Conservatives & Lib Dem Pact
I've just been reading the Pact between the Conservatives & Lib Dems and I must confess I have not so far thrown my laptop across the room in frustration. There are some elements of it that I find a bit disturbing, like this:
This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.
The campaign at http://noto55.com/ says a good deal about this.
The section that I really like is listed below:
10. Civil liberties
The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of
civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion.
This will include:
- A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
- The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of
biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
- Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
- The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater
transparency.
- Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
- The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
- The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
- The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
- Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
- Further regulation of CCTV.
- Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
- A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
I think that the above is a vital piece of policy and am delighted to read it. The labour government managed to bring in a large amount of policies designed to infringe our civil liberties and this great repeal is music to my ears. The only item I see missing is the repeal of the Digital economy Act which was so undemocratically pushed through in washup by the corrupt Mandleson.
