Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms

Malevolent voices that despise our freedoms
The new laws whisper:
You don’t know who you are
You’re mistaken about yourself
We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless
We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, [...]

Those who Fought for Freedom

England has for many years been lifting her voice against the abominable practice of negro slavery; numbers of her great men have talked, have laboured, have struggled, until at length emancipation has been granted to her black slaves in the West Indies . When will they dream of advocating the cause of England ’s white [...]

War on Terror or War on Public Freedoms

The Police who have already been harassing not only private photographers but media professionals will no doubt be delighted today to be handed a new tool by a government that does not recognise the concept of individual freedoms.
A new law goes into effect today in the United Kingdom which would make it illegal to [...]

Christians Fed to PC Lions

Old Holborn has a very good post about Caroline Petrie, who has been suspended for offering to pray for a patient.
Old Holborn
I have no religion, not even atheism. I don’t believe in anything and I see no need to convince anyone else of my view on the subject because, well, I don’t have one. I’m [...]

The Pot and the Kettle

THE European Commission described Zimbabwe’s presidential run-off yesterday as a “sham” and said it did not recognise the election or its outcome as legitimate.
Rearrange these words – Pot -The – Kettle – Calling – Black -That
As they both refuse to listen to the voters the only difference between the EU and Robert Mugabe is the [...]

ID Card and the National Register

David Davis made points about the national register;
There are many good reasons for not wanting to be on the national identity register, which involves a large number of pieces of data about each individual being put on a single Government database, many of them the access keys for other Government databases. That is the important [...]

EU Democracy

The concept of democracy at the EU level is very much like the EU itself a top down arrangement, the leaders of the EU do make a big noise about democracy they claim it for the EU and demand it in member states and other states worldwide. It is a truism that if the EU [...]

EU knows about Democracy

It just so happens that when it comes to democracy and human rights, Europe knows what it’s talking about.José Manuel Durão Barroso
President of the European Commission.
Shame the EU does not practice it instead of just talking about it!
LINK

Britain No Constitution?

It is claimed that Britain has no written constitution. We often hear quoted the doctrine ‘No parliament may bind its successor’. Today most often it is used to imply that there are no constitutional obligations limiting Parliament’s power.
If this were true there would be no constitution and the sovereignty of Parliament would be unlimited.
The reality [...]

The EU an Anti-democracy Organisation Part2

Why do I say the EU is anti-democratic, it is worrying that so many do not know or do not care about basic democratic principals that the question could even be posed – Abraham Lincoln defined the fundamental characteristic of democratic government in his Gettysburg address;

it must be – of the [...]

The EU an Anti-democracy Organisation Part1

The EU an Anti-democracy Organisation

My standpoint of opposing the European Project is based on one single fundamental issue and that is the whole project is constructed on and supported by its being anti- democratic. Anti- democratic, because it is designed to remove the power of the people from any influence. Other than [...]

Iran Elections not free or fair says EU

The E.U. “expresses its deep concern that election procedures in the Islamic Republic of Iran have fallen below the international standards and that the electoral process did not allow for truly competitive elections,” a statement said late Saturday.
“In this regard it expresses its deep regret and disappointment that over a third of prospective candidates were [...]

The Raving Corbett

Attempts to revive EU constitution
Sir: Richard Corbett MEP (Letters, 10 February) makes great play of the fact that 18 EU member-states have ratified the EU Constitution. He does not mention that most of those countries would have rejected it, had it been put to a referendum. Nor does he recall that it was not [...]

Socialist in a spin over democracy

There is this story in the Guardian also this from Euobserver
Socialist leader Martin Schultz is set to urge other political groups in the European Parliament to join forces and sideline the new far-right faction once it is formally confirmed next week, while calling for higher thresholds for deputies to form a new group.
The [...]

EU legislation undermines democracy

The FT Reports that EU legislation is making it harder for local government to outsource tasks to the private sector and is creating a “mountain of red tape”

Ruth Coleman, the chairwoman of the Local Government International Bureau (LGIB), said a “whole raft of ever-encroaching rules” threatened to “drive a wedge between the public and private [...]

An Historical Failure

The German government is starting as it means to go on.

EU Ministers set out yesterday a timetable for reviving the Constitution, with the hope of concluding negotiations on a new document by late 2008.
In a move to isolate countries which have not ratified, the18 countries that have already ratified will attend a meeting in Madrid [...]

Thinking oustide of the Box

Anatole Kaletsky says the Dave’s not the Tory party “The Conservative Party has not just moved to the left, abandoning Margaret Thatcher and leapfrogging Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on to what David Cameron described as the liberal, progressive mainstream of British politics. No, the Cameron project appears to be far more audacious. He [...]

Policing in Blair’s Kind of Democracy

From The Independent letter page
Sir: One of Tony Blair’s most important domestic achievements has to be the greater sense of security we now enjoy in Britain. I saw this in action in the centre of Manchester on Wednesday afternoon, in St Peter’s Square, near the site of the Peterloo massacre.
A small group of protesters [...]

The Federal Governments plan to fingerprint all children

British children, possibly as young as six, will be subjected to compulsory fingerprinting under European Union rules being drawn up in secret. The prints will be stored on a database which could be shared with countries around the world.
The prospect has alarmed civil liberties groups who fear it represents a ’sea change’ in the state’s [...]

Behind Closed Doors

We do not understand why the former Home Secretary should have apparently agreed with other G6 ministers to press forward with the "availability" principle and disregard data protection issues. This is contrary to the decision of the Member States in the Hague Programme, contrary to the advice of independent data protection authorities, inconsistent with what [...]

Why Murphy`s law is a threat to democracy

Sir – According to Cabinet Office Minister Jim Murphy the government has “tabled amendments that put beyond doubt that [the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill] will deliver a better regulation agenda and nothing else.” [...]

A Total Lack of Mandate

I raised the question of Solana’s status in a written question to the Council last October.
They are supposed to reply within six weeks to all questions, but we MEPs have no sanctions available if they don’t.
As you can see from the attached file, the answer was answered in April and finally reached me on 1 May.  [...]

Blair’s inner circle and its ferocious grab for power

From forcing through ID cards to the erosion of parliamentary scrutiny, a determined clique is hijacking our democracy
In January the commissioner of the Metropolitan police got into enormous trouble for saying that he couldn’t see why the Soham murders had become such a big story. Like every other journalist, I marvelled at his [...]

Voters Revolt

This website was born out of deep anger and frustration at a political establishment which over the decades has increasingly treated the British public with contempt.
It explains how our democracy is being eroded – and spells out how together we ordinary people can halt the slide into bureaucratic tyranny.
For a brief [...]

Britain’s new secret police

I have reservations about the new police force which has begun operations in Britain. The Serious Organised Crime Agency will not actually be a police force, Its members will not be constables but agents. SOCA Agents working directly for the home office minister, can direct other law enforcement agencies or commandeer their facilities, they will [...]

An identity card by the back door

EU driving licence “an identity card by the back door”
According to the Daily Telegraph, transport ministers are expected to approve a single EU driving licence at talks next week, with the document expected to be phased in between 2012 and 2032.
Scottish MEP Ian Hudghton fears it could be “an identity card by the [...]

Big Brother holds the cards

ID Card bill has passed critical stages in Parliament. We should be worried. Here is why:
The new ID Card will be unlike any other bit of ID you hold. It is the key to a National Identity Register (NIR) that will give you a unique number, and will hold images of your fingerprints, a scan [...]

United States of Europe

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt appeared on the Today programme to promote his book the “United States of Europe”.  He said, “I don’t think people have said that they are against a [...]

Eurocrats’ Contempt for the Voters

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan writing in the Telegraph 
Two years from now, the European constitution will be in force. The Eurocrats have worked out a deft way of getting around them. Around 85 per cent of the text can, with some creative interpretation, be implemented this way.
True, there are one or two clauses that will [...]

Magistrates told Pensioners to “Pay Up or Leave the Country,”

Lesley and John Kelly have been withholding a portion of their council tax for the last 3 years, because they object to their money being spent on supporting the unelected South West Regional Assembly.

John Kelly says: “Councils neither ask nor inform voters of what they are doing, and this council has never [...]

Regulatory Reform Act 2001

From Liberty Central
Written by Unity

A looking at some of the acts of parliament the Government have refused exemptions from the provisions, makes frightening reading, and begs the question what exactly are Tony Blair’s intentions.

Looking at just some of these Acts, one has to wonder quite justification the government can have not making them [...]

Hostage to Fortune

The Adams Smith Institute
By Dr Eamonn Butler

There are of course many old laws still in place in the United Kingdom. Some years ago, Lord Harris of High Cross formed what he called the ‘Repeal Group’ in the attempt to get them wiped off the statute book. But most people, especially busy parliamentary business [...]

A Power too far for Government

Regulatory Reform Act

RRO Debates, Standing Committee A.
(Morning) Session 28.2.2006 and Standing Committee A (Afternoon).

Some Comments;

“the power enables a Minister to implement a set of recommendations, in full or in part, and for the provision made by the order to depart from the recommendations.”

The hon. Gentleman makes the [...]