Either of you have use for this?

*jumps up and down, furiously waving, trying to draw attention to himself but failing*

Is inanity the secret of Mr. Secretary Prescott’s popularity?

Um, not according to my mp. She was elected to represent the labour party. She told me so.

Coo, politics really gets the blood going doesn’t it?

Perhaps the most enjoyable thing a human can experience. Simmer gently to keep the taste, steam if you can, but if you must boil, make it quick.

Absolutely! First past the post may have been a glorious tradtion, but it’s outdated and needs changing to a fairer, more representative system. The problems with FPTP are so glaringly obvious I’m going to assume you are playing devil’s advocate.

And yes Jax, I’m up for a petition!

It isn’t so much that i’m apathetic, though i lack interest in politics really because i see little opportunity to backtrack, more that i simply don’t believe anyone would be doing anything any different. I think the minute 9/11 happened and it would have happened whether we had Labour, Tory or Liberal in government, it gave our government carte blanche to tighten up our freedoms in the name of security. And let’s face it, they get hung whatever; if they erode freedoms, it’s bad, if something happens that only happened because it is possible to have a free and subversive thought in this country, they are picked to pieces by the media to see if they’ve negligently not protected us from it.

If a 9/11 happened in London today, the media frenzy within days would be “why were these people here, were they living off our taxes, did MI5 know, had they ever been in Police custody, how had they downloaded bomb making info from British servers, how had we not spotted they were in contact with other known dissenters.” All things which we cheerfully outrage against as being abhorrent to the culture of freedom. But part of my freedom is being able to believe that i live somewhere safer than average, in a culture where we don’t willfully imprison on a whim but we don’t stand side and watch people prepare to do damage either. Part of my freedom would be to live in a country where i need not be afraid of dissenter or government. But let’s face it, they will always provoke one another to damage; it seems to be human nature to fight and control.

We want our cake and eat it in this country, which might be all very well but it doesn’t actually make legislating for the populace a particularly clear job. And wearily, i’m of the opinion that if governing a country was easy, more people would do it better. But i don’t think there can be a country in the world where a population believe they are being perfectly run.

If it is apathetic to concentrate on the small, then yes i am. The things that make a daily difference to my children; decent midwifery, the right to home educate, the right to know their parents won’t get carted off because of a lifestyle choice or a political stance, the right to know that their world won’t be untenably polluted by their adulthood. The right to watch television as adults and not cry as dying sisters carry starving baby sisters on to a camp where food has already run out. There are places in the world where writing this blog would mean you never saw the light outside a prison cell again; i’m sorry, but i don’t believe Britain is even on the same pathway as places like that. There are places where government spending on arms and the rich means the food runs out in a weeks time. Honestly, i simply can’t get a bitter taste in my mouth about Britain in comparison. Maybe i’m blinkered, maybe i’m not cynical enough. I don’t know. I think there is a middle line though.

If you hold a minority view then your view will not win in elections. First past the post is one of the glorious British traditions. Been going 100s of years. Do you wish to dismantle the foundations of our political society?

If you want your view to win under the current rules then you must persuade someone to stand who holds them, and then you have the task of persuading all those constituents to vote for them.

” I am not represented, despite voting.”

You are represented. Your MP is obliged to hear you. It doesnt matter if you voted for them, for the opposition or not at all. You are represented. If you and a substantial number of your fellow constituents have a grievance then your MP is obliged to look into it and act.

But again we are back to the substantial number of constituents – you need to build the number of people who share your view.

Want to start a petition then?

Oh and I have to say, for the record, that I too have never been taken in by the Bliar. I also don’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of being represented under the current system, living in a die hard tory area. Let’s get those 2million signed up!

Well, I’ve been trying to do that for years and it hasn’t worked yet. As you’ll see in tonight’s post, less ppl voted for the government than didn’t even turn out to vote, they were returned by a vote of approx 20% of the electorate. That did not include me. I am not represented, despite voting. What am I supposed to do? My MP thinks her job is to represent the party line, so she isn’t going to be much help either.

And we’re not all that free. Pop off and try to hold a peaceful protest in Parliament Square and see how free you feel then. Did you watch Dispatches last week? Various ppl weren’t feeling too free then either, even to just hold their own opinions.

Coo, politics really gets the blood going doesn’t it?

The bottom line is that this is a bad bill. Whether you like the article or not, and I’m surprised by how much ppl don’t, I thought it was pretty clear, it’s time to fight back.

Everything he said was a lie. I think he got away with it by telling people what they wanted to hear and what they wanted to believe. That is how most other con artists work.

I also remember asking people why they would vote for someone like that. The answer I got was not that life was depressing, it was that they were bored. Nothing more than that. Elderfairy, I can’t speak for you and how John Major’s period as Prime Minister effected you, but with a flourishing economy, by and large, for most people things were really going pretty well.

Blair may be weasely but is absolutely not inane.

Invading a sovereign foreign country with no legal basis merely in order to steal their assets is not inane.

Crafting a law which will abolish all the rights and freedoms set out in Magna Carta and won at the cost of blood over the 800 years since is not inane.

Throwing away everything the Labour movement has ever achieved and worked for is not inane.

Suborning the Labour Party so that it now works solely for the benefit of Blair, Brown and the pack of upper middle class power junkies who trail dutifully at their heels is not inane.

We may have had worse, but not in my lifetime, not in yours, not in generations.

It builds an ad hominem argument against Mr Blair and the government by using words such as “unscrutinised”, “totalitarian”, “frightening”, “demonically”, “unscrupulous”, “disgraceful” and “Kafkaesque”.

Then it is easy to construct the slippery slope argument that if this bill is passed, that nothing of import to the British Constitution will ever be debated in House of Commons again.

The article works up fear that “centuries of precedents” and “historic rights of British culture” might change.

This is despite the argument built that Mr Blair is a moderniser and most people agree this [but ignoring that they voted him in 3 times in a row because of, or inspite of this].

Mr Blair equates modernity with applying reason to a country displaying a “Hogarthian panorama of delinquency and unreason”, and he is well-intentioned.

The article author suggests that the limited period that Mr Blair has in his role will be affecting his judgement.

Now if the author actually described the bill, listed the questions that need to be answered, and then discussed possible outcomes of it passing without the colourful language then it would not have raised so many eyebrows or blood pressures, and we might have a better idea of what the issues are and what we might do about them.

We do not live in a totalitarian society. We are free to suggesting that politicians actions are inspired by the devil, without fear of reprisal. We are free to oppose the state, oppose the government and free to vote them out in regular elections.

I do agree though that there are failings in our society. But in my opinion, argument using colourful language, fear and hyperbole without facts instead of facts and rational thought is probably the worst.

It’ll be okay, nobody panic, we’ve had worse from better. Just bring your kids up to still have the fighting spirit and there will at least be a small posse to swing things around in the future. And erm..well, a bit of rioting never goes amiss. I know for sure that at least one of my kids is destined to be a revolutionary (the others being a mad professor and a rock star).

The libdems say that they were against the war, they are against ID cards, and are fighting the constant introduction of legislation that curtails our liberties. I’d give them a chance, although I’m not nearly as sure of them after all the furore with Charles Kennedy and his successors.

I’m not defending them, i didn’t vote for them last time round, but seriously, if any of the other 2 parties who conceivably could get in, had got in, do you think they’d be different? Genuine question.

I knew several people when i was still working who ranted and ranted for a Labour Government then became their biggest critics pretty soon after. And saying that is because they “are real Labour” won’t really wash because no one else is and they only changed because no one was voting for old style Labour.

If the last 5 years had been the same in terms of events, but one other party had been in government, what do you believe would be different?

http://www.libertycentral.org.uk/content/view/2/41/ spotted at The Current Outlook, might be interesting.

Will look forward to reading your thoughts later.