If this abject waste of water and carbon wins today I, and many like me, will never ever stop taking the piss.

(Video via Mike)

Back in 2006, a bunch of concerned citizens were worried about an obscurely-named piece of government legislation called the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. In short, the bill’s purpose was to cut red tape, to allow ministers to amend troublesome laws on the fly without all the bother of consulting Parliament and all the tedium of democratic accountability. The bill, in the words of the Guardian’s Marcel Berlins, would make it…

…possible for the government, by ministerial order, without a debate in parliament, to create new criminal offences, punishable with less than two years imprisonment. It could also, according to Cambridge law professor John Spencer (who is not alone in his analysis), introduce house-arrest, give the police stronger powers of arrest and interrogation, set up new courts, and in effect re-write the rules on immigration, nationality, divorce, inheritance and the appointment of judges.

All very scary. I, like many others, had quite a lot to say on the matter.

In the end, thanks to some tenacious campaigning in and out of Parliament, by the time the bill became law it had been sufficiently neutered enough to assuage many concerns. One of the larger ironies was that it later emerged that, despite the fears on one side and the assurances on the other, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act did not repeal or amend a single law in its first year of existence.

Now, however, it seems the government is resurrecting the spirit, if not the letter, of the bill. Thanks to the hawk-eyed heroes at Spyblog, we find that nestled away in Jack Straw’s new Constitutional Renewal Bill there is this:

Part 6
FINAL PROVISION

43 Power to make consequential provision

(1) A Minister of the Crown, or two or more Ministers of the Crown acting jointly, may by order make such provision as the Minister or Ministers consider appropriate in consequence of this Act.

(2) An order under subsection (1) may –

(a) amend, repeal or revoke any provision made by or under an Act;

(b) include transitional or saving provision.

(3) An order under subsection (1) is to be made by statutory instrument.

(4) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) which amends or repeals a provision of an Act may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(5) A statutory instrument containing an order under subsection (1) which does not amend or repeal a provision of an Act is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.

Now, as Tom at Blairwatch points out, this clause allows ministers to amend laws created under this bill only. It does not give a free hand to amend any and all laws willy-nilly as the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill did in its original form.

That said, we are talking about bill concerned with constitutional changes - you know, stuff fundamental to our democracy. I’m still ploughing through the draft bill so I’m not entirely sure just how worried we should be at this stage.

I suppose you could take one of two views on this - whichever people take, the government only have themselves to blame. The first would suggest that New Labour ministers hold democracy in contempt - they’ve never been very keen on openness or accountability or parliamentary scrutiny and are more fans of the sofa government and the backroom fix. As such, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill and the clause in Straw’s new bill are manifestations of that.

The second view, which I’m more inclined to take at this moment in time, is that these things are like backdoors in computer systems. I think they’re a tacit admission by the government that they’ve been experts at passing spectacularly bad laws over the last 11 years. And so, they’ve learned the trick of the self-amending law. If something goes wrong, they can sneak in the back and tinker with the law until it’s running a little more smoothly. It does away with all the hassle of having to admit that they’ve cocked up.

I wonder if all of this isn’t anything more sinister than New Labour knowing they’re, well, a bit crap, and are fed up with it being pointed out all the time.

Anyway. Definitely one to be aware of and one to watch.

(More at Ministry of Truth)

Right here (page 7):

Managing Protest around Parliament: The Government proposes the repeal of sections 132-138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Repeal of these sections will remove the requirement to give notice of demonstrations in the designated area around Parliament. It will also remove the offence for such demonstrations to be held without the authorisation of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner;

According to the Analysis of Consultations Managing Protest around Parliament…

The Government received 512 responses during the 12 week consultation period. Representations were received from 25 campaign groups, from six MPs and two Peers, from a number of other interested stakeholders including the Metropolitan Police Service,the Greater London Authority,Westminster City Council and the Law Society of Scotland. However, most responses – over 90 percent – were received from members of the public.

The vast majority of responses – over 95 percent – either explicitly or implicitly called for the straight repeal of sections 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCAP), rejecting arguments that a distinct framework for managing protest around Parliament could be justified on security grounds, or on grounds that the business of Parliament needed special protection, or by a need to safeguard wider public enjoyment of the space.

We’ll pass over the fact they couldn’t even get the acronym of their own bloody law right.

This change of strategy on ID cards by the government might be a winner, I’m sorry and worried to say. The plan is for a phased introduction starting with three of the most hated groups of people in Britain: bloody foreigners, bloody students and bloody airport baggage handlers.

It’s perfect. When the scheme turns out to be the unmitigated carnage all right-thinking people believe it’s going to be, well, who cares. It was only bloody foreigners, bloody students and bloody airport baggage handlers whose lives were ruined. Go back to sleep Britain. Walk on by.

The only way to improve this plan would be to include Members of Parliament and nonces.

Thanks to the government, we now know that Ben Griffin is no lone fantasist howling at the moon:

A former SAS soldier was served with a high court order yesterday preventing him from making fresh disclosures about how hundreds of Iraqis and Afghans captured by British and American special forces were rendered to prisons where they faced torture.

Ben Griffin could be jailed if he makes further disclosures about how people seized by special forces were allegedly mistreated and ended up in secret prisons in breach of the Geneva conventions and international law. Griffin, 29, left the British army in 2005 after three months in Baghdad, saying he disagreed with the “illegal” tactics of US troops.

I think we can be certain he was telling the truth. Why gag him if what he was saying was rubbish? If that were the case surely sending out some obsequious, ambitious and morally-compromised minor functionary to smear him - as is usually the done thing - would have served.

The Ministry of Defence said it did not comment on special forces’ activities.

Sorry guys, but you just did. And how.

We now know that every utterance and mention of Ben Griffin is worth the closest scrutiny. Get yourself a Google News Alert. The speech Griffin made on Monday is reproduced below.

(more…)

Electoral reformers Make Votes Count have got a shiny new website and a list of things to do to help the campaign, including….

A petition:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to promote a meaningful public debate on voters’ experience of elections, and let voters determine if there is a case for changing the way we elect MPs.

A pledge:

I will take part in a public consultation on voters’ experiences of elections but only if 250 other people will pledge to do the same.

Go on.

I see fearless champion of freedom of speech Guido Fawkes* is defending Wikileaks. The website is a repository for documents that might otherwise be suppressed.

This is where Guido uploads important documents (like that Northern Rock memo) and others they don’t want you to see…

I’ve got some important documents that ‘they’** don’t want you to see. Would Wikileaks be the best place to put them for safe keeping, do you think?

(Guido will also be speaking at the Manifesto Club - that bolt-hole for the some of the Living Marxism atrocity deniers - on Tuesday. ‘Guido will be putting the case for the freedom to offend everyone except the truth’. Would anybody like to go? I imagine we could make the Q&A session afterwards an interesting one.)

* Number of legal proceedings initiated against other bloggers: 2
** ‘They’ in this instance being Guido Fawkes.

We’ve got five years, what a surprise, since the big march.

Two articles today about it stand out. The one by John Harris in the Guardian takes an optimistic tack:

In Birmingham, the march’s organisers reserved well over 100 coaches - enough to carry at least 5,000 people - and then tried to get hold of even more, only to find that every coach company for miles had been booked up. In Liverpool, the local STWC had organised its previous outings using a colour-coded system - blue coach, green coach, red coach - but this time found that they had run out of colours, and were reduced to a byzantine system of patterns, so that some people made their way to London on the “leopardskin coach”. At service stations on the M4, protesters marvelled at the great fleet of vehicles making its way from Wales and the West Country; on the morning trains into Paddington there was standing room only. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that London was not the only location for an unprecedentedly huge event. Quite apart from the events that took place overseas, 10,000 marched in Belfast, and as many as 100,000 turned out in Dublin. In Glasgow, 50,000 people pitched up outside the aforementioned Labour conference.

But I think Flying Rodent nails it better, in an excellent piece, full of the futility, the contempt the public are held in, and the need for fresh ideas…

The point I’m trying to make is that protest is going to have to change to be useful in future. Our political and economic systems are massive, impersonal behemoths that give not one shit for our opinions on their behaviour, and will press on unabashed with any deranged schemes they have in mind.

Harris wants us to ‘think of Saturday February 15 2003 as the day that politics stopped working.’ I couldn’t get to the London march - I hadn’t long since lost my job and we could barely afford to get off the sofa let alone get on a bus to the capital. But I went on quite a few marches in Brighton.

There were other things that stopped working that February as well as politics. Trust in the police must have been jammed up as well. It certainly was for me. I saw with my own eye what some policemen will do if they think nobody’s watching. It was ugly.

Watching what combat-booted policemen will do to a peaceful march having the temerity to deviate from its route put me off taking my children to protests until they’re of an age to run unassisted and fast.

Still, pepper spray in the eyes and a hard clout around the head or boot in the thigh from a cocksure copper turned out to be the least of everybody’s worries.

When is a demonstration in Parliament Square not a demonstration in Parliament Square? When the police give you your permission ten minutes before the thing is due to start.

Still, Tim Ireland has made his point: he’s discovered that it is illegal to display a banner in Parliament Square with ‘I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?‘ on it. Democracy is safe once one. Cheers SOCPA.

For anyone willing to rock our nation to its very foundations and attempt this dastardly crime, Tim is offering a very special prize.

Update: Congrats to D-Notice.

Some people in this country, me included, believe there’s something pretty wrong with ‘democracy’ in the UK. It’s blown a gasket. It’s belching stinking pollution. It rattles and it bangs and threatens to seize up altogether at any moment.

Most people just stand around it, kicking the tyres and exclaiming, ‘nah, it’s alright, it’ll go round the clock another couple of times no bother.’ Jack Straw thinks it just needs another coat of paint and it’ll be sorted.

You get the impression that he knows what’s going on under the bonnet but doesn’t want to admit it to himself let alone those of us risking our lives by riding along in the death trap. It needs rebuilding or trading in, if we’re honest.

The old girl’s starting misfiring again, this time when ex-cabinet minister Jack Cunningham was taking it out for a spin:

Jack Cunningham, now in the House of Lords, is paid £36,000 a year - for an estimated three hours’ work a week - by the City of London Corporation to give political advice.

The corporation said that as part of his consultancy, he calls ministers to arrange meetings with the authority when it is having difficulty securing one.

Is that how it works? What’s the difference between a minister not wanting a meeting and a minister wanting a meeting? A phone call from Jack Cunningham. Why aren’t we all doing this?

The chances of getting a democracy that doesn’t revolve around who knows who and favours from and for mates is slim. We should therefore play the system. Thirty-six thousand pounds is not a lot of money in the greater scheme of things. That’s how cheaply democracy can be bought these days which should be good news for everybody.

Let’s all go on a binge-democracy bender if it’s so cheap. We should club together and buy our own ex-Cabinet minister. I can see the headlines now: ‘Minister’s fear cheap democracy is undermining society’.

Of course, that’ll only be because us proles can now afford to get our hands on the stuff. But hey, if they’re going to sell democracy cheaper than corruption, is it any wonder people are going to buy it and abuse it?

Sign the pledge, spread the word, be all you can be in this great democracy of ours:

I will give £36 to a fund to hire the services of an ex-cabinet minister but only if 1,000 other concerned citizens will do the same.

(Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy)

Some people really need to get out more:

Government plans to give the home secretary powers to remove juries from some inquests are “astonishing”, an influential group of MPs says.

A little-noticed clause in the Counter Terrorism Bill would also enable the home secretary to change the coroner if deemed to be in the national interest.

‘Astonishing’? Have they not been reading the papers since September 12 2001? I imagine less-sensitive and easily startled souls greeted this news with merely another weary shake of the head.

That these MPs should astonished is the astonishing bit. I mean, is there a legal process that government ministers aren’t able to subvert on a whim? Habeas Corpus, corruption inquiries, the Nuremberg Principles. Rules were made to be broken after all, I suppose.

Why the Home Secretary is taking a political hit over this is anybody’s guess. I suppose somebody somewhere is still impressed by such inane posturing. It’s a show of strength and mock heroic cloak and dagger bullshit for someone or other.

The thing is, there’s an easier way of doing it than explicitly derailing the legal process. Just carry on what they’re doing already - underfunding the inquest system to such an extent that it grinds to a halt. It hardly ever gets reported on and nobody gives a stuff apart from a few greiving relatives and they’re all against The War Against Terror anyway. Sorted.

Still not so worried about ID cards and their attendant massive database? Then how about this. This week’s Private Eye publishes extracts from Nick Davies’ Flat Earth News, ‘[a]n explosive expose of the corruption entrenched in today’s media:

Reporters from the Mail to whom I spoke independently agreed that they had bribed not only police officers but also civil servants. For example, they targeted officials who had access to the massive database of the social security system, which registers the personal details of every British citizen with a national insurance number and every foreign national with a right to work in Britain - some 72 million private citizens. One reporter who has now left the paper recalled: ‘We used to use the social security computer as if it was an extension of the Daily Mail library. You phone your contact, have a chat, say you’re looking for such-and-such a guy, this age, rough location - is there any chance? Keep chatting. He says, “Oh, we’ve got five people of that name.” You say, “Well, givegive me all five.” You get home addresses, phone numbers, maybe workplace too. They get you information off the database, and you reward them with a dirty great meal or an envelope.’

Now, under the terms of the Identity Card Act 2006, if a person with access to the Identity Register who ‘provides any person with information that he is required to keep confidential’ can face ‘imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or [...] a fine. or [...] both’.

Why aren’t similar safeguards in place for the social security database? If not, why not? If they are, why aren’t they being enforced or acting as an adequate deterrent? Unless these provisions are made to provide the illusion of security for the public (see also, the towers of anti-terrorism legislation). There do seem to be measures of some sort in place. Davies again:

At one point, according to one Mail source, a reporter in the newsroom was bribing a Ministry of Defence police office who could access several databases, including Scotland Yard’s. Mail reporters separately claim that they also had regular access to what is arguably the most sensitive of all confidential information, the health records of some of their targets. As one Mail veteran put it to me: ‘If the Mail‘ go for you, they get every phone number you have dialled, every schoolmate, everything on your credit card, every call to your phone and to your mobile. Everything.’ Even if it is against the law.

My emphasis. This isn’t rocket science. Proper security would merely mean having to log every access to the database. That will take huge amounts of computer storage but, frankly, tough. Do it right or not at all. Then, if a person complains that their personal details have reached the public domain, it’s a simple procedure to review the access logs to see who’s been looking at that person’s details.

If the accesser doesn’t have a good reason, then it’s suspension, a trial and possibly ‘imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or [...] a fine. or [...] both’. You could sketch this idea on a napkin and have a small prototype system running in an afternoon. I should be in management consultancy.

The vital ingredient in this plan, of course, is political will. The will to implement the measures. The will to provide the resources to monitor and enforce the measures. And the will to prosecute transgressors. Oh, and a newspaper or two having the balls to a) shun these practices and b) blow the whistle on law-breaking rivals. Good luck.

Remember all this the next time you see a government minister defending the overall safety of our personal information. And remember all this the next time you see the Daily Mail bleating about the government losing our data and it maybe ending up in the wrong hands. We now know whose hands some of that data is ending up in.

The next time the Prime Minister or attendant flunkies tell you that ID cards are not going to be compulsory, just remember that, yes, they won’t be compulsory if you’re one of the 20% of us who doesn’t want to travel abroad.

And they won’t be compulsory if you’re a student who doesn’t need a student loan.

The document says: “We should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan, etc.”

You have to admit it’s brilliant. ‘We’re not forcing you to have one,’ said the minister, ‘just forget about that holiday or degree’.

What they should do is say that none of us will be permitted to breathe without an ID card. ‘Well, there’s certainly no element of compulsion,’ the Prime Minister’s spokesman will say, ‘but we find that ID cards would help in the provision of respiratory services’.

* Which is:
1. You can’t win.
2. You can’t break even.
3. You can’t even quit the game.

Tim Ireland outdoes himself once again. I think you’ll go a long way to find a better demolition of the idiotic ban on protesting around Parliament[1].

* And not just because I have a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo.

Gordon Brown is in the Observer today crapping on again about how ID cards are going to save us.

Alex Harrowell examines the Prime Minister’s argument with surgeon-like skill and efficiency. The patient does not survive. Great stuff.

In case you’d forgotten, the Home Office is holding a public consultation into the right to protest outside Parliament as curtailed by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. You’ve only got until January 17 to make yourself heard so get on with it.

The consultation document (PDF, 31 pages) makes for interesting reading. As Beau Bo D’Or has discovered, Mark Thomas‘ (and everyone else’s) Mass Lone Protests haven’t gone unnoticed…

Click here for more information.

Specially written carols, a minute’s noise and The Airing of Grievances.

I’m going to be there, with bells on.

So they want 58 days. When you’re trying to sell something, always go with your highest price first. It’s the first principle of haggling. Who doubts they’ll settle for less?

Last week the Home Secretary claimed she didn’t have a clue how much they were going to ask. It didn’t take long for her to calculate her profit margins as it turned out - they saw last time that at 90 days demand was too elastic.

Now it’s a question of who bottles first, the government or those who don’t want to move beyond 28 days detention. If it’s the latter then we get into the horsetrading to see how far both parties are prepared to move.

Any number between 29 and 58 is a victory for the government. They get an increment and, like last time, get to smear their oppenents as appeasing suicide bombers. When it’s actually the other way around.

They can then come back next years and the next and the next to demand another increment. They’ll go with the highest price first, 72 days maybe. Under this process they’ll eventually get their way - and why stop at 90?

(See also Parkinson’s Law.)

Well, it didn’t take that 5.6 billion pound figure to be revealed as horseshit. With a speed of change that surprised even me, we find:

The report says that the latest estimate excludes the cost of the ID project to other government departments outside the Home Office, including card scanners for GPs registering new patients.

The report to parliament admits that the estimate is likely to change, especially as the tendering process, with eight private sector firms bidding to run the scheme, has just started.

I think, however, we can be confident that the final cost of the ID card scheme will be in the region of ’some pounds’.

You know you, right? Your public servants think you’re a bloody idiot. Run and get your chequebook. Go on, chop chop.

Here’s fun:

The projected cost of the identity card scheme will be £5.612bn over the next 10 years, the Home Office says.

Write that number down and put it somewhere safe. We’ll get together in a few months’ - maybe a year’s - time and have a good, long, hollow laugh at it.

Who says this government is lacking in new ideas? Here’s a stunning piece of innovative thinking from the Prime Minister on the subject of the much-hated ID card scheme.

[T]he PM was concerned enough about introducing such a huge multi-billion pound scheme to insist that the technology must work before it is introduced.

Sound thinking and it’s only taken ten years of a Labour government to come up with the plan. Makes you wonder if government ministers have been weeing before undoing their flies all this time as well.

This new initiative, however, is what’s known in the trade as putting the cart after the horse. And shutting the gate before the horse has bolted. It’s a tried and tested part of everyday life, making sure things work before you use them, else we’d still be living in caves or extinct. But it’s a new and bold step apparently in the development of government computer systems.

It does, however, prompt this thought. We’re up to our necks in schemes has the PM been unconcerned enough about introducing to not insist that the technology must work before it is introduced. Sure, some brave mavericks have taken risks in the furtherance of human understanding but at least they were only risking their own necks. And the likes of Orville and Wilbur Wright didn’t take the attitude of, ’sod it, it’s only got one wing but let’s try it anyway’.

How just 8,000 voters could have handed power to the Conservatives on November 1st

Research from the Electoral Reform Society has revealed just how few votes were required to swing the general election from Labour.

read the rest

(via Make My Vote Count)

Being one of the Chosen People, as a voter down here in the super-marginal Hove and Portslade constituency (majority 420), I’ve very much enjoyed being lavished with attention from the local Conservative Party.

In the past few months, it’s become clear that the local party have been putting Lord Ashcroft’s treasure to good use. Barely a month goes by without a glossy despatch from Tory candidate Mike Weatherley dropping through the door.

Yesterday, however, a very different beast arrived. The four-page, tabloid-sized ‘Change’ was pushed through the letterbox.

Pieces from David Cameron and Caroline Spelman, party chairman, are on the front and Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley gets page two. Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague and Shadow Home Secretary David Davis are the page three lovelies. Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Enviroment Secretary, and Shadow Security Minister Dame Pauline Neville-Jones get the sports page.

Now, the publication’s strapline is ‘News update from your local Conservatives’. But unless Cameron, Spelman, Lansley and all have quietly moved to Hove in the last few weeks, that’s a lie isn’t it? I’ve been through the thing and there’s no mention of Hove and Portslade or Mike Weatherley. Or how the Tories would bring an end to Portslade’s dogshit crisis which is now in its 5679th day (my youngest trailed through another turd only this morning). It’s just boilerplate propaganda about what a nasty man Gordon Brown is. A paper-based WebCameron, if you will.

Not that I’m complaining or anything (I’m giving it to the gerbils to chew and turn into bedding in a minute, they’ll love it). The Tories are simply exploiting the loophole in our electoral system to get their message out and attempting to buy democracy as you’d expect from any amoral, power-hungry and cash-rich political party.

At least the Tories are visible - you never hear from Labour round here between one election and the next. It’s just worth noting that insulting people’s intelligence never, ever, goes out of fashion.

UPDATE: Looks like the gerbils’ treat might be off. Tory Central Office have just replied to my enquiry:

Dear Mrs McKeatney,

Thank you for your email which has come into David Cameron’s inbox via the Conservative Party website.

I am very pleased to hear that you have received a copy of our newsletter, and we hope that you enjoy reading it. I am afraid I simply do not know whether it would be safe for your gerbils.

Thank you again for writing.

I demand that some of Lord Ashcroft’s millions be diverted to the attempt to find out. Isn’t that the challenge of the 21st century?

The Home Office are holding a consultation into the right to protest outside Parliament as curtailed by the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005. Some of us have had some fun with the law in the past but it’s long past time to get rid.

The consultation runs until January 17 2008 and the consultation document (PDF) is here. Go on, give it a look - it’s only 30 pages - and then make yourself heard. You never know. If anything, it will prove a useful learning exercise into how these things work.

UPDATE: I hope it’s not an omen but large sections of that PDF document are printing as garbage for me.

A Labour peer has admitted taking money to introduce an arms company lobbyist to the government minister in charge of weapons purchases. The case of “cash for access” in the House of Lords is likely to ignite fresh concern about ethical standards in parliament.

The lobbyist, Michael Wood, who trades as Whitehall Advisers, agreed to pay Lord Hoyle an undisclosed sum in June 2005. MoD documents released to the Guardian show that Lord Hoyle then engineered a private meeting between Mr Wood and the newly appointed defence minister.

Mr Wood is a former RAF officer who works for BAE and other smaller arms companies to help get them contracts. He has free run of the palace of Westminster because he has a security pass as a “research assistant” to another MP. He operates his company from his nearby flat.

read the rest