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United Kingdom Government Privacy Politics

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg 'Kills' Snoopers Charter 47

judgecorp writes "The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has effectively 'killed' the Communications Data Bill which would have required service providers to share personal communications data with the police. Clegg has withdrawn the support of the Liberal Democrat Party (part of the Coalition in power in the UK) from the so-called 'Snooper's Charter.' The announcement is timed to block the measure from the Queen's Speech on 8 May, which introduces the next programme of planned legislation."
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British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg 'Kills' Snoopers Charter

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  • Well, I never (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use. Colour me shocked.

    • Re:Well, I never (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:05AM (#43545235)

      Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use.

      Don't count your chickens yet: Clegg has said he'll withdraw support. This is the guy who signed a pledge not to increase tuition fees and then almost as soon as the coalition had been formed backed them being roughly tripled.

      • Re:Well, I never (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:20AM (#43545327)

        Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use.

        Don't count your chickens yet: Clegg has said he'll withdraw support. This is the guy who signed a pledge not to increase tuition fees and then almost as soon as the coalition had been formed backed them being roughly tripled.

        "backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge', it was in their Manifesto which may be splitting hairs, but let's not forget that was if his party got in sole power. They didn't. They had to compromise. He was naive, the coalition is not 50/50. It's more like 90/10 in favour of the other party (for those of non-UK and who care). What he didn't do was defy the rise after the fact (much).

        Now that the election is only a couple of years away and the fixed term parliament (that was bought in) is pretty much likely to go the distance, Nick Clegg and the LibDems don't have anything (more) to lose and a lot to gain.

        I think you will see more of this as we get nearer the election. I don't particularly have string feelings for Nick Clegg but by Christ, theirs was the only party to care about our deomcratci system enough to try to push much needed Lords Reform - scuppered by their coalition partners, also get rid of the ridiculous first-past-the-post voting system (yes AV was a silly compromise which in the end they didn't get either) again scuppered by their coaltion partners they give a damn about Freedoms of Joe Public and still push for Human Rights for instance, the Blue party would have those excised from statute as soon as look at you and the Red party would put us under evem more surveillance and government scrutiny on our every day lives.

        Sorry but most of the adult population without kids (or kids past university age) simply don't give a shit about tuition fees.

        If you look past the stupid media portrayals of the lib dems (who are not all Nick Clegg) you'll see they have a good record for the the little person.

        • Re:Well, I never (Score:5, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:54AM (#43545605)

          "backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge'

          Actually, he did [guardian.co.uk]. If you look you can see it says "I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative", and you can just about see his scrawled signature below it. In his apology [guardian.co.uk] "It was stressed that Clegg was apologising for making the pledge...not to raise tuition fees, but not for the eventual decision by the coalition to lift the cap on fees to £9,000." So, he pledged not to, then at the very minimum didn't object to it happening and then apologises for the pledge itself but not the decision which contradicted the pledge.

          As for the "LibDems are better than the others" comments, I'm not convinced by any of them. You've outlined the problems with the Conservatives and Labour pretty well, and summed up the LibDems with "they don't have anything (more) to lose".

          At any rate, I wouldn't take his word on this issue until it actually comes to the crunch, because it's not the first time he has said X and then allowed Y to happen anyway.

        • Re:Well, I never (Score:5, Informative)

          by RDW ( 41497 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:59AM (#43545663)

          "backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge', it was in their Manifesto which may be splitting hairs, but let's not forget that was if his party got in sole power.

          I'm sure this is how lib dem supporters prefer to remember it, but he (and 500 other candidates from his party, including every elected MP) did indeed sign the pledge:

          http://web.archive.org/web/20101215160749/http://www.nus.org.uk/Campaigns/Funding-Our-Future/Lib-Dem-MPs-sign-the-pledge/ [archive.org]

          The wording was: "I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative", a personal promise which does not assume the lib dems would hold sole (or any) power.

          Here's a photo of Nick holding up his signed copy of the pledge for the cameras, and some quotations from confidential documents in which senior party members were planning to betray this promise in the event of a hung parliament (which is, of course, exactly what they did):

          http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tuition-fees-clegg [guardian.co.uk]

          'Clear yellow water' indeed.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            The new system is "a fairer alternative" to the previous system for people on low incomes however. The number of people from the lowest economic stratum applying to university has increased under the new system. One of the major issues it has introduced, claims that young people can "no longer afford to go to university", is an atrocious lie that will cause more harm than the system it is attempting to attack.

            I have problems with how the change in funding arrangements will affect universities structurall
            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) *

              Citation? There were widespread reports of applications being down when the fees came in, especially at universities that charged the full amount.

          • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward

            The pledge was written by the NUS. Not the Liberal Democrats.

            I doubt they were too concerned with the wording for what was, in effect, a PR stunt that was most likely sprung on them.

            They're manifesto is what they should be held to.

            I'm not forgiving the hypocrisy of they're actions, but you must recognise that life in the UK would be a lot worse right now if not fopr their influence.

            p.s. If you do choose to reply to this, please don't pressume you know how I vote.

          • by Xest ( 935314 )

            Agreed, he absolutely did sign the pledge.

            The problem is he probably also didn't foresee that he might be in a coalition government.

            The things that irk me about the tuition fee debate are:

            1) At least 77% of people who bitch (seeing as everyone bitches about it and the Lib Dems only got 23% of popular vote) about the tuition fee cannot complain. The Lib Dem policy was that they would ditch tuition fees if they got power - if people wanted tuition fees ditched or at best to stay the same, they should've all

        • He was naive, the coalition is not 50/50. It's more like 90/10 in favour of the other party (for those of non-UK and who care).

          Then why were the Tories so desperate for the coalition then? They were so desperate that they conceded the referendum for AV, which if it hadn't been so hopelessly managed might have changed the political landscape forever in the Lib Dem's favour.

          The Tories had 306 seats, while Labour had 258 and the Lib Dems 57. If they'd not been so pig headed, they could have had a veto on every piece of legislation that has passed since 2010.

          That means they could have stopped tuition fee hikes, spending cuts, welfare

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Rageaholic ( 728509 )
            Yes, they could have used their influence to stop pretty much everything the Tories have done. And if they had the coalition would have fallen apart, and no one would have taken them seriously as a party they could have done business with in the future. They made some bad decisions, especially in the beginning but as the minority partner in the coalition I think they have actually done pretty well. Of course I'd rather have seen them let the Tories form a minority government then screw them at every turn.
  • New law (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Enigmafan ( 263737 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:24AM (#43545375)

    And in a few months a new law will be proposed: 'The anti-terrorist and anti-child porn law for public protection', that requires ISP's to do exactly the same.

    • Re:New law (Score:5, Informative)

      by hotseat ( 102621 ) on Thursday April 25, 2013 @08:41AM (#43545493)

      It's worth bearing in mind that this is the second time that the Lib Dems have killed this particular bill. Also that their members are pretty virulently pro-privacy, and that the party currently has the balance-of-power in Parliament.

      I'm sure something similar will be proposed again, but I'd be waiting until after the next election (2015) before it's likely to be passed.

      • I'm not sure the LibDems have the relevant balance of power. Both Labour and Conservative get wet dreams about strong State control of the population, and the LibDems don't have any power at all if Labour and Conservatives work together. The only hope is that Labour are more keen to cause embarrassment to the Conservatives than they are to get the bill they'd love.
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Very true re "And in a few months a new law will be proposed"
      The UK has been dreaming of presenting what the GCHQ has been able to collect in a court setting since the ned of the Cold War.
      From phone tracking, voice prints, data, encryption - a vision of super computers sorting or cracking seems to have a hold on generations UK politicians.
      Every decade they are told not to expose the total understanding all aspects of any digital lifestyle of interest to the UK.
      This law seems to be an end run around the
  • The lib dems are getting my vote next election a long with many other young peoples votes, Cameron has made sure of that! they are about the only party that hasn't recently had a chance of changing the country for the greater good without making it 50 times worse, if lib dem's do take power stay pro privacy and pull us straight out of the EU!
    • The Lib Dems are strongly pro EU...

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Entering the EU would be the death knell for Britain. One has to only look at the shared misery across the channel to understand why. There are precious few EU members actually doing "well". I still, however, would love to have a permanent holiday on Ibiza or Mallorca.

        • Britain is already in the EU. It's not part of the common currency, and given its debts would almost certainly not qualify for common currency membership.

        • We're in the EU, we're not dead. Are you confused, perhaps about the Euro?

        • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
          I believe it's been in the EU since its inception in 1993 (Maastricht). And the EC/EEC before that. Other than that, good point. And you can have your permanent holiday in Mallorca since the Schengen agreement came into force in 1995. I guess you can worry about something else now.
  • He killed it, but now we can't investigate because we have no access to the critical data! Rats! RATS!

  • This law will eventually be passed in one form or another. It will be interesting to see how they are going to monitor my communications through my VPN to Venezuela. :-)

"In my opinion, Richard Stallman wouldn't recognise terrorism if it came up and bit him on his Internet." -- Ross M. Greenberg

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