copyright is infringed by the content accessible at or via each specified online location in the injunction, and
(b) the owner of copyright before making the application made a written request to the service provider giving it a reasonable period of time to take measures to prevent its service being used to access the specified online location in the injunction, and no steps were taken,
the Court shall order the service provider to pay the copyright owner’s costs of the application unless there were exceptional circumstances justifying the service provider’s failure to prevent access despite notification by the copyright owner.
(5) In this section—
“copyright owner” includes a licensee with an exclusive licence within the meaning of section 92 of this Act,
“infringing content” means content which is produced or made available in infringement of copyright,
“online location” means a location on the internet, a mobile data network or other data network at or via which copyright infringing content is accessible,
“operator” means a person or persons in joint or sole control of the decisions to make content accessible at or via an online location, and
“service provider” has the meaning given to it by section 97A(3) of this Act.
(6) Subsections (1) to (5) shall come into force on such day as the Secretary of State may by order appoint not less than 3 months and not more than 12 months after subsections (1) to (5) have been notified to the Commission of the European Communities (“the Commission”) in accordance with the obligations of notification imposed by Directive 98/34/EC.
(7) If any comments are received from Member States of the European Union or the Commission after subsection (1) to (5) have been so notified and the Secretary of State reasonably considers amendments are necessary to give effect to such comments, he may make the necessary regulations within the period referred to in subsection (6)(a), to amend subsections (1) to (5).

What this amendment does is clarify the process through which a copyright owner can deal with copyright infringement on the web. A copyright owner can already send you or your web host a letter threatening legal action and, most likely, you’ll acquiesce to their request for fear of the financial impact defending the action may take.

The amendment also handily took away the Clause 17 of the original bill, a clause that could have enabled not only the action in this amendment but also much worse and much more draconian measures. Claims that this amendment is somehow worse than a broad and undefined ability for ministers to take the pen to existing acts without proper oversight are whimsical and undermine our collective argument. We want better definition and, to a large degree, this amendment helps deliver some much needed certainty.

Yet the claims of “mass censorship” due to this amendment will be the ones that strike the highest chord, and are certainly the claims getting more traction on Twitter. Unfortunately they rely on a misinterpretation of the text that really has no place in taking place. The problem is that people are taking “online location” to mean something other than what is explicitly mentioned in the amendment itself.

“online location” means a location on the internet, a mobile data network or other data network at or via which copyright infringing content is accessible

We are not talking about taking down the whole of Youtube for a number of copyright infringing videos, we are not talking about the taking down of the Orange network because one or two sites allow free MP3 downloads to your phone. The term “locations” could be better described in itself, but it is hard to interpret it as anything other than a single location, that of a webpage or sub-site of a larger site. In essence this is *GOOD* use of language because it allows the interpretation to be even more surgical than prescriptive, ensuring that this bill does not need to be amended every time a new technology comes out that could be determined to be a “location” in it’s own right.

I concede that it could well be that location can be claimed to be the whole of Youtube, the question then comes as to whether or not the safeguards put in place are robust enough for the courts to throw the case out as it should.

It is hard for even the most cynical part of me to assume that a court faced with a claim from a major copyright holder to put an injunction against the entirety of YouTube would look past points (a), (b), and (f) when considering such an asinine case. There is a case to be made for “substantial” being too much down to interpretation, but again we have to look at the practicality of law in the real world.

Sometimes we must leave some interpretation to the courts as, sometimes, situations cannot be measured against a single yardstick in a one size fits all approach.

What is the real problem with this amendment? Like the rest of the bill it focuses on ISPs, yet in reality…isn’t this inefficient? If I want to block Youtube from displaying my video why is it even suggested that this law will be a tool for me to use to go to every single ISP in the land and get an injunction against them showing the content? Seems a little long winded, and therein lies my main concern.

The amendment acknowledges the lack of power for UK based copyright holders to a) hold other countries services to account and b) to be able to tackle copyright infringement with relaxed laws on the subject. The only route to do this on an international scale is through ISPs, yet at the very first instance it feels like a better way of achieving the same result would be through careful collaboration with ISPs, consultation, and agreement between all parties that with the sites concerned there should be a block.

What 120a doesn’t tackle in any way shape or form is the current problem which is of the copyright owner having to pass a burden of proof before they are able to send threatening legal literature. The same can be said for our libel laws. The worst this amendment can be said to be doing is not fixing an inherent problem in our national legal system for the prevention of defamation and losses by one individual upon another.

Malign the amendment for what it is…carrying on the tone of a bad bill in the manner of legislation that puts the rights of a copyright holder ahead of a person’s assumed innocence, but not for the real world application it has rightfully considered, nor the clarification of an already existing process.

It may just be possible to get this bill through the Commons before parliament is dissolved, but the further question will be whether it is passed in any state that the Lords themselves will agree to to give it Royal Assent. Ultimately if we want the bill to fail, and there is not a whole lot in the bill that should succeed, we need to convince our Lib Dem, Tory and enough Labour MPs to either vote against the bill, or to vote for enough amendments that the Lords will be forced to question whether it is worthwhile even passing the resulting document before.

Rallying opposition is key, either to watering down the bill (or culling it) in the wash-up period, or creating a bill that isn’t worth passing any more. Focusing efforts on this one amendment will only serve to make a lot of Labour and Tory vested interests happy as it will frame the debate away from much worse areas of the law, that of three strikes, lack of due process, and domain registrar take overs.

Remember that now is the time to start lobbying your MP (via WriteToThem for ease) to gain as much support for the possible amendments and changes that will be put in the Commons to tackle this bill, and if possible to get them to stand against it completely.

Alternative views on this subject can be found here:

panGloss – More Trouble at t’bill
Tim Clement-Jones – on the Digital Economy Bill: web blocking amendment
PPInternational – the controversial Clause 17 falls, but at what cost?
Boing Boing – Lords seek to ban web-lockers

Of course solid doesn’t mean good, and I need to make sure it’s clear no-one thinks I’m even slightly in favour of these sort of right-wing populist policies rather than allowing those desperate enough to get good healthcare using our country’s system.

As with all immigration policy it is hamstrung (thankfully) by the lack of ability to wage it against the European Economic Area (EEA).

But for the purpose of the next minute or so of your attention I am not really going to argue about immigration…this is about elections, and more specifically why this story is another example of why the Tories lead is likely to be slipping.

This country knows what it’s political problem is, a Labour government that has let some pretty shitty things happen by most accounts.

Whether you’re the white working class believing they’ve failed on immigration, the liberal elite believing they’ve eroded our civil liberties, the socialists believing they’ve given to much to PFI, hippies believing they’ve committed war crimes or conservatives believing that they’re wasting our money on quangos…the collective consensus is that despite some honestly positive policies Labour has managed to fail most people most of the time.

The country doesn’t *need* anyone telling them this, it’s like teaching us to collectively suck eggs, so why is it the safe and trusted form of rebuttle for the Tory party?

With this Health Tourism story I was struck immediately by the way that Labour have planned out a solution to an issue they perceive to be in the public’s mind as a problem (despite the pitifully small amount it does cost us in the grand scheme of things at £5m a year).

The Tories answer to this is to say, quite pathetically, that Labour made it a problem in the first place.

Rolling out stock argument about immigration #1 there…

He added: “In July last year, the government announced a review of access to the NHS by foreign nationals, but never published the results. This is unacceptable and cynical.”

Really? In an admittedly short search you can find this written statement on the matter of NHS access by foreign nationals.

I don’t know why anyone would think the government would be launching a review in to something (as opposed to further consultation on parts of it) after it had just concluded a review on that very subject, but clearly Green believes it to be possible! It is actually the conclusion of this process back in July last year that has informed this latest development, so if anyone is looking cynical right now it is Green himself.

(For those interested you can see the latest consultation on access to the NHS for foreign nationals on the Department of Health website.)

If I were to try and attribute one emotion to the kind of statement made by Green (other than deceitful in parts) I’d attribute to it jealousy.

Jealousy because the Tories COULD have spent their time announcing this sort of policy that the general public would probably agree with at face value rather than bleating on with personal attacks on Brown, and jealousy because they currently only seem to have immigration as an electoral policy and Labour just beat them to the punch on a robust area of it.

Ultimately, saying “You made it happen” is no argument if the person you’re saying to can turn around and, whether they admit to the charge or not, say “But this is going to fix the problem”.

The argument of blame for the past when someone is putting a solution on the table for the future is the height of infantile and pathetic point scoring. At least the Lib Dem’s, who have fallen in to the same kind of beat, went as far as to explain why the policy may not be the answer it appears to be.

There comes a point when people want to know less who to throw their rocks at and more what the people supplying the rocks will do to solve the cause of their frustration.

For the Tories it’s put up or shut up time otherwise I won’t be surprised if the public responds by further lessening their support for a party that they thought was going to answer their problems, but instead brings nothing to the table.

However put in to the mix a sense of ownership and expectation for ones own outcome and we become much more selfish. Jump the queue and expect evil stares, the odd comment, and the person you’ve cut in front of to get abusive.

This is the problem with population growth in the UK. When trying to find something to blame there really is a simple choice in front of you.

You either put your gaze on those that have just as much right to be in the position you are, or those you perceive are “jumping the queue”; this is why the stance of anti-immigration is the natural position for a population to take when faced with problems caused by population growth.

Immigration isn’t a problem we need to solve when it comes to population growth; the problem is that of the sluggishness of our local governments, ineffective national initiatives, and the infrastructure we are putting too much expectation on without necessary investment. If we, nationally, fall in to step with the right-wing agenda over immigration we could see ourselves faced with the same problem further down the line just as a result of scientific advancement or, ironically, another competing right-wing agenda.

First of all let me pre-face the rest of this article; it is based on extremely short term statistics and their projection over many years. The only reason I feel vindicated in doing this is that our very own immigration projection is based on similarly short term statistics hijacked for a particular agenda.

First of all, to put a dilemma to those of a right wing tendency…abortion. There were over 195,000 abortions last year, an abortion trend that is on the rise generally. Let’s put ourselves in a world where the right wing really do take control of the country, in their full Christian glory. Immigration is curbed in to neutral effects, but abortion is also criminalised. Forecasts that put the population of this country at 70 million by 2029 are based on net immigration of currently around 120,000.

The comparisons aren’t direct, with immigrants bringing in children of their own being more readily able to reproduce; yet if abortion was made illegal in all but the most extreme cases, the effect on our infrastructure would be much greater than that of people coming to this country for work. Put simply, even in the worst case scenario only around a third of migrants are likely to cost the taxpayer any money. By comparison 100% of the 195,000 increase in births will put an immediate strain on our infrastructure and public purse.

But most importantly if trends continue, including net zero migration, our population will increase to 70mil by around 2030.

(On a side note, how hilarious it is for a body of people usually so anti-abortion to start using the tendency of immigrants to want to give birth to their unborn children as a factor in immigration scaremongering.)

However, what about something less divisive. Cancer. We’re surely all “anti-cancer” here, I don’t know anyone that wouldn’t jump at the chance to help find a cure if they could. After all the disease kills 1 in 3 people in the UK. With a death rate that killed over 509,000 people last year that means around 170,000 were as a result of this disease. If cancer was cured tomorrow, and immigration policy was set to net zero migration, we would potentially be left with a net population growth that would exceed the current growth caused by immigration.

In fact if we cured cancer it would be realistic to expect population to reach 70mil by 2033 at the latest (assuming no increase in amount of births, nor further decrease in death rate).

So, the next time that someone claims that it isn’t racist to be anti-immigration accept their stance on face value; but do also inform them that they are hoping for a reality that would be considered immoral to support, that of crossing their fingers and hoping that science doesn’t improve and prevent more people from dying. Let them know that despite the whole spectrum of politics that we’re spread across, and forced to disagree with each other because of, there is, if we all think about it reasonably, one thing we agree on. Regardless of what we perceive to be the problem there is one thing that can solve all of our future problems either from a right wing or a left wing perspective, acting now and investing in supporting population growth.

We must accept that our population may very well reach 70mil, may even exceed it, in the next 20-30 years. Take it as a truth that is potentially unavoidable in both any liberal or illiberal society, and then invest in what needs to be done to make life for everyone in this country comfortable when we do eventually reach that level of population. We will always need more schools, better health funding, more jobs and all of the various infrastructure that links it all together and makes it work.

Rather than pointing fingers at a controllable source of population growth, because we feel those people are “jumping the queue”, while ignoring any future development in national policy or scientific discovery (the equivalent to being asked to “give up your seat on the subway”), why don’t we instead speed up how fast that queue is moving and increase the number of seats on the train?

They range from helping you to find jobs like Job Centre Pro Plus to increasing democracy and political awareness like theStraightChoice with threats of legal action.

There are several posts already popping up from those directly affected, those indirectly affected, and from those supporting the idea of open source and free for not-for-profit use of the postcode “database”.

The question has to be asked, how much longer can the Royal Mail retain “ownership” over postcode information when that very information is, collectively, in the public domain?

Another site affected was PlanningAlerts.com.

They sent an email to supporters yesterday stating:

We are left with the choice of paying the Royal Mail up to £4,000 a year for access to the postcode database and either running a much less accurate and useful service or shutting PlanningAlerts down altogether. If are concerned about this, please consider doing the following:

– Write to your MP –

Tom Watson MP has tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament calling on the Royal Mail to allow non-profit organisations to use the postcode database for free. Please write to your MP asking them to sign this Early Day Motion (number EDM 2000) and protest at the actions of The Royal Mail.

You can write to your MP here: marples.writetothem.com

They have also set up a petition which has already been signed by nearly 1,200 people.

One of the reasons for this was the feeling that the state of this world was not one for pigeon-holing one’s self; I’d started my journey with 28.8kbps internet, AOL chat rooms and over the next 5 years was entering a world of ISDN, CSS, standards and the monopoly of internet explorer.

The fact was that the world of employment and hobby could change very quickly, for the better or for the worse. For me a broad understanding of science, mathematics, philosophy and literature would provide for my future far better than becoming an absolute expert in the one field that I had such an affinity for.

So why, in this world of changing ambitions, vast opportunities for development and greater accessibility to new careers and education, do Tories want to propose to set up highly specialised schools for kids aged 14+?

The world is changing, and it’s changing fast. I can, just about, understand that there was a time when sticking to what you know…what your parents have taught you and raised you up to be was no doubt the most profitable route to being “good” at what you did.

But what about today, do people change careers so frequently now because of poor education or lack of that historic inbred specialism, or because educational opportunities are so prevalent that people have the opportunity to shift and adapt until they feel comfortable?

More importantly, do people fail to join science jobs because science isn’t interesting enough or could it be that, for some reason, there is a lack of opportunities in these fields alone amongst all the rest?

Far from moving towards rolling out even more specialist schools after Labour’s ongoing model of doing much the same, shouldn’t we be moving in the opposite direction and even going as far as questioning our model of full time, further and higher education in the modern world?

Of course there is a benefit to having specialist educational outlets, from a liberal point of view we can definitely see the benefit of giving individuals the choice to get a greater knowledge of their chosen subject if they feel that is what they want to be doing…but why does this have to be limited to a small proportion of the nation’s students, and for the entirety of their secondary education?

Specialising isn’t an inherently a bad thing, it could easily lead a person to a great life and career, but as a concept it is outdated. Providing opportunity is about providing prospects, providing the tools to adapt.

But perhaps most importantly it’s about providing the incentive to learn that subject in the first place. If jobs aren’t fun and if they don’t pay further down the line then why exactly will anyone other than those with an extremely individual passion care to force themselves through such a career path?

A progressive party wouldn’t try to make someone in to a science student or a math student at the age of 14, they would develop an educational infrastructure that broke down the physical boundaries of schooling and allow any student at any secondary school the ability to harness the knowledge and best practice of our nation’s experts as necessary.

If the Tories were going to be truly progressive on education, putting aside the issue of funding and any pretense that any of the big three parties are even slightly progressive on education, they wouldn’t carry on the stagnant educational policy of Labour…as this, along with the more high profile benefits announcement, is ultimately all that this policy is.

So it should be with much greater fanfare that from next month our politicians will have set down the law that makes everything much more fair. That is unless you are the British Hospitality Association (BHA). If you are one of their illustrious sort then the response should be simply childish, petulant and threatening rhetoric about cutting restaurant staff jobs.

I’m afraid that the recession is being used as the blunt instrument here to give government the news that it will be cutting jobs, no doubt as part of some much more subtle ploy to blackmail them in to providing some financial benefit to the industry as far as I’m concerned.

One person’s job may not sound a lot. But potentially that’s quite a lot of jobs in these difficult circumstances,

Bob Cotton, BHA.

However the reality of what should and could happen is simple. If the restaurants NEED the money that tips provide to pay for the produce/overheads/head chef/expensive sports car then they have the right to put their prices up unilaterally across the industry, they also STILL have the right to actually take all of a “service charge” and give none of it to their staff…in the future the only change may be that they actually have to inform their customers of this so that no misunderstanding about where our money goes can surface.

Net result? They still get the exact same amount of turn over, and generally, according to Gerry Price whom I will quote below, “80%” of owners will be doing no more than they have done, and should be required to, in paying their staff the national minimum wage. So, I have to ask, where exactly is the problem?

The rogue operators will continue to work outside the system. The government would be better off trying to find those rogue operators, rather than a piece of legislation which I don’t think is necessary.

Gerry Price, gastro pub owner.

The quote above is surely telling of there being more widespread abuse of the staff in the hospitality industry than only 20% of restaurant owners? ‘Don’t ensure that people get a minimum wage, and that beyond that you can do what you like with tips, because 20% of us won’t follow it so 80% of us shouldn’t be forced to either’? It just doesn’t make any sense to make such a claim if they are acting so ethically already.

It also ignores (or rather tries to continue) another part of reality for the lowest paid staff members in this industry, and that is a lack of power. Right now there is a huge balance of power lying with the employer and not with the employee. Want to complain about not getting minimum wage unless you get enough tips? Tough, there’s plenty more people looking for work in a recession, they don’t need you specifically. Where is the incentive to complain?

With this law comes a shift in power, and perhaps that is where the BHA is feeling so threatened that they themselves have to resort to childish threats. In those 20% of rogue operators staff will now have the power to actually go to an authority higher than their boss and bring their employer to justice for attempting to make them work for less than minimum wage. No longer would their only option be to take the hand dealt, shut up and enjoy what they can.

This is, seemingly, what frightens the hell out of the BHA in to nonsensical and illogical statements in opposition to what, surely, the general public expects from this industry; an expectation for fairness for its workers and transparancy as to what the money we provide to those staff in good faith is actually being used for.

For a long time now we, supporters of electoral reform, have spent our time defending the supposed negative aspects of good PR systems. We have to contest with the broad and misleading statements of the likes Cameron makes, and we have to defend against shoddy government spin of shoddy reviews in to the subject.

The reality is that it is now time for FPTP to be put in the dock, to try to put an end to the sort of articles that blindly make sweeping statements for FPTP. In this time of reform the narrative shouldn’t be why the PR systems are supposedly bad, but why does anyone think that FPTP is any better?

Mark Thompson recently wrote a great piece, one who’s sentiment has been repeated time and time again (for good reason) on the arguments David Cameron put up against Proportional Representation (PR). It’s worth a read, especially for truly understanding how political deception works. Cameron states “PR is bad” in the same way that I could shout “jumping from a plane is certain death!”. I mean, yes, if I don’t have a parachute, and if the plane is also actually flying while I do it then my statement is correct…but it’s hardly the whole picture now, is it?

FPTP fallacy #1
“FPTP keeps government strong, able to operate without constant compromise”

This is an interesting one in the current climate. In the recent past the government has had to climb down or be defeated on secret inquests, 42 day detention, centralised storage of our data, free movement of our personal information and Gurkha settlement. Is this “strong” governance?

FPTP fallacy #2
“FPTP stops small minorities becoming king makers, taking power away from the electorate”

Linking extremely closely with the above…who do you think makes the government climb down? It’s not the Tories and Lib Dem’s in opposition who, even if they all vote together, cannot stop a “strong” FPTP government from doing what it likes. It is a handful of MPs on the government’s own back benches.

It is extremely entertaining to hear people argue against PR systems because they fear that a small party or groupings of small parties will be able to make government water down their policy, but ignore completely that behind the scenes there are constant dealings with back benchers to ensure they don’t rebel against the Whip. Do we even need to remind of the accusations that the DUP, who allowed the ultimately quashed 42 days vote to go through to the Lords, received promises of huge amounts of money for Ireland in return for their vital votes in favour of the government’s plans?

FPTP fallacy #3
“FPTP means that voters don’t know what they’re voting for, policy direction becomes the result of coalition”

With recent developments this argument is finally starting to show its weakness. People are tired of policy being dictated to them with little to no chance of their issues being raised in the Commons. The mood of the nation is that simply having a big ol’ manifesto to vote for (and to cross your fingers and hope that they’ll keep their promises) isn’t good enough any more. The game is up, people know their interests aren’t being pursued by the current system, and that their interests can’t be pursued without high profile celebrity involvement or back room deals.

The main thing here is that with FPTP voters do know who they’re voting for, and the majority of people voted AGAINST the manifesto that we are currently following. Perhaps the statement should be “with FPTP voters at least know the manifesto of whoever gets in, despite not having a proportional majority and likely not their vote.”

FPTP fallacy #4
“FPTP is a constituency linked process of election, you know who your MP is and that’s important for accountability”

But does it work that way in practice? There are some, those rebels mentioned above, that do what they wish because they know they are representing their people and not their party. They also know they’re never going to get a good job in government.

Whips under a FPTP system mean any constituency link is redundant. Because of the way that FPTP elects MPs, a voter is rarely voting for an MP as a local representative more than they’re voting for a national party. Want your views replicated in parliament? Tough, the Whip is the one who has ultimate control over your MPs voting habits, not you. At least…not if you live in a constituency where that MP has a nice safe seat and doesn’t have to worry about your change of vote meaning anything to their power.

FPTP fallacy #5
“FPTP means a parliament that isn’t breaking down every 9 months to be re-elected”

Finally, this one is more a matter of opinion on which you would prefer. In the past year the Labour party has largely failed to create meaningful legislation. For fear of it getting watered down by party rebels, to be mauled by the media, most legislation has been delayed and delayed, or dropped indefinitely (and quietly). Under PR it may well be the case that by now we would have already had an election to sort out, as Nick Clegg put it, this void in governance. Under FPTP however we must sit down and endure.

Is one truly better than the other? Of course a reasonable PR system doesn’t break down that often despite what the anecdotes of Italy suggest, but can one objectively look at the system as it is now with a lame duck government largely failing to legislate and failing to meet its own manifesto pledges but plodding on for another year is significantly more beneficial to the country than the idea of the country going to the polls early when the ability to govern has diminished?

So FPTP is a problem?

Of course it is, safe seats cause problems. Governments being in majority despite not having a majority of the public backing them causes problems. But the real problem is in how governance occurs constitutionally.

You may have got the theme above, but it is essentially that the problems and benefits of FPTP and PR are one and the same. Under FPTP a large majority government can railroad through their policies with little opposition, little fear of not getting their own way. The same can happen if a party achieves a huge majority through PR. Under FPTP if the government has a tenuous majority the interests of the party are weakened as back benchers become “king makers”, the same can happen in PR parliaments through smaller parties.

Most of the “problems” that are raised by FPTP advocates are constitutional ones, problems that occur under a different guise within their own supposedly superior system. At least with the right kind of PR system we know that our views will be reflected fairly in our representation, and that our MPs will not be able to sit by abusing expenses safe in the knowledge that no-one would dare vote for the other party in their constituency.

We can either stay the course with FPTP, encouraging complacency and lack of accountability, while living with all of the problems of marginalisation of government power or abuse of large majority governments…just as we would have to under PR; or alternatively we could take the brave and sensible step of introducing fairness in to the equation, and developing trust between the electorate and politicians by moulding a parliament that reflects, not distorts, public wishes.

If you wish to add your voice to the growing calls for reform there are many places to do it. You can take back power, or make your vote count, just to name a couple of avenues.

PANIC IN PAKISTAN

Nationwide
Why is Labour still seduced by Thatcher?
Lumley in fresh attack over Gurkha rights
UK recession ‘worst since 1930s’ says body
Brown: Mail plan may be your suicide note

International
Obama’s $63 billion global health initiative
U.S. tries again on N. Korea nuke talks
German court bans very long names
Joe Biden pushes Israel to halt settlements

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

Chicken Yoghurt details the moral virtues of our immigration minister.

Mark Easton turns Influenza A in to a philosophical musing on infantalisation of our population

Samedifference highlights the situation asthmatic children can find themselves in at school.

Lib Dem Voice looks at the figures coming up to the June 7th elections.

Jonathan Freedland/CiF comments on the all around bankruptcy of Labour MPs, and downplays Brown as the cause of their woes.

And finally Charlotte Gore is one of many bloggers to point out the Brown camp’s faux pas on BBC News. Alternatively you can browse through previous Netcasts

REPUBLICANS IN DEATH THROES

Nationwide
MPs urged to change Gurkha rules
Brown raises stakes in expenses battle
Phone bills ‘will rise’ to pay for database
Private funeral for Ian Tomlinson

International
US sets fight in the poppies to stop Taliban
European ministers on joint Sri Lanka trip
Sri Lanka bars Swede over stand on war
U.S. spends $1 billion a day on stimulus

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / Lee Griffin

Planet Jamie does some *phine* work in debunking the propaganda of Phorm’s frankly hilarious “Stop Phoul Play” PR-fail site.

Moments of Clarity is disapproving of compromise on the expenses issue.

Michael Tomasky/CiF muses on the republican defection, I have to wonder if a move towards a UK style absolute majority is ever “positive”.

Brad Hicks REALLY hates newspapers.

Next Left is extremely hopeful for the death of ID cards.

Mark Reckons investigates the significance of the number of people asking Brown to resign.

And finally Jock’s Place looks back to 1909 and the “People’s Budget”. Remember you can always browse through our previous Netcasts

TOUGH BUDGET AS DEFICIT HITS £90BN

Nationwide
MPs to get extra £150 a day instead of expenses
Released terrorist suspects face deportation
March sees 40% jump in house sales
Student studies affected by rising fees

International
Obama u-turn on torture culprits
Sri Lanka on brink of refugee crisis
China unveil nuclear submarines
Japanese woman sentenced to hang

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

John Q Publican has a brilliant analysis on the mentality and actions of the police at protests.

Faisal Islam/Snowblog looks towards todays budget.

Chicken Yoghurt quite rightly makes it clear we are not anti-police, merely against their brutal and disproportionate actions.

Political betting.com wonders whether or not Gordon Brown will rue the decisions he’s made on expenses.

Himmelgarten Cafe on the creep of prejudice against fatties. Would it be acceptable if the same arguments were used against disabled people?

My blog has a quick comment on the release of the “terrorists” in Manchester, but more worryingly why are they being deported?

Plane stupid notes about further abuses of section 44 powers to restrict harmless photography.

And finally Science, so what? talks about the pressing issue of our beloved bees; alternatively browse through previous Netcasts

OFFICER SUSPENDED

Nationwide
Real IRA threaten new campaign on Britain
Appalling treatment of detainees laid bare
DNA pioneer: drop innocent from database
How Nordic countries celebrate young lives

International
Taleban leader risks his life to seek peace
North Korea ejects U.N. monitors
Somali pirates hijack 4 more ships
Germany bans genetically modified corn

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

Jo Christie-Smith brands Labour as bullies with their recent “no benefits for Alcoholics” re-announcement.

The Freedom Bill website alerts us to a poll that shows a majority of people now against the database state.

Charlotte Gore thinks that the Lib Dem’s should definitely not be cosying up to anyone come election time, be your own boss!

Himmelgarten Cafe echos my sentiments on arbitrary detention and release of people, and how media portrayal only gives the authorities more power

Bad Conscience wonders why Labour must persist in banging their head against a red topped wall.

Innerbrat thinks we can all live in harmony with our views, as long as we accept people see prejudice where others do not.

Next Left discusses the legitimacy of direct action as a protest tool.

And on a more pop culture theme, Robert Sharp will probably be putting money on Susan Boyle. If you like this entry you can browse through previous Netcasts

G20: SERIOUS QUESTIONS

Nationwide
How police view of Ian Tomlinson death changed
Witnesses tell of dogs, batons and police attack
Now it’s time for justice, says family
Tamils bring their fight to Westminster

International
Obama presses Iraqi leader to unite factions
Protests in Moldova, with help of Twitter
15 years later, Rwanda remembers massacre
Afghanistan ‘rape’ law raises women’s rights issue

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

Think you’ve spotted a blog we should be linking to? Email and let us know!

Himmelgarten Cafe asks what the reaction would be if a police officer had been killed rather than Ian Tomlinson. Plenty of other bloggers also outraged.

Sim-O points out that Phorm are keeping up the PR offensive for their ISP endorsed spy/adware.

Quaequam blog furthers the questioning of whether the right are hypocrites or not.

Neil Stockley knows renewable energy is the way forward, but sees such little commitment to the cost necessary to make it sustainable.

Mark Easton casts an eye over the figures for legalising drug use.

CiF/Duncan Campbell believes the Met have a lot to learn, a whole lot more.

And The people’s republic of Mortimer has a chocolatey rant, about a glass and a half’s worth; or you can browse through previous Netcasts

STORM THE BANKS!

Nationwide
MPs condemn Mandelson’s Royal Mail plans
Tesco tells shoppers to leave excess packaging
G20 protests: The laughing professor
MPs’ expenses receipts hawked by businessman

International
Right-wing Netanyahu sworn in as Israeli PM
U.S. senators move to end Cuba travel ban
Pressure on over Afghan women’s law
Shrinking Dubai has gentler face in hard times

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

Think you’ve spotted a blog we should be linking to? Email and let us know!

Neil Stockley finds it’s hard not to focus on the MP’s expenses issue, perhaps to the extent too many “good” MPs are getting tarnished without warrant.

Andrew Reeves is concerned, however, that we don’t forget that the £100k+ expenses are actually mostly for funding their workforce.

Liberal Revolution feels that perhaps the Lib Dem MPs poo doest not pong, and the BBC is once again targeting them unfairly.

Simon Jenkins/CiF shows that the adage “If you are innocent you have nothing to fear” is utter bollocks, and now Jacqui Smith knows it.

Cornish Pip reflects on the future of social work and the truths about what to expect when properly protecting children.

The Sun Lies proves the Sun lies again, knowingly. Deliberate or are they just that institutionally slimy they don’t realise they’re doing it?

5CC on the tabloid language of “now”. All about religious firefighters being respected…

And finally Next Left looks lovingly at April Fool’s day in the media. Or feel free to browse through previous Netcasts

Let us take Higher Education not to be a luxury commodity, in a world where so many more students are taking the higher education root (though less than the 50% intended by our government) and most from families that can generally afford the current charges comfortably (see the lack of proportionate increase of “poor” students in to the higher education system). It is now a necessity to go through university to show your skills, knowledge and employability for an ever decreasing number of appropriate jobs and average graduate salary.

In short if you wish to get a certain type of job you must go to university to stand a chance of getting it (unless you’re in the lucky severe minority who has all the right contacts). Equally, if you want a certain level of living standards you must stop buying candles from the market, eating raw carrot, and making fires in the middle of your bedsit and start to use energy companies. So why have we got ourselves in to the situation that it is even being entertained that universities should be able to talk about increasing fees in such a market? We would not consider it or accept it for the energy industry.

When championing the idea of top-up fees Charles Clarke used the argument, and still does to this day, that those who benefit should pay towards the cost of education.

[Charles Clarke] says that the reform of fees created a much fairer system. It recognised that those who were most advantaged by a public service should make a contribution – but only when they were able to afford it.

I don’t wish to rehash old arguments about how society benefits from an educated workforce, and a knowledge transfer economy, but they still ring true today. Labour also had to ensure that there was a “cap” of £3k (interest allowing) and that was most certainly the right thing to do to absolutely ensure that the market being created wouldn’t be abused…any of those arguing that the free market argument can apply to higher education have been emphatically proved wrong by todays statement by VCs. I won’t even go in to the present unfairness that still exists due to difference of quality, consistency and duration of courses in different universities charging the same amount.

A bigger question presents itself from this statement though, there is no doubt a level of greed here…VCs have consistently argued for the ability to charge more and those from universities that could “legitimately” charge extortionate amounts wish to do so. But there is a definite problem of under funding that has built up over the years, without it the government would not have considered tuition fees in the first place as it is a supplement to the amount it gives to higher education from the central budget not a replacement for it. If VCs are still beating their drums on this issue is it not the fault of the government, and if it is the fault of the government why is it individuals that have to pay up? Ah yes, “benefit”.

Let us take Guy Smith, an academically talented individual who has decided they want to become an actor. They gain entry to Oxford to do drama and pay £20k a year for that privilege, paid for by government loan. Three years and £60k later Guy emerges a mediocre actor and lives his life largely as a bit-part player in a not-so-great theatre troop. When he retires he will be lucky to have paid even 10% of the loan back to the government. Missy Jones, on the other hand, wants to become a doctor and is charged £5k a year from her university. Five years and £25k later she is qualified and thanks to her career progression she ends up paying all of the money back to the government.

Now, let’s talk some more about those who “benefit” paying for it. There are two sides to this coin, the first in salary gained, and the second in wider societal impact. There is no doubt that Guy Smith spends £60k of prestigious government cash to do nothing but what he wants to do, with a relatively small social impact for such a choice. On neither salary grounds nor social grounds has anyone benefited, yet he is doing what he loves and is paying back barely anything of the “cost” to gain his additional skills. Missy on the other hand is gaining in salary while being a great asset to society. Yet Missy’s social impact bares nothing on how much she ends up paying for her education.

The problem, one that has frequently been explained by at least the Lib Dems to my knowledge, is that the result is an aditional tax on educated high earners for no reason other than they spent 3 years or more getting a degree. A person earning £100k without a degree may be approaching a taxation level of 30% of earnings while someone with a degree will be paying nearer to 36% until they’ve paid off their loans. Obviously the more VCs push up the level of fees, should government agree, then the more such a taxation level resembles a graduate tax rather than repayment of a loan.

Surely it is not rocket science to recognise that when it comes to salary the way to tax that “benefit” is through income tax? Unfortunately Clarke and Labour surely believe that because rich families can dynastically retain control of large amounts of wealth without a public service that they can keep their wealth, while those from poorer backgrounds that have aspirations and are willing to work hard don’t deserve to achieve such status as freely. If university truly is a public service then it should function as lubricant to lessen the class divide in achieving our goals, not help reinforce them.

Now, far from creating a situation where “mickey mouse” degrees are not paid for by the public purse, top-up fees have created a situation where the most successful, and thus those who have the highest likelihood of benefiting us, through things such as healthcare, advocacy, representation, and benefiting our economy are the ones taxed for the privilege they give us. It is also succeding in proportionally disadvantaging (or in the case of very poor families, doing nothing to improve the situation of) those that wish to make the biggest leap in their individual circumstances. This is surely backwards on both counts. More importantly it makes a mockery of the whole system that was originally intended to ensure higher education deficits were paid for WITHOUT public money.

If VCs want the money to keep their universities up to standard, and it is genuinely needed, then the government needs to think of a whole new direction for funding that works on all of the factors that it brings to our society. Basing the funding of our universities and higher education institutions solely on the salary of the individual, and god forbid allowing a free market on provision, is incredibly short sighted and ultimately fails in its primary objective. Meanwhile it is down to us, those on the left AND the right, to start to make this message clear to the general public. Following VCs demands won’t decrease the amount of their taxes spent on “lazy students”, it will only increase it, and worse still it will increase it specifically to pay for those other than talented individuals that keep our society functioning and growing in a direct manner.

More on the student campaign on this issue can be found on the NUS website.

Smith Re-Scrutinised

Nationwide
UK rail commuters pay twice that of the EU
Mortgage lending recovery not yet in sight
Banks add £1.5trillion to public debt
Brown shadows Lib Dem policy with hints at tax cuts
Assisted suicide case fails

International
Migrants in Italy revolt
“Obama should apologise for Iraq” – Tutu
Netanyahu moves ahead as favourite for Israeli PM job
Facebook backs down on data rights

DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin

CiF/Timothy Garton Ash echo’s my feelings of the infringements on our liberties feeling like a bad dream.

CiF/Seumas Milne writes of the terrifying yet unsurprising announcements of just who will be treated as “terrorists” if Jacqui “Himmler” Smith gets her way.

LDV/Stephen Tall agrees that Nick Clegg should be making bold statements about families using recession as an opportunity to change.

Meral wonders why there appears to be an ultra-conservative member of a liberal MEP group in Europe.

Himmelgarten Cafe is a tad ashamed of the Brit Awards.

Freethink on the dilemma of modern universities with an emerging global market for foreign (high paying) students.

Bleeding Heart Show showcases some tips for writing effectively.

–
We’ve seen the debate, we’ve seen the law. The Coroners and Justice Bill can, in essence, remove the Data Protection Act wherever the government sees fit. Nevertheless, various people have jumped out of the woodwork to claim it is properly safeguarded. However, that the bill is somehow impossible to use in the means in which its laws are actually written down. Safeguards huh? Let’s see just how safe they are really.

The “good government” defence

I shall quote you one of the first things said in the committee that scrutinises the evidence of those with a stake in this bill, an exchange between David Howarth and Bridget Prentice…

David Howarth: But the circumstances—the pursuance of any Government policy—are not specific. Obviously, the Government do not have to tell anybody what their policies are; in fact they could act in pursuance of some new policy that they have just made up.
Bridget Prentice: One of the aspects of this Government is that we are constantly telling people what our policies are.
David Howarth: You do not have to.
Bridget Prentice: I dare say, but it is generally not good government not to tell people what the policy is.

The good government defence is a fraudulent one. What Bridget here is saying is that there is no need to tighten up the law as written because the government won’t possibly abuse it, they won’t mislead and they won’t hide their intentions. What Bridget is saying is an affront to the realities that at any point a government could take power that is not “good”. What Bridget is saying is an affront to the reality that the Labour government is not “good”.

Taking someone’s word for it, which is what we will have to do if the law is not tightened up and made more specific, is not something we are naturally inclined to do. If I agree to a payrise with my employer I don’t just take their word that I’ll get it, I’ll have it in writing. If I take a faulty appliance back to the store they don’t just take my word that I bought it from them, they require proof of purchase. Why this government seems to think that we should just trust them after a history of abusing and eroding our liberties, as well as losing our data, I just can’t fathom. Needless to say the idea that the government is good (from whoever’s perspective) being a safeguard is an astoundingly naive one.

The “proportionate” defence

The next defence is down to the section of the law that states…

[4] (b) that the effect of the provision made by the order is proportionate to that policy objective, and
(c) that the provision made by the order strikes a fair balance between the public interest and the interests of any person affected by it.

Let’s just review what proportional means to this government. To this government it is perfectly proportional to create a database to hold the data of every single traveller in and out of the UK because of 0.036% of them being arrested (not even convicted) based on the data they already collect.

Proportionality (or fairness) is somewhat of a weasel word in politics. It means everything and nothing at the same time; judges in cases of law refuse to rule on the determination of “proportionality” due to it being an entirely political matter. If a minister says that what it’s doing is proportional then who is to say that it isn’t? It’s for this reason that the sentence that determines the need for proportionality is not a safeguard for erosion of our right to privacy, after all we know that there only has to be the suspicion of less than 0.05% of us to be doing something, or to be benefitted by data sharing, for all of us to needlessly have our data shared in the process…the precidents are set and they are not in our favour.

One could also look to the past to see how this government treats people with “fairness”…

We have had discussions about people who have lost their key. I find it slightly eccentric, although it is not impossible, that someone can lose a key that he needs to access a large amount of data. Such things happen, of course, and the person has a perfect defence if he has lost it and then forgotten it. I do not believe that a court would convict people in those circumstances if it believed them.

A government that believes that a person should be dealt with as guilty if they have simply lost a data encryption key, and forced to defend from the position of being guilty in the eyes of the government, is not a government that could ever be described as having a balanced description of how to “fairly” treat anyone, and that is not even going in to the argument of 42+ day detention for terrorist subjects, or arbitrary stop and searches that contravene methods to stop the police from discriminatory behaviour.

The “defined scope” defence

Just above the “safeguards” talked about above is the idea of a “defined scope”, that is to say that the government has to marry up the information sharing order to a policy that exists. What policies might they be? Well I’ve already provided a quote that shows the government doesn’t have to tell us what their policies are, nor why an order might link to that unknown policy. We as people affected by that policy don’t need to be told about it, and it can be made easily…so how exactly is this a safeguard? It is perfectly feasible for the government to decide they want to do a type of data sharing that they can’t link to a policy, proceed in inventing some policy to enable the sharing order, and carry through with it.

If sharing orders had to relate to something more substantial, something that could only be in place through proper debate involving those that are not solely biased through wishing to create such policies, then perhaps this would be a safeguard. However given that the sharing orders themselves need not be debated in the house, rather than in the back rooms in committees, it’s not a surprise that the government wishes to implement as few real hurdles to subjective and partisan law making as possible.

The “scrutiny” defence

Possibly the greatest safeguard myth of all is the idea that all of what will be passed is up for scrutiny, by the ICO and by other MPs. That’s not to say it isn’t true, scrutiny will be achieved…the myth is in that such scrutiny will change anything. Look at this division in a standing order of the past, note that the committee is made up of proportions roughly equal to the house of commons, thus there are more Labour members than non-Labour. What you’ll see is that as long as the members of the committe on the side of Labour are loyal, there is no way that scrutiny can result in the order not being passed. It’s precisely why no statutory instrument has been voted against by majority since the 1960′s.

It’s a sad fact of our democracy that our constituent views rarely matter, unless they reinforce the points of the parties that such constituency MPs wish to make. It is for this reason that governments can make legislation one year that promises (and here’s more of that “good government” bollocks) that it will never use a law for anything other than a set of specific circumstances then another year open up the law to all and sundry (read: Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001)). Phone call data being stored started as voluntary, then a statutory instrument made it mandatory…then another added a list of public bodies that could access that information. This practice has continued and continued so that whereas we started with a law that allowed 9 public bodies to access such information to stop terrorism and protect national security, we now have many hundreds that can access it for reasons that include to stop people from committing suicide or to (famously) check if people are in the correct school catchment area.

All of this could happen because the amendments to primary legislation, debated in the house properly, are done by less than 20 people in a back room in a manner that is short on time and where ammendments and therefore proper scrutiny is disallowed. If this bill passes in the same way then it is that level of scrutiny without effect that will be felt on orders that could take the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act’s beginnings to allowing 1000′s of public and private bodies to use your data for whatever reason they like, including selling it on for profit.

The “accountability” defence

An argument that the ICO gave, naively, in favour of the legislation’s parts that they agreed with was that there was accountability in theory. The simple claim is that if the government has to apply to the ICO, for a privacy impact assessment, and then debate an affirmative resolution order, that there is enough accountability to see who did what wrong. The accountability defense is flawed for two main reasons however. Firstly even if a discrepency and an abuse of power was found, there is nothing the electorate can do until another election. Accountability only matters when people can be held to account in a relevant amount of time, and given that every individual in the country would have to be religiously following the OPSI pages for new Sharing Orders before even having a hope of spending their own cash on thwarting any such occurance the liklihood of accountability is extremely slim.

Secondly the accountability relies on governments “playing ball” with the ICO, and even with the members of the house. Richard Thomas states:

The statute will say that there is only 21 days for the office to comment, which is not very long at all, but in practical terms I would certainly expect any Department wishing to bring forward a scheme to contact my office many months in advance, to keep us up to speed as to what is envisaged, to consult us on how it will conduct the privacy impact assessment, and to share it with us before bringing the order at the formal stage for our comment. Unless that kind of contact happens in practice, with many exchanges before the 21 days start to run, I think that some of your concerns are justified.

There is no requirement in this bill for anyone to give any notice to the ICO of these Sharing Orders. It could invoke the “national security” argument that has won them so many powers in the last decade and shove something on to the table, give the ICO no time to do a proper assessment, and then not give anyone that is meant to keep the process accountable and transparent a chance to suggest alterations…given they, or members of the house, are able to amend any terrible order trying to be passed through.

All of the above point to the ongoing tactic of the Labour government to over-legislate to give itself powers to not only act in terms that are necessary, but also for them to act as judge and jury in whether or not to allow more innocent actions are determined to be illegal. You only have to take the example of making it illegal to photograph police officers from today, Labour will insist that it won’t prosecute anyone simply taking tourist pictures and happening to snap a copper, but they will be undermining the law they create…but at least it will mean that when someone comes along that they DO want to prosecute, for whatever reason, if they can happen to find one instance of these overzealous and disproportionate laws being broken they will have the right to bring down their full power upon them.

That is precisely what this Coroners and Justice Legislation aims to do as well. They will tell us that they will “never abuse” the powers they’ve got, but they are all the happier that such laws are there to be abused if they suddenly feel the urge…and it’ll be all the worse if we sit back, fold our arms, and pretend that there are barriers there for our safety when the reality is that there are none. At the very least Part 8, 152, 50B (h) enables a government to remove any and all of these safeguards, and any safeguards in the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act, at any time it wishes.