1984… The Day After
Yes, I shamelessly stole the title of this post from a Commodore 64 game that I used to love (although it was called 1985).
So, it’s the day after the election and the people have spoken, no one party has earned the confidence of the electorate. Unfortunately, due to the First Past the Post system of democracy that we have in the UK, the Liberal Democrats have lost seats even though they earned more votes and received a higher percentage than they had in 2005.
Of course, this higher number of votes was less than the media were estimating (and less than I was hoping for) but I have a feeling that part of this is down to the knowledge that “My vote won’t make a difference, I live in a safe seat.”
This is a feeling I’m used to, living in the North East I’ve learned that, no matter how I vote, the Labour candidate will always win – my seat (Newcastle Central) is so safe that I received 2 flyers throughout the whole campaign and have never met any of the candidates. The same happened in 2005 and I’m sure – without drastic political reform (is it just a coincidence that political reform and proportional representation share initials ;-P) I know it will happen the next time I’m called to the ballot box.
But that’s not the only issue I have with the election. Nick Clegg clearly stated that he would look at working with whoever won the greatest percent of the electorates vote. I know intellectually that this is the Conservatives and that – to show that the Lib Dems are different – he needs to offer to work with the Tories.
But in my heart I can’t resign myself to the oxymoron of a Liberal/Conservative alliance. The two parties are just so far apart that, even in these days of the Big Brother state watching us constantly, telescreens monitoring our every footstep through the country’s towns & cities, and the newspeak spouted in every politicians speech, in the papers, on TV, this particular form of doublethink is beyond me.
I can’t even begin to fathom what sort of concessions the (now smaller because of FPTP) Liberal Democrats will have to make. Nick will have to decide which minority doesn’t matter, which of the huge policy changes that the Liberal Democrats have fought for these many years that have passed he’s prepared to give up on. Are the Lib Dems going to become less Liberal? Or less Democratic? Because it’s the only way I can see them being able to work with the Conservatives.
The Lib Dems however have another quandry. They have a committed core of voters who truly, passionately, and vehemently support their stance on equality, immigration, political reform, taxation and the role of the state. So any concessions that Nick Clegg makes will be seen as a betrayal by the party faithful. It’s not a role that I can say I envy.
The next few days will be interesting to say the least. Nick – I wish you the best of luck but please remember to stay true to your party’s roots. Stay Liberal, stay Democratic, and don’t give in without a fight.
Privacy? Not in a “Free” Democracy!
Taken from http://skew.dailyskew.com
Sorry it’s taken so long to write another post – I have a few half-started articles that I just haven’t got round to finishing but I had to say something about this.
I don’t know if you remember, but back in April Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced an idea that she and the Government wanted to put in place. Basically, she wanted official and Government bodies to be able to have access to your communication details. This means your telephone calls, emails, websites that you visit, text and picture messages, basically ANY electronic communication that you might make. This information would be stored by your telecommunications provider for a year and could be accessed by any one of 653 public bodies without a court order or judges permission, any senior official can grant it.
This would include 43 police forces in England & Wales, 8 police forces in Scotland, Police Service of Northern Ireland, British Transport Police, Port of Liverpool Police, Port of Dover Police, Royal Military Police, Royal Air Force Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary, Ministry of Defence Police, Royal Navy Police, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, Serious Organised Crime Agency, Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, United Kingdom Border Agency and The Prison Service as well as approximately 474 local authorities throughout the UK and approximately 110 *other* public authorities, including almost all government departments, including the Serious Fraud Office, Independent Police Complaints Commission, Charity Commission, Gambling Commission and Royal Mail to name only a few. (Taken from the No2ID website)
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized. – George Orwell 1984
This legislation is exactly the same concept, the Government can plug in to your information whenever they want, they can see who you’ve spoken to, when and for how long, they can see when you went online and what websites you visited, and they can even see who you’re emailing. And the reason for this? To protect us all from Terrorism. In the words of Benjamin Franklin “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both.”
It is up to us, all of us, to stand up for our rights, the Government and Local Authorities have already proved that they can’t be trusted with this sort of power, using the powers they were previously given to spy on litterers and people who forgot to scoop their dog’s poop!
Sure, the Government might try to bring in guidelines to safeguard our privacy, but what will happen when the next Government is elected who change the guidelines “just a little”, and the next one, and the next one. What about when they decide that the Jews, or the Gays, or those people with disabilities are anathema, and they have a record of your web browsing, they have a record of your calls. I’m sorry to invoke Godwin’s Law but this IS the thin point of the wedge.
We have to stop this, and we have to do it now.
If you want to know more about this, or want to do something then there’s the CC Jacqui Smith group (who’ve gone a little quiet recently but I’m sure that’ll pick up soon) as well as the No2ID website. I’d also highly recommend reading the articles by TechnicalBloke.com, or Henry Porter’s excellent article on the subject in the Guardian.
