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 Clegg has withdrawn the support of the Liberal Democrat Party (part of the Coalition in power in the UK) from the so-called 'Snooper's Charter.'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."
Well, I never (Score:1, Informative)
Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use. Colour me shocked.
Re:Well, I never (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
"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)
"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.
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I have problems with how the change in funding arrangements will affect universities structurall
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Point 8
"Many people worry that with the much higher levels of student debt, cash will be too tightly squeezed to live on once post-2012 starters graduate. Yet actually, today's university starters will have MORE cash in their pockets each month than those students who've just graduated. Graduates who started their course before Sept 2012, repay 9% of everything e
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Citation? There were widespread reports of applications being down when the fees came in, especially at universities that charged the full amount.
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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.
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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
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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
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New law (Score:4, Insightful)
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)
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.
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I don't think you quite nailed that.
Paul Potts sings Nessun Dorma [youtube.com]
Wonderful, for more than one reason.
Re:New law (Score:4, Interesting)
And then we'll have the Great Firewall of Blighty...
Please. It will be the Great Fire Moat. And it will resemble a trough, in critical ways.
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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
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Enigma and Lorentz gave the UK amazing near realtime insights into ww2.
For a short time the Soviets had so much data in the very early 1950's they where sloppy again.
Then you had every call into and out of the UK during the cold war.
Later voice prints, the internet, cell towers... it all becomes part of life for every sitting gov.
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If government are elected to pursue the will of the people, why, then, do government engage in actions that clearly are not the will of the people?
'Cause a British government is typically elected by about 20% of the people, and election winners are typically determined by the votes of less than a million people in the Midlands where no party has a clear majority.
In this case, the British people voted 'none of the above' and refused to give any party a majority, but they got a government anyway.
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I normally tend to agree because I think FPTP is an abomination.
But this time round I think it's the most legitimate government we've had in years. It's a government that between the two parties involved actually got a majority of the popular vote. The policies that have stemmed from it are are roughly proportional split based somewhat on those proportions - for example, the Tories wanted £12,000 tuition fees, the Lib Dems wanted the status quo, The end result was £9,000.
This is a go
going lib dem this time (Score:1)
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The Lib Dems are strongly pro EU...
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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.
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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.
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We're in the EU, we're not dead. Are you confused, perhaps about the Euro?
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Awww, rats! (Score:2)
He killed it, but now we can't investigate because we have no access to the critical data! Rats! RATS!
Law will be passed (Score:1)