Having been a little bit busy I didn’t link to this at the time, but even this late in the day as electoral reform is still such a popular topic, Bella Gerens has an excellent post on How to solve the problem of a hung parliament
“Whenever constitutional reform is mooted here in the UK, the drive seems to be something along the lines of: the executive has too much power, MPs have too little, and oh yeah, unelected Lords have no place in a democratic nation. (Let’s pretend in this discussion, for the sake of simplicity, that the Lisbon Treaty hasn’t made Parliament redundant.)
What kind of reforms would be required, then, to address these perceived problems?
The House of Lords is easy: sweep out all of the old peers and bishops and allow people to stand for election. Presumably the old peers and bishops would be permitted to stand if they wanted to; certainly they would have to have the franchise returned to them.“
Apparently Devils Kitchen has been on telly, I missed it and I still don’t trust iPlayer so I’m probably going to continue to have missed it. However there have been some excellent write ups of it. Including especially the one by Boatang & Demetriou , it’s well worth the read both for it’s take on the TV appearance but also for it’s wider discussion of Libertarianism and where we’re going to end up unless we somehow get the state to back off, before all liberty is lost for the sake of the Children and to protect us from minute unavoidable risks.
The end of the world must surely be coming, that or I’ve fallen into some odd alternate reality, for today we have:
Tom Harris saying Daniel Hannan is right (which he is) and elsewhere Peter Tatchell is defending homophobes (well their right to free speech). All these attacks on our liberties and sovereignty do make for some strange alliances.
Just read a rather disturbing article by Mr Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday (hat tip to The Salted Slug). Disturbing because it makes an awful lot of sense in suggesting that if we want rid of Labour and a real change in politics then the best thing could be if the Tory’s lose and Labour get in. As many others comment I’m not sure I could face voting Labour but Mr Hitchens reasoning is sound. Here’s a taster but go read the whole thing.
I give myself a great deal of trouble by attacking the Tories, the party most of my readers want to support. Why do I do this, condemning myself to many angry and often personally rude messages from affronted people? I could easily make everyone happy by quietly dropping this campaign. It would save me hours spent writing letters and e-mails to Tory loyalists who absurdly accuse me, of all people, of wanting to keep Labour in power.
But I cannot, because I think we now have a unique opportunity to remake British politics and recapture Britain from the people who have messed it up and trashed it for so long. The next election cannot change the government. But it can change the opposition – from an ineffectual, useless, compromised one, into an effective one genuinely opposed to what New Labour is doing.
And such an opposition, no longer weighed down by the awful record of the Tories and their miserable reputation, could throw New Labour into the sea, perhaps within five years of coming into being.
The destruction of the Tory Party, which is now both possible and desirable, is the essential first step to this. In our two-party system, new parties arise out of the collapse and splitting of those they seek to replace. They cannot be created until that collapse, and that split, have begun. A serious, undoubted and decisive defeat for the Tory Party at the next election would make this possible and likely. Such a defeat is possible, despite the events of the past few weeks, and can be aided by voters simply refusing to waste their votes on a party that is both likely to lose, and certain to betray them if it wins.
Via Captain Ranty comes this rather excellent post by Corrugated Soundbite
“Now I’m glad Brits don’t riot
No, really.
We live in a nation with a State that assumes every adult to be a paedophile unless proven otherwise. They can take your kids away by simply deeming you “not bright enough”, whilst knowingly leaving children in the hands of parents who abuse them until they die.
No riot. “
Go read the whole thing, it rather echo’s and sums up a lot of stuff that’s been said by Leg Iron in the past, and they’ve got a damn good point.
Update: LegIron counsels patience even though there are even more reasons to be a tad miffed.
Much as I hate to have two posts in a row just pointing you at other articles, but I’m just going to have to live with that.
First off there is a rather ill thought out advert to persuade us all to get ID cards – apparently so that we can be executed, as spotted by The Register (do read the comments) and taken up by Big Brother Watch.
Which rather ties in with another excellent article from the keyboard of Leg Iron – a hypothetical future where people without ID chips get pulled from the street. Go read it and decide how unlikely it seems to you.
In the comments on LegIrons article was an anonymous link to a rather interesting if possibly a bit tinfoil hat video about the Codex Alimentarius – rather long but actually interesting enough to watch all the way through.
The leader of the UK Libertarian party has posted a rather good polemic over at The Devils Kitchen however don’t read it there, go and read the copy up at Captain Ranty as his introduction is rather fantastic.
In summary though as has been observed in many places and times before, soon we get to vote and we can either vote for more of the same be they wearing blue, red or yellow rosettes or we can vote for something different. Given how bad things are and how much worse they’re likely to get now is not the time to vote for more of the same.
Update A rather good article by Peter Hitchens on why the Tory’s will be more of the same
Back at work today and to start the year off badly, this rather worrying post by Anna Raccoon about the birth of the ‘Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly’. Which it seems seeks to extend the EU across the Mediterranean in to Africa – the stated goals of political partnership and economic union seem oddly familiar.
Anyway go read the article particularly the list of countries with whom we’ll soon be experiencing closer union with of course free movement of people.
From Captain Ranty a list of rights that we’re about to lose.
Go and read it here and then ask yourself the same question I find I’m asking myself. Just how did we let this happen?
you may or may not have heard by Baroness Buscombe the new chair of the Press Complaints Commission is pondering if it might not be a frightfully jolly idea for the PCC to also regulate blogs. Regulating blogs seeming to be an idea that governments just can’t let go of, despite the vast numbers of technical difficulties that would prevent it working for anyone with even half a technical clue. So despite this being an even sillier idea than holding ISPs liable for usenet posts made by people that aren’t their customers, it’s probably best to try and kill it as soon as possible. After all they did end up making ISPs liable for usenet posts, and the evidence is they’ve only got dafter since then.
So go and sign this rather well written letter over at Liberal Conspiracy explaining to the powers that be, that it’s a very silly idea and that we’re doing quite well on our own thanks very much and that maybe the PCC should get the hang of effectively regulating the press first before they start worrying about anything else.
