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Tony Blair answers his critics on his anti-libertarian policies in an article in the Observer,

His first line of defence is that these charges are crafted by parts of the right wing and now taken up by parts of the left that New Labour is authoritarian, in particular, that I am. We are intent on savaging British liberties, locking up those who dissent and we abhor parliamentary or other accountability.

By attributing these charges to the fringes of the political spectrum, the obvious conclusion we are directed to reach is that the charges are baseless because of their origin. But then is he factually correct do these charges emanate from the fringes, if that were that case he would simply dismiss them out of hand.

Blair then goes on to give the reasons The reason right wingers are keen on this is clear. New Labour has eschewed traditional forms of leftist statism. So the type of claim they used to make about the Attlee or Wilson governments they can’t plausibly make about us.

As the definition of stateism is the doctrine of giving a centralized government control over economic planning and policy. I would suggest that Blair’s government has not eschewed stateism, the traditional form of, perhaps, but this government is very keen on central control, much more than either the Attlee or Wilson governments would have deared to be. It is simply they are bringing central control into different areas.

Have we become indifferent to liberty? At one level, the charge is easy to debunk. But on another level, there is a serious debate about the nature of liberty in the modern world. I accept the good faith of our critics. I just believe them to be profoundly mistaken.

Later in the article Blair puts “a new case about liberty in the modern world. I am from the generation that I would characterise, crudely, as hard on behaviour, but soft on lifestyle, i.e. I support tough measures on crime but am totally pro gay rights. I believe in live and let live, except where your behaviour harms the freedom of others. A society with rules but without prejudices is how I might sum it up.”

That of course is from the leader of a party which banned Hunting, is about to ban smoking in pubs, etc. It would appear that Blair wishes to define what is and what is not liberty, and to allow only that liberty he wants. Blair is accepting that these laws do transgress basic liberties, but that does not matter because we are going to make a new case about liberty.

The point is about our rights to control our government and our rights. Blair does not fair so well on the liberty front, about Parliament Blair says “As for parliament, I have spent proportionately more time answering questions than any predecessor; given more statements; am the only PM ever to agree to appear before the select committee chairs; the only one to give monthly press conferences. And I gave a vote specifically on whether to go to war.”

Other than allowing parliament a vote on the war which was forced on him, the other evidence is all about things which do not impact on governments powers, he can spend all day answering question before he rushes of to a press conference, but that will not alter the fact that with his enabling acts and other Bills like the regulatory reform act, he is eroding the power of parliament to control his government.

Blair argues that for him this is not an issue of liberty but of modernity and The question is not one of individual liberty vs the state but of which approach best guarantees most liberty for the largest number of people.

Blair seem quite sanguine about the removal of our liberties, and seems to belive that he has the moral right to do so for the greater good.

He cites as his excuse for removing liberties;

Antisocial behaviour isn’t susceptible to normal court process. Modern organised crime is really ugly. That IRA terrorism is different in nature and scale from the new global Islamic terrorism.

But does not mention that it is the Human Rights Act, for which he claims, “for the first time, a citizen can challenge the power of the state solely on the basis of an infringement of human rights” that prevents the government from taking action against international terrorists and criminals because the act forces the government to offer the same rights to foreigners as it if they were nationals.

Finally Blair has a dig at the Conservatives and LibDem`s Their attitude to liberty does indicate, though, a refusal to understand the modern world. If the nature of the threat changes, so should our policies. That is not destroying our liberties, but protecting them.

So his argument boils down to the single idea that to protect our liberties v the state, you have to destroy them so that the state can take action against a lawless minority. This really means that we are all being deprived of our liberties because of the actions of a few.

The whole argument of course is also based not on English Common Law, but on Roman Law concepts, instead of the state being the protector of inexorable rights, it has become the provider of rights. It is clearly evident in everything Blair says, that he believes he has the authority to dispense with our traditional protections against the state, and replace them with rights he himself has defined.

Any government, that is its own judge of, and determines authoritatively for the people, what are its own powers over the people, is an absolute government of course. It has all the powers that it chooses to exercise. There is no other — or at least no more accurate — definition of a despotism than this. Spooner

This is an interesting local story from Booker, one that I have not heard about until now, perhaps I should read the local paper more often! But it is the twist in the tail which makes it interesting nationally.

Christoper Booker`s Notebook

‘Prejudicial interest’ rules make mockery of democracy

Thanks to a diktat from John Prescott, thousands of elected councillors have been shocked to be instructed by council officials that they are no longer permitted to represent the views of the communities which elected them. The bizarre consequences of this extraordinary bid to undermine local democracy are highlighted by four recent examples from just one county, Shropshire.

When Aggie Caesar-Homden was last September elected to Oswestry borough council, to represent the residents of the village of West Felton, she found herself at the centre of a local planning row. The parish council was up in arms over a 50-foot-high Orange mobile phone mast which had suddenly appeared on the edge of the village, blocking the view to the Berwyn mountains.

The villagers’ objection was not to the mast in principle, but that its erection was in clear breach of planning rules. Of 10 procedures required by the rules for phone masts, nine had not been complied with. The mast was illegal. But when Councillor Caesar-Homden raised this on behalf of the parish council she was told by senior council officials that it was not her role to speak for her electors. Since she was now an Oswestry councillor, she must support her council.

There was no one angrier about this than the local MP, Owen Paterson, who had recently been involved in a similar row over a highly unpopular plan by North
Shropshire district council to close down municipal swimming pools in Ellesmere and Wem. Councillors from the two towns had been told by North Shropshire officials that they could not participate in debates on the issue, because the fact that they represented the views of their communities gave them a “prejudicial interest”. Only when Mr Paterson intervened was this ruling reversed.

In Telford, the council came up with a contentious plan to build on part of the local park. A councillor billed to chair a meeting on the issue was forced to pull out when officials told her that her participation would exclude her from attending any council debate on the issue. A letter on behalf of the council’s head of “Legal and Democratic Services” explained that a “councillor’s overriding duty is to the whole community, not just to the people in their ward or area”. Decision-making must be “undertaken impartially”, and councillors must not appear to be “improperly favouring any group or locality”.

In South Shropshire, council officials went even further. Following an incident when a protestor shouted abuse at a planning meeting, they produced new guidelines stating that members of the public are not permitted to speak to councillors, before, during or after meetings. Council leader Heather Kidd explained that, because members of the public had shown “disrespect to councillors”, the rules had been introduced to “protect the security of councillors”.

But one councillor, Claude Bodenham, urged electors to ignore the rules. He said “I am always out and about in Craven Arms or Ludlow, and I expect people to come up to me.”

Last week I reported how Bob Mills, a Powys county councillor, was told by officials that, because he had criticised wind turbines in a letter to the local paper, he would not be permitted to attend any debates on this issue. His letter showed that he had a “pre-determined” view. It was fine for the council and the Welsh Assembly to have a “pre-determined view” in support of turbines, but because he opposes them he must leave the chamber whenever they are discussed.

Similar instances are sprouting up all over the country, thanks to zealous interpretation by council “monitoring officers” of Mr Prescott’s Local Authorities (Code of Conduct) Order 2001. By excluding from council business any councillor who can be considered to have a “prejudicial interest”, the code is now being widely used to silence councillors who wish to speak on behalf of the communities they represent.

And, like the bulk of the laws which now rule our lives, this astonishing revolution in local government was imposed by means of a statutory instrument - a ministerial edict which Parliament had no chance to discuss.