No to Revoking Ecuadorian Diplomatic status

I'm shocked that our Foreign Office has even considered revoking the diplomatic status of any embassy on British soil. To do so simply to be able to arrest someone who is claiming asylum within that embassy is sickening.

Somebody at the Foreign Office was obviously hoping to get into the new series of Yes Minister when it comes to the screens. They clearly have not thought of the ramifications of such an action.

How can a nation that claims to be an example of democracy and diplomacy even contemplate such an action? All embassies around the world are considered sovereign territories of the nation that they represent. If this action is taken by the Foreign Office it ranks alongside the Iranian regime invading the US embassy compound in Tehran from 1979-80 as an act of aggression against the ambassador, who happens to be a guest of the Court of St. James and therefore the Queen.

But the ramifications are greater. If the UK are capable of doing this what protection is there in any despotic, or dictatorial nation in doing exactly what they want to any embassy they want to and that includes UK ones. Our own diplomats would not be safe anywhere in the world.

There is no way that this course of action to get hold of Julian Assange can be allowed to go ahead. It should never have been a threat made to embassy personnel. If the Government revokes the Diplomatic and Consular  Premises Act 1987 without outcry from the Liberal Democrat ministers from Nick Clegg down I will be left with no option but to leave the party. This is something that cannot happen on the watch of a party that stands for liberal and democratic principles.

Update 00:19 The Metropolitan Police have entered the Ecuadorian embassy therefore diplomatic status must have been revoked. I am therefore composing a very strongly worded email that will go to the party leadership in the morning.

From Steve Bell in The Guardian

Further to my earlier blog post, here is some good news about Lib Dems standing up for civil liberty. In a letter to the Guardian fifteen of our MPs have spoken up for the party. Not just over the last 48 hours but over the last months and indeed the years that I have been a member of supporter, in other words since the Lib Dems were founded.

They say:

It is absolutely vital that the public get a chance to see and debate the details of any proposals to extend state surveillance, not just being presented with a Home Office fait accompli. It is also essential that the initial plans include adequate safeguards – which should be stronger than the current weak controls.

They talk about the "duty … to safeguard basic freedoms against the encroachment of state power" and that at the recent conference (and it was only last month not months ago) conference "called for stronger safeguards on existing surveillance measures to guarantee that the balance of power is firmly in favour of ordinary citizens".

They got it and these are just the sort of firm messages that Nick Clegg and other Lib Dems should have been saying since Sunday when this story reared its head again.

Indeed when the coalition agreement already states  "We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason." We shouldn't be talking about extending police powers in this area but working out what comes under good reason and how to delete the storage of the rest.

Speaking in The S** today (and I apologise for this link) Theresa May says:

"I'm not willing to risk more terrorist plots succeeding and more paedophiles going free."

Just how does further encroaching on personal freedom achieve this. As Trefor Davies from the Internet Service Providers' Association states these groups will just go ahead and use proxy servers. As he say by doing so

"You could send emails back and forth to al-Qaeda to your heart's content, the Government wouldn't know."

And as for paedophiles:

"There is a danger we are driving people to an underground culture."

As anyone who uses certain websites whether global LGBT ones or other things for certain human rights discussions will tell you, mirror sites to proxy servers exist even for some of these and you would have no clue simply from the traffic that it generates what is going on. If you even could see the traffic report.

So why haven't us Lib Dems been standing up against this as a matter of principle not merely saying we will make sure that any extension of powers is highly safeguarded. The worry is that extension of powers will be given to the police without supervision. We are looking for greater safeguard on the existing powers while Mrs May says that the police cannot afford to lose any of their existing powers.

There is a red line there, one that is marked out in the coalition agreement. If we don't stand firm on this one, what will become of our party? Worryingly although these 15 have now stood firm, why haven't our frontbench team done it already?

We don't give the police blanket warrants

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Based on characters by Charles M. Schulz

Should the police be able to gain internet records of terrorists or criminals in order to help them with their job, bring about justice and keep us safe?

Of course they should.

Should they be able to do this carte blanche on their own say so without making the case to either a judge or a Home Office minister?

Of course not and therein lies the problem with the current draft legislation that has been proposed. That is why only last month the Liberal Democrats at conference did call to ensure "that there shall be no interception of telephone calls, SMS messages, social media, internet or any other communications without named, specific and time-limited warrants".

The current scheme apparently under consideration removes the power for police to have that authority to take action. They can do it on their own judgement. This is the same police that take pictures of me on parades and marches of various types in case I might be a terrorist or potential looter. This is the same police that take pictures of me going towards football matches because of course Livingston Football Club has a long history of violence, not!

We don't give the police a blanket warrant to enter home that they wish to do so, nor do we allow them blanket access to any phone line. Yet Theresa May is saying that extending just such a right to social media and email brings it in line with powers that that police already have with phone records. No! It crosses over that line. Retrospectively convincing somebody of the right to access is not the same as acquiring a warrant up front, a warrant is for a specific person, reason and time.

Of course if the police can persuade a judge or minister of the need to intercept someone's communications that is different matter. But they have to persuade them of the need and gain the specific warrant before taking action. They should not have the right to act as judge, arbitrator of need, surveillance officer and arresting officer should the need arise for the latter.

The coalition agreement even upholds this principle that "We will end the storage of internet and email records without good reason." We need a better reason that simply because the police think so to extend that right to them. It needs to be backed up by the case by an independent arbitrator of the law. Protecting not only those doing the surveillance but also the right of those the surveillance is carried out on to be assumed innocent until proven otherwise. Mrs May may not like the right of people to be presumed innocent, yet as Home Secretary she has to uphold that pinnacle of UK law or else we all have failed.


I do hope that this illiberal extension of power does not get passed by our Liberal Democrat MPs. If it does I will seriously have to work out how to stand by the words of someone that if our liberties were taken away that we should consider civil disobedience to ensure they are returned, yes those words were from Nick Clegg.

Dear Hypothetical Northern Ireland Conference Rep #ldconf

One of the things I have always prided myself on is that I can recruit people to our party with the phrase, you too can make a change to the way we make policy. It is a rather unique  selling point that our party is one that gets together twice a year and any local party can propose policy. Any party member can speak on the policy proposals and any voting rep can then vote on them (anyone of course can then get to be in that last category).

Now consider my role as a Membership Development Officer here in Northern Ireland in light of the new regulations regarding police accreditation of those that attend Lib Dem conference. Now not everyone who is politically active over here has a clean police record, there are people on both sides who have done things in the troubles which even now cause ructions but would also in the vagueness of the guideline of how Greater Manchester Police are going to be vetting applications to Liberal Democrat conference(s) be open to exclusion.

Is it possible that I might recruit an ex-terrorist, may be even one with time served into the Liberal Democrats? I would like to think that the way Northern Ireland is moving and the things that the Liberal Democrats stand for that of course that is possible. Looking at the people that I have worked with in the past there are people in other parties in Northern Ireland that are both Liberal and Democratic but just haven't realised it yet. So yeah there is a distinct possibility especially looking at my contacts list. There is also the possibility that somebody with that depth of political feeling would not want to sit on the side lines.

This is all hypothetical, but there is potential a real possibility that an able Liberal Democrat could be excluded from attending conference due to past deeds, even if these are recanted and put behind them. That is in contravention I believe to our federal constitution. It has been a move made by the Federal Conference Committee at the 'request' of the police, but is a constitutional change without the 2/3 backing of conference.

The police should not be the final arbitrators of which Liberal Democrats should be allowed to attend conference, that is for the local parties. My hypothetical but entirely possible Northern Ireland Rep above shows you one reason why.

Update There is now a petition to keep Liberal Democrat Conference Liberal please go and sign it.

I may be approved, but I may not be accredited #ldconf

Some things that as a candidate I stood up for in the 2010 General Election as a Liberal Democrat, they are right there in our manifesto.

•  Reduce time-wasting bureaucracy at police stations with better technology that can be deployed on the streets. (page 72)
• Scrap intrusive Identity Cards and have more police instead, and also scrap plans for expensive, unnecessary new passports with additional biometric data (page 94)
• End plans to store your email and Internet records without good cause (page 94)
• Remove innocent people from the police DNA database and stop storing DNA from innocent people and children in the future (page 94)
•  Scrap the intrusive Contact Point database which in intended to hold the details of every child. (page 94)

What I didn't sign up to was having a police force either now, or at some point in the future (as my "information will be retained and/or passed to other police forces in the future to assist with the accreditation of subsequent political conferences only") deciding that I even though deemed worthy by my local party am not trustworthy to attend and vote on their behalf by some policeman.

The guidelines stipulate that I have to give some form of ID. Passport, National Insurance Number or Driving Licence number. The police will then go through their records so see if I can attend my party conference.

Now in my long history I have been on a number of protest marches etc. Not all of them have ended up peacefully. Indeed there may have been one or two occassions in recent months that I have stood there against current government policy, because I don't always agree with Nick. However, whilst I myself have never been arrested, my presence may flash up next to a known agitator without my knowing it. After all there have been so many pictures taken of me as I walk the streets in recent years who can possibly tell.

If they use face recognition software on my stored passport photo, or the one that I have to resubmit to the "conference big brothers" who knows whom I may have inadvertently stood beside and I might get flashed up as a potential threat. Of course there are also the number of letters I have written to a number of constabularies about the handling of policing at football games. Of course never have I been complimentary when I wrote those letters, but critical of the way my fellow fans were getting treated. What if one of the officers who I've flagged up in the past takes offence at a citizen showing concern (or budding politician taking on casework)?

Now my UK passport history does include trips behind the Iron Curtain, before it fell and in the immediate aftermath. There is all sort of interesting activity on it recently, it has been used as photo id on a more frequent occurrences than in the past, my frequent flyer miles have been up since November. There was the stop and search at Stranraer harbour last August. Now of course I could use my Irish passport but that would bring up a whole other set of issues and I may get banned from a Liberal Democrat conference simply because some dissident Irish Republican Group wanted to threaten a partner in the UK Government.

Of course the fact that I am applying for a Northern Irish Local Party may cause eyebrows to be raised. After all you will not find reference to my local party on the Lib Dem Federal website. Go on try and but in the postcode for Parliament Buildings at Stormont BT4 3XX into the find your local party finder on the home page. Or scroll to the bottom of that page and click on the link to Northern Ireland, do you end up here or here?

So the possibility is that as  local party number 900 (Northern Ireland) somehow does not seem to exist on the party's own website some over officious bobby may create "the unlikely event that your accreditation is unsuccessful". Where then is my recourse, or my route of appeal? This is not listed on the eventsforce criteria, a site that looks like a Lib Dem site but needed a separate sign in to get to (we have an all encompassing log in which I was logged into at the time I'd just been on the Membership database).

In light of all this and the emails and info on the site ironically though I may be an approved candidate with the party, able to stand for election to Westminster or Holyrood. Though I have been selected now for a new local party to carry on as a voting rep. My accreditation lies in the hands of some police officer, not in the West Midlands where I once frequented Mosques as part of the day job, but from Greater Manchester (oops all those comments last saturday about the Champions League final from this Liverpool fan may stand against me).

Our party constitution states:

Article 6: The Federal Conference
6.1 The conference will consist of
(a) Representatives of Local Parties...
6.3 Representatives of Local Parties shall be elected by all members of the Local Party concerned...

Now there is nothing there about me being refused admission to party conference on the say so of some police force. There is no mention there that "The submission of the application form does not confer any right upon the applicant to attend the conference". The right for me to attend conference was conferred on me by the democratic action of my local party last December when they elected me to be a Federal Conference rep along with 3 others. So even as an approved candidate of 6 years standing, doesn't mean I can automatically assume accreditation for conference*. What if being one of the 104 public objectors becomes a criteria to refuse entry?

I first read 1984 on my way to one of my earliest Lib Dem conferences. I never thought Sheffield would have been topped, I appear to have been wrong. But looking at the comments from Caron, Jennie, Spidey, Jonathan, and David I am not alone in my concern (looks like no bloggers may get accredited).

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to see if I can scan my JSA documentation, because in the words of Caron I'm not going to boycott, because I'm not going to let party policy be decided soley by those who think these measures are ok and 'liberal'. I need to be in it to win it, or at least try to be in it. Wish me luck, I'll need it after no debits from my account for Olympic tickets.

Update There is now a petition to keep Liberal Democrat Conference Liberal please go and sign it.

* There's something about the sportsman in me that says I'm not playing until I see the teamsheet.

Mayoral Junta Against Peaceful Protest

The front cover of today's Independent tells a sombre tale.

The top half shows the Queen making her speech in the Lords including the words:

"Legislation will be brought forward to restore freedoms and civil liberties, through the abolition of Identity Cards and repeal of unnecessary laws."

The bottom have shows Brian Haw being arrested earlier just outside in Parliament Square.

It brings up the dichotomy of what was being said inside by a Conservative/Lib Dem government and what was being done outside under the auspices on a Conservative Mayor of London (whose brother is now part of that Conservative group inside).

A Mayoral degree has come from the gherkin to remove protesters from Parliament Square. Where are we? China, Pyongyang, or London? They are not protesting outside the Gherkin but the Palaces of Westminster. There are being peaceful about it yet the full weight of a junta from down river has come to bear on the only piece of open ground near the seat of power where a protest can be made.

Obviously either Boris didn't get the memo, or decided to ignore it in his own power games after finding he is no longer the most powerful Tory in the capital never mind the country.

Going to be a Reformation

There will be a great smile that comes across my face every time I drink a cup of Earl Grey tea today. The reason being that Nick Clegg is about to outline the biggest wholesale reform of our politics and liberties since the Great Reform Act of the Prime Minister after whom that blend of tea is named.

He will use the phrase:

"for the freedom of the many, not the privilege of the few"

Which I know will grate with some Labour listeners as it is lifted from Tony Blair's Clause IV speech. He also said yesterday while talking to leaders of voluntary groups:

"What I'm discovering is we've been using different words for a long time – it actually means the same thing. Liberalism, big society. Empowerment, responsibility. It means the same thing."

So wake up to the liberalism that is about to return come to us including:

• scrapping the identity card scheme and second generation biometric passports
• removing limits on the rights to peaceful protest
• a bonfire of unnecessary laws
• a block on pointless new criminal offences
• internet and email records not to be held without reason
• closed-circuit television to be properly regulated
• new controls over the DNA database, such as on the storage of innocent people's DNA
• axeing the ContactPoint children's database
• schools will not take children's fingerprints without asking for parental consent
• reviewing the libel laws to protect freedom of speech

Now that is delivering on promises. That is delivering liberalism.

Miliband Anti-Politics Attack is Thin Edge of the Disappearing Wedge

So David Miliband thinks in today's Guardian it is anti-political to stand up against the social injustices, the political corruption, stand up for our planet, economy and children. That is in essence what he is saying erroneously "Nick Clegg is only clear what he is against." Anyone who has encountered the Liberal Democrat manifesto and it is clear that David Miliband will know that isn't true.

There are plenty of constructive, progressive policies in there. There is also a big thrust to sort out the regressive nature of things that the Labservatives between them have managed to mess up.

• The reversal since 1997 of the top 20% paying proportionately less of their income in tax than the bottom 20% can only be sorted out with the Liberal Democrats policy of fair taxation, even my SNP opponent agrees with me on that one.
• The many inroads into our civil liberties over the last 13 years of Labour rule are going to be dealt with though a comprehensive Freedom Bill.

However, we have constructive plans for better arrangement for mothers and fathers in caring for their children in the early years. For our young people to get the training, qualifications or apprenticeships that suit them, not aiming merely to get 50% into University. There are plans to make the recovery one powered by greening our production, which also greens our planet and helps combat climate change and meet our progressive energy targets making energy production carbon neutral by 2050.

Heck if Billy Bragg the reddest of Red Wedges from my youth (and the last election I couldn't vote in 1987) is turning to the Lib Dems maybe it'll be up to David Miliband to turn out the lights on the Labour party. Billy Bragg is not someone who is swung by the superficial he is all about substance. You know I think even Bragg is now saying maybe I wanted to change the world, I was looking for a new Britiain, and I've found it now in the Lib Dems, as opposed to his 22 year old self.

Miliband claims that Labour have taken on the "forces of inertia", you know he may be right (in the first couple of years of New Labour) but inertia has not only won, but overcome and is dragging them backwards now.

Michael Connarty Reponse on Digital Economy Bill

On 16th March I sent the following email to Michael Connarty my Labour MP and opponent once again in the General Election regarding the worrying advance of the Digital Economy Bill.

Michael,

I am rather concerned by the events in the Lords yesterday of the passing of third reading of the Digital Economy Bill. Further I am concerned that as we approach the end of this session this complex issue is going to pass unto the statute books without proper scrutiny, consultation or consideration when it returns to the commons.

I spent a lot of the end of last week lobbying Scottish members of my party who were in Birmingham to first get this issue into our emergency motion slot and then to take action. There was even a letter from 25 of our PPCs and many more have since added their support urging our peers to go further with their amendment to secure civil liberties as well as copyright law in the process. In the end our Freedom, Internet and Creativity motion passed with only one representative against.

To summarise my main concerns of the impact it will have :

* This bill, if it becomes law will allow Websites to be blocked by ISPs, search engines and others at the request of "rights owners", without any court involvement or appeals process.. websites will just disappear from view, without warning or notification or even any evidence of wrongdoing.

* This bill, if it becomes law will allow record companies to force ISPs to disconnect users without court involvement, appeals or proof.

* This bill will allow media giants to "steal" copyright property (images, software, music) wholesale by "mistakenly" assuming they are orphaned works.

This bill will add huge costs to every aspect of the Internet in the UK, from additional legal and technical costs, to hampering businesses and harming free speech and competition.

I know that time is running out but I would urge you to prevent this draconian bill being pushed through the house without debate or proper review in the final rush to pass bills before the House rises. This is one matter that by its complexity needs proper examination rather than the somewhat knee-jerk reactionary bill that Lord Mandleson has brought forward.

Yours faithfully

Stephen Glenn

I have just recieved Michael's repsonse which I will also publish in full.

I agree.

Michael

Is Labour Control of Information to Blame?

This morning in the Independent we learnt that the the Youth Justice Board are not publishing their figures on youth crime as scheduled but in 6 months time. An official at the government agency has said that the reason for this is official "purdah" period. The former Civil Servant in me is screaming Gordon hasn't gone to the Palace yet he can't be suppressing reports under the election "purdah" period, that is unless the politico in me has missed the actually calling of the General Election (and I know that hasn't happened).

We also have Helen Goodman Labour MP for Bishop Auckland crying out:

"The police have talked to me about [mephedrone] and have really made the case for a legal ban on it.

She said it should for two reasons: "One is that it would send out a clear message to young people about how very dangerous it is.

"Secondly, it would mean that the police have more powers for dealing with it.

"The police have told me that there are people standing outside the primary school in one of the villages in my constituency trying to push that to people under the age of 12.

"We need to educate young people in the dangers and risks of taking drugs, but I also think we need to have a proper legal framework.

"Ideally, as well as looking at this one particular drug we'd have a new legal framework that would ensure you couldn't just go away, tweak it, and come back and sell something that's incredibly close."

On point one tobacco can be dangerous, alcohol can dangerous, indeed any alien item in the human body can be dangerous. Heck tasers can be dangerous, on people with minor heart conditions could be fatal.....oh hang on the police want to use them not ban them. I don't hear Labour MPs crying out for a complete ban on any of these to send out a clear message to young people, and the police, how very dangerous these are.

Also this is the same police force that have called out for ID cards, random stop and search, rights to detain for 90 days without charge, rights for fully exposing search at airports all of which, and more, have been pandered to by authoritarian Labour, without consideration of civil liberty considerations.

But then it all comes back to information, or more to the point Labour's control of information should I say. Just like we have a Youth Justice Board providing information to the Government about youth crime (even though the rest of us won't get that info for six months) how about a similar body for drug usage. Let's see let us call it the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), that'll work says exactly what is says on the tin. Lets appoint some experts in that field to that panel and let them look into things such as new drugs on the scene, just like methedrone. They could advise government based on scientific evidence just how dangerous the various drugs in our culture are.

Guess what? The ACMD does exist.

Guess what? The ACMD had a sub-committee looking into legal highs.

Guess what? Labour didn't like what the Chief expert Dr David Nutt had to say about cannabis in October so the Home Secretary sacked him.Other members of the panel also resigned.

As a result of losing the six experts Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said he would not pre-judge decisions on drug classification ahead of the committee issuing advice. However, we have Labour and Conservative members of the house now wishing to jump just such a gun before scientific opinions are made.

As Chris Huhne Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary points out:

"If the Home Secretary hadn't meddled in the work of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs we would already have had their advice and the Government would be able to act.

"The failure to classify mephedrone is a direct consequence of the Government’s interference in the independent advice of its scientific advisers.

"If the Home Secretary hadn't meddled in the work of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs we would already have had their advice and the Government would be able to act."

So it is all very well Mandelson saying a review into mephedrone should be "speedily, carefully" carried out. Thing is that process was stalled by Labour own stubbornness to accept scientific fact. They'll happily accept scientific 'fact' when it suits them, weapons on mass destruction in Iraq springs readily to mind, but not when it goes against what they have already said.

Quote of the Day on mephedrone

"Just because [mephedrone] is legal to possess it does not mean that this is at all safe."

That is a balanced view from Kay Aisthorpe of police community initiative Safer Neighbourhoods. There are a lot of things in our live that are not entirely safe if used in the wrong way:

• household bleach
• kitchen knives
• motor cars

Just because something is not "at all safe" through one use does not mean that all the rest should be banned. Same goes for our net usage. However, just like that and the Digital Economy Bill I'm expected a knee-jerk, ill-conceived, poorly thought out Labour reaction any minute now.

Although it does take me back to my time at the end of one school term working as the chemistry department lab technician in my old school. One of the younger teachers was trying to replicate one of the old time experiments for his sixth form class as an end of term treat. He'd written his required chemicals in the request book. I had to tell him that I was unable to provide the As₂O₃ he'd requested. Why asked why I had to inform him that no compounds of arsenic were allowed on school premises.

How Authoritarian is Michael Connarty?

Lib Dem Voice have launched a new tool showing how authoritarian or liberal your MP has been over it is based on 10 key round of votes over the life of the current Parliament on 10 issues. A liberal approach earned 0 points an authoritarian stance 10.

The issues were (read more details here):

• ID Cards (Vote 18 October 2005)
• Control Orders (3 March 2009)
• MP's Expenses - exception from Freedom of Information request (20 April and 18 May 2007)
  
• Extradition Act 2003 vote on review (15 July 2009)
• DNA Database - protecting the innocent (19 January 2010)
• Abolition of Parliament Bill (Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill) (16 May 2006)
• 90 Days Detention of Terror Suspects (9 November 2005)
• Trial Without Jury (25 January 2007)
• Freedom of Speech (21 June 2005)
• Government intervention in Coroners' investigations and inquests (9 November 2009)

In 2005 when I stood against Michael Connarty not all of these issues were on the Labour manifesto. Though we were question at hustings about the ID cards. I stood up for Freedom, Fairness and Trust three key areas that Labour have failed on over the last five years. Many of them are the issues that I have challenged him on over the last five years. So how did my opponent fair?



Not very well, 83 out of 100. The only points he missed were due to his absence in the division lobby. The people of Linlithgow and East Falkirk have for the last five years had an MP who is eroding their civil liberties, they have elected an authoritarian who has not questioned the party line.

For the next couple of months I'll be making it clear in the run up to the election just how unfair the Labour government have made life in the UK over the last 5, indeed 13, years. It is time to stand up against them taking away more of our liberties. The SNP are not aiming to do that they want all power to revolve around their cabinet table at best taking it away from local authorities.

The Fruit of Gordon's Character

"It is for other people to judge but I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know.

"It is about having the courage to set out your mission and the courage to take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off-course, even when the going is difficult.

"For better or for worse, with me what you see is what you get."

Well that is what Gordon Brown is saying should be the judgement on which people base their decision for this election. So lets look at Labour's mission over the last 13 years.

On law and order they seem to have been blown by whatever the police want irrespective of the civil liberties that they limit. So that is a course but one that many social progressives who once felt the Labour party was their natural home are wary of.

On Iraq they set out on a mission to get rid of Saddam. They certainly weren't swayed by the advise of legal and military experts that their reasoning for the invasion was flawed or illegal. We've even had David Miliband saying that UN was feeble over Saddam, that only the iron fist of the US and UK could waken them up. But Bush and Blair still kow-towed to New York to get a retrospective resolution even though they broke Article 2 of the UN's founding charter.

On tax that steady course that Gordon has ploughed. He announced he was to remove the 10p tax band. Only for it to be given a temporary reprieve. In effect he had unfairly doubled the tax burden of the lowest paid. Indeed only most earning up to about £2,000 less than the Tories want to freeze public pay everyone was worse off. While at the other end it was Gordon who made a differential in the high rate capital gains and income tax thresholds making it easier for the richest to avoid paying a full amount of tax. Yet now he speaks of a future fair for all.

As for the banks, well it got worse. Gordon refused to listen to Vince Cable, a former banker, and sailed his course of deregulation. Allowing them carte blanch to gamble the nations savings against the market. We'll be paying for that courageous path of the former chancellor for years to come.

Only the Liberal Democrats have consistently stood up for our civil liberties in the last 13 years. Only the Liberal Democrats spoke out about the illegal war on Iraq with one voice. Only the Liberal Democrats are promising to make our taxes fairer. Only the Liberal Democrats are prepared to reform the banks, yes allow the investment banks to speculate, but not at the expense of individuals and firms access to core banking services.<

Gordon Brown as the son of the Manse is no doubt aware that Matthew 7:16 says. "It is by their fruits that you shall know them." Sorry Gordon but Labour have turned out to be a rotten apple. The Tories are merely the same old sour,bitter lemon trying to disguise themselves as a juicy, sweet strawberry. The Liberal Democrats are trying to give real sustenance to our economy, it is time to build a fairer Britain.

Mikey, the Terror Suspect

The danger of watch-lists is just that they are just lists. Words after words after words. Names upon name upon name.

There is the name Michael Hicks not on the US no-fly list but on the list of selectee's who are treated to extra security and full body pat downs anytime they fly. It has happened to Michael 'Mikey' Hicks for the past 6 years. So who is this wanten terror suspect?


Here you are. This American boy scout, son of a US Navy veteran has been subject to tight security and full body pat downs since he was 2!

Compare his plight with that of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who was the Christmas day underpants bomber. Mr Abdulmutallab was on the 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database, but not the 2,500 name no fly list nor the 13,500 name list that Mikey finds himself on and subject to every time he flies.

His mother is campaigning to sort out her sons listing saying:

"You could have seen that he was 2; that he was 3, 4 or 5. Now it’s scary because he’s 8. What happens when he is 16?"

It is quite a point of course. From about that sort of age I started to travel alone. I wasn't on any list, as far as I know, but obviously things were intense. If you notice at Heathrow airport, even to this day the Belfast departure gate is way off to the edge of the complex. When I was sixteen we didn't even check in hold luggage the normal way at check in, our went with us to the gate. Thankfully the IRA didn't employ suicide bombing techniques or heaven knows what would have happened.

Every time I went through either an airport or ferry terminal I made sure I had my photographic ID on me to just travel to another part of the UK. I invariably got stopped, young man travelling alone. It was a part of my student live, but it happened to all of us. We weren't singled out, we all got the same treatment and knew nothing else.

Young Mikey here may end up knowing nothing else, but he will also know that he is somehow erroneously being singled out. Who knows how that will make him feel as he gets older and starts to understand what is going on.

We need to be vigilant that is certain, but we should be so heavy-handed that it encroaches on a person's individual freedoms to this degree when it is so clearly wrong. The problem is also that these edicts that individual names are suspect leads to a lack of common sense from the people at the far end of the chain from those who set up these lists, the people who actually implement their requirements.

Officious Police Halt Mr Gay China

The other day I post about the potential opening up of China with the arrival of the Mr Gay China Pageant.

Guess what?

The event that was due to start today has been shut down by the Chinese police. As the Guardian article concluded on Tuesday:

"Officials could show up and say 'your fire hydrant is in the wrong place. It is still a sensitive issue."

So today they did indeed turn up and said the event had not followed the "correct procedures", such a 'clear' reason of what is wrong is obviously difficult for organisers to appease the officials. I hope that Google.cn make this a special icon on their front page.

So the country that only decriminalised homosexuality 13 years ago and declassified it as a mental condition 9 years ago has either found a fire hydrant in the wrong place, a wrong date on a piece of paper work, or chairs no aligned in the right way as a reason to halt this step forward.

Return of the Redact

The report on the Whitehall leak inquiry that led to the arrest of Tory MP Damian Green is due to be released shortly. However, just what will it reveal? Apparently according to sources objections from senior civil servants and police officers involved mean it is so heavily redacted it 'makes MP's expenses look like a model of transparency'.

The senior policeman who led the enquiry former Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick objected to publication of any part of the report. Sir David Normington, Permanent Secretary to the Home Office first raised concerns that leaks of sensitive material could damage national security, is another who asked for large passages to be blacked out.

The police have concerns that the review misrepresents their investigation. Hello! Isn't that the point of this review. The police have taken one line on this, it appears to have been the wrong one, now we want to find out what actually happened. Of course they are going to say that it misrepresents them if hit is highlighting errors in their methodology.

The fact is that the report was written by Ian Johnston last December when he was Chief Constable of British Transport Police. It is not written by some PhD student like a certain dossier on weapons of mass destruction, but someone who understands police operations and procedures.

However, some are objecting to the fact that the material seized from Mr Green's office in the Palace of Westminster has not been considered. This was allowed to be examined until March of this year after a dispute over whether it was subject to Parliamentary privilege. But in April the judge rules out criminal proceedings against Mr Green and Christopher Galley the Home Office civil servant who admitted passing the documents to the MP.

But if this is review in the public interest why are we not going to see so many important swathes of it. The cover all excuse of national security is being used too much, to either hinder civil liberties or public scrutiny. This Labour government has opened the flood gates to allow an almost secret state exist to protect too many of its own interests rather than those of the individual.

The Liberal Moment

"Nick Clegg’s suggesting that his party can lead the Left seems presumptuous. Yet his is right to make it and has made it in the right way."

So says the lead editorial comment in this morning’s Times. It comes on the day that Nick launches his pamphlet The Liberal Moment with Demos as well as writing an article in the Times outlying his themes.

It opens with the questions:

"Are you one of the millions who turned to new Labour in 1997? Were you excited by the progressive promise? Did you believe that the ideals of fairness, social mobility, sustainability, civil rights and internationalism would finally have their day?"

Going on to say then:

"If so, you face a real dilemma. The choice between a fading exhausted Labour Government and the ideologically barred Conservatives."

The pamphlet and the article both look at the shifting sands of progressive politics. It was about a century ago that the Liberal party started to lose that all out progressive nature of British politics. The outcome was the emergence of the current Labour vs. Conservative struggle in the intervening years. Nick acknowledges that our predecessors then deserved to lose but then looks at the current situation.

The progressive party of the last 100 years, because no matter what the Tories try to paint over their past , progressive and conservative do not sit side by side in the same phrase, have been Labour. Yet look at them now.

"Labour's basic reflexes — central state activism, hoarding power at the centre, top-down government — are the wrong tools to meet the challenges of the modern world. We live in a society where people are no longer rigidly defined by class or place, no longer trapped by a culture of hierarchy….

"Labour have never fully reconciled itself to how power now flows down to individuals and communities that no longer accept a relationship of obeisance to central government. From frenzied target-setting in public service to the demolition of civil liberties, Labour has misread the demand for individual and grassroots empowerment in contemporary Britain."

Just as in the later part of the 19th and early 20th century the ideology battles for progressivism were battles being fought by Labour, long before they won the political battle, so now Nick thinks the battle to be the progressive party in thinking is ours. The battles on thinking are being won on the economy, environment, civil liberties, Iraq, Ghurkhas, and other issues we led the ideological crusade and others are latching on. The war to become the progressive force in politics in the country may take longer, but its day too may be coming.

Nick says:

"So the real choice at the next election is not the old red-blue/ blue-red pendulum of British politics. It is between yellow and blue. A choice between a liberal movement — led by the Liberal Democrats — that is attracting disaffected progressive voters from a Labour Party which will take years to recover, if at all; and a Conservative Party that parrots the language of change to maintain the status quo. In short, an opportunity for progressives to do something different, and finally change things for good."

So with that message ringing in my ears and Nicks vision set out before me, I'm really excited about heading off to Bournemouth for conference. Maybe the old adage is true. Maybe life truly does begin at 101000*.

*As Mark so kindly suggested this blog is now looking at using binary in light of my Total Politics rankings.

Is Lack of Equal Marriage Rights a Form of Apartheid?

Now I know that some members of my own party who consider the issue of same sex marriage a matter on conscience and not one we should form a firm policy on. However, with the aid of Calum Cashley the SNP PPC for Edinburgh North and Leith I’d like to prick that conscience just a little.

We as Liberal Democrats are the party of equality. The preamble to our constitution opens:

"The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. We champion the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals, we acknowledge and respect their right to freedom of conscience and their right to develop their talents to the full. We aim to disperse power, to foster diversity and to nurture creativity. We believe that the role of the state is to enable all citizens to attain these ideals, to contribute fully to their communities and to take part in the decisions which affect their lives."

So let’s look at the parallel that Calum draws between Civil Partnerships and marriage designation in Apartheid era South Africa. There was a designation of interracial marriage which was viewed as substandard, below other partnerships. There were plenty of Liberals whose conscience led them to protest against that state of affairs, a young Peter Hain among them. There was no problem in forming policy against the Apartheid regime.

Calum says he not sure what the differences are between a Civil Partnership and a marriage, there are a number.

He gets the first one that there is a distinction in the name just as same sex couples cannot have a marriage; mixed-sexed couples cannot get a civil partnership. The Government claims it is the same yet there is a distinction there, one group is set aside from the rest of society with a second class designation.

The next issue is that while you can have a religious, humanist or civil marriage as a mixed sex couple, a religious or humanist celebrant is not able to solemnise a same sex union, if they want to. The assumption is that because you are in a same sex relationship you are outside the religious flock and would not want to join with your life partner in a religious context.

The final thrust of the equal marriage campaign is dealing with gender recognition and the anomaly that they face should one partner seek to alter their legally recognised gender under the terms of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. They are no longer able to remain either married or civil partnered once that event happens even they remain in love and wish to remain together. They then of course would also face the issue if they wish to re-union in not being able to have the same type of union as previously.

So while Calum and I have a different idea of the governance style of what form a fair society for Scotland will take we can agree on this issue.

Update: I Uhmed and Ahhed about the title for this post since I wrote it, but decided to change it from "A Nats Backing For Marriage Fairness" to the new one to reflect on Calum's comments. In the end I decided to take a leaf out of Charlotte Gore's book.

Secularism Shouldn't Cold Shoulder All People of Faith

I see (via Simon Wilson) that Tim Montgomerie over at ConservativeHome has pointed out that the National Secularist Society* (NSS) want to do away with people of religion in the House of Commons. They have said about David Kerr:

"The concern for voters would be that such a person would have their allegiance to the Church and not to the SNP. It is one thing to bring your religious beliefs to politics, but it is another to bring the dogmas of a right-wing Catholic organisation. That would be the worry for voters."

The HSS will argue that this only applies to members of Opus Die but their wording and the title of their society would point to their underlying agenda.

In 2005 I faced Michael Connarty a well known MP in the British Humanist Society. He is well aware that I was one of two of his opponents in that campaign who confessed a Christian faith. But I'm sure that if you were to ask Michael should that disbar me from seeking election to the commons he would say of course not. The only thing he would argue that should prevent me from sitting in the House of Commons are my views on policies.

Indeed many of my secular friends feels that surely my faith must shape my politics, while many of my Christian friends accuse my politics of affecting my faith. I guess somewhere in the middle is where the truth lies. Indeed if you were to look at my voting, speaking and writing record I'm sure you would be hard pressed to guess or prejudge just how you'd expect me to react based purely on my faith. Indeed I did blog against a lot of fellow Lib Dems on the matter of how liberal are we on the matter of people's believes over some of the clamp downs on religion in recent months.

If we are to have a representative democracy part of that democracy must still be those of faith, all faiths in our country. Yes some of them will have very conservative views on a number of ethical matters, but not all people of faith are that bound by that when they come to matters of conscious. Charles Wesley was actually under fear of personal assault when he preached from the pulpit to end slavery for example. There are Christians on both sides of the debate regarding human sexuality and abortion for example. It is not just as black and white as the NSS would maybe want to have us believe.

No doubt this may spark some debate from the usual quarters, but we can't go blocking people from seeking election for any reason we just don't happen to agree with. If they are way out of line then we need to win the debate, show them up for what they are. But merely being of faith is not one of those reasons. Many of those as Simon pointed out were actually at the vanguard of social reforms going against the norms of society. Don't forget it was son of the Manse David Steel who he introduced his Private Members Bill in 1967 to legalise abortion, although Roy Jenkins had wanted him to sponsor a bill on homosexual law reform to incorporate Scotland when he came up in the ballot. So the NSS and others shouldn't tar everyone of faith with the same brush, sometimes we're the most revolutionary, forward-thinking, risk-averse people out there.

* UPDATE: Correction has been made as I originally posted Human Secularist Society instead of National Secularist Society. There may have been some confusion with the Humanist Society of Scotland who have made no statement on David Kerr.

I See Your True Colours Shining Though

Call me Dave, a liberal Conservative has shown his true colours today. Yes David Cameron has said that he is going to shut down the peace camp on Parliament Square and move it on.

He says that the encampment right outside Parliament is "pretty poor place" and looks like a shanty town. While he may be correct he is forgetting one important thing. The reason people feel the need to camp out in Parliament Square is because of the draconian approach to protest taken by the Labour Government. If the right to bring protest to Parliament Square were allowed people wouldn't feel the need for guerrilla warfare to stay their ground and fight the whole time.

Look at Holyrood in Edinburgh or the Synedd in Cardiff where protests can be taken to the seat of Government the protests are made and people then disperse. The problem is that by surprising free speech on the doorstep of the Palace of Westminster the protesters have had to camp out claiming their ground for fear of never being able to return and protest again, its the old case of squatters rights and that is not a democratic way to protest.

Wasn't Tony Blair who once said he liked the fact that people in the UK could protest right outside Downing Street and Parliament? Yes, believe it or not it was only about 8-9 years ago.