Margaret Thatcher died yesterday.
I could be cruel and give a link to the sequence in the Wizard of Oz where the munchkins (are they munchkins? I forget) sing the song celebrating the fact that Dorothy has killed the wicked witch. Suffice to say I'm not a fan.
She's a bit of a puzzle Thatcher - the conservatives seem to hold her up as some sort of beacon of conservatism, but in reality she was actually the opposite. Thatcher was a Libertarianist, which is she believed in individual freedom, freedom of the market (basically unrestrained capitalism) and small government. She had more in common with the Tea Party in the US than she did the conservatives. Yet she was also the leader that took us into Europe, which is essentially about the opposite.
Conservatism is about the maintaining of the traditional social structures - in our case that particularly emphasises a royalist structure, though tempered nowadays towards a democratic version. Conservatism is about the old guard, lords and ladies, the idea of 'social betters', that rank has meaning and that there are elites.
Thatcher was, in essence, more opposed to these ideas that with them. She often railed against experts and "old boy's networks", though I think with a desire to maintain the basic ranks - she would never have done away with them, but would prefer they had no actual influence.
Of course neither of these are in synch with my own political beliefs.
I'm more left leaning, probably ending up most squarely in the "democratic socialist" camp, due to an acknowledgement that communism is unlikely to work until technology progresses to such a degree that it renders much of what we squabble over mute. Imagine if you could buy a machine that would be able to manufacture anything you need (think Star Trek replicator) - what use would money, gold and jewels be if your machine could simply make them? These new 3D printers are a step in that direction.
The worst thing that Maggie did was deregulate the markets. That, in essence, is the root cause of the huge pickle we have now found ourselves in.
She didn't invent the idea of a deregulated market, but began the implementation of it in this country during the 1980s, with a similar process going on in the US (the so called "Reagenomics"). The up-side is that very clever people get to find extremely inventive ways to make money. The down-side is that the market wrap themselves in such knots that one failure causes a massive cascade of failures and also, those clever people who are making money are also then not constrained by things like morals and ethics.
The fundamental flaw in the system is also the central belief - that deregulated markets will not act in such a way as to be self-destructive. I don't see how this could ever have seemed like a sensible or logical thought process. It's like saying that people who drive cars will never be reckless enough to have an accident. Firstly it ignores that external forces may cause an accident, but it also ignores the fact that the market is underpinned by people, and people can be just as moronic as you imagine - indeed, more so.
Of course it's not entirely her fault - others did the same thing and successive governments had ample opportunities to reverse the policy or otherwise rein it in - but the implementation all traces back to Maggie.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Thursday, 7 June 2012
jubilant lee
No post yesterday as it was bonkers at work.
It was a pretty pointless long weekend, if I'm honest.
I have somewhat mixed feelings over the Royal Family. A part of me isn't a fan of the fact we spend a hell of a lot of money on a family that happens to be royal simply through the luck of birth.
Another part of me thinks that if it was replaced by a president they'd end up having the money spent on them or the politicians would find some other way to waste it. And besides, the royals bring in a huge amount of tourist money and they do go around doing stuff that their royal status gives them special benefits to achieve.
I think my only real issue with them is the way in which we still treat them. There are a lot of people in the UK who still regard them as being special in some way or that they count for something. The deferential attitude is the only thing that really annoys me about them.
In terms of the actual jubilee it seemed to be a bit of a wash out locally. It pretty much rained or drizzled all the weekend and the temperature took a severe nosedive which seemed to mean nothing much happened.
The planned events were not really my cup of tea on the whole. There was a pageant where 1,000 boats went down the Thames, a concert and then a ceremony of thanksgiving.
I tried to watch the pageant, but the coverage was terrible. It was like watching a hugely extended version of the one show and I hate the one show. I only managed about an hour and then had to switch it off.
The concert I learned my lesson and recorded ait and then watched it on a massive delay. This allowed me to skip the bits where people introduced the acts (they were cringe worthy) and also skip some of the songs that just weren't my cup of tea.
It seemed like they'd had a fair old go at representing all sorts of different types of music, which was fair enough, but meant good chunks of it weren't my cup of tea. But overall it sort of worked.
I didn't even go near the ceremony thing.
Otherwise I did very little. I watched a whole bunch of TV shows, many of which I'd recorded - the fourth series of Being Human in particular.
I wasn't a big fan of the third series of Being Human. It got quite introspective and naval gazing and it seemed to lose its sense of humour, which was the thing that always really appealed to me.
The fourth series was a real return to form. In particular the plot which was spread across all the episodes really worked well, which it kinda didn't in season 3. In 3 it didn't feel like there was a proper overall plan where there clearly was in 4.
I have to say though that it seemed to wrap up really well but then they said at the end there was going to be a series 5, so I'm a little trepidatious about how good 5 will be.
It was a pretty pointless long weekend, if I'm honest.
I have somewhat mixed feelings over the Royal Family. A part of me isn't a fan of the fact we spend a hell of a lot of money on a family that happens to be royal simply through the luck of birth.
Another part of me thinks that if it was replaced by a president they'd end up having the money spent on them or the politicians would find some other way to waste it. And besides, the royals bring in a huge amount of tourist money and they do go around doing stuff that their royal status gives them special benefits to achieve.
I think my only real issue with them is the way in which we still treat them. There are a lot of people in the UK who still regard them as being special in some way or that they count for something. The deferential attitude is the only thing that really annoys me about them.
In terms of the actual jubilee it seemed to be a bit of a wash out locally. It pretty much rained or drizzled all the weekend and the temperature took a severe nosedive which seemed to mean nothing much happened.
The planned events were not really my cup of tea on the whole. There was a pageant where 1,000 boats went down the Thames, a concert and then a ceremony of thanksgiving.
I tried to watch the pageant, but the coverage was terrible. It was like watching a hugely extended version of the one show and I hate the one show. I only managed about an hour and then had to switch it off.
The concert I learned my lesson and recorded ait and then watched it on a massive delay. This allowed me to skip the bits where people introduced the acts (they were cringe worthy) and also skip some of the songs that just weren't my cup of tea.
It seemed like they'd had a fair old go at representing all sorts of different types of music, which was fair enough, but meant good chunks of it weren't my cup of tea. But overall it sort of worked.
I didn't even go near the ceremony thing.
Otherwise I did very little. I watched a whole bunch of TV shows, many of which I'd recorded - the fourth series of Being Human in particular.
I wasn't a big fan of the third series of Being Human. It got quite introspective and naval gazing and it seemed to lose its sense of humour, which was the thing that always really appealed to me.
The fourth series was a real return to form. In particular the plot which was spread across all the episodes really worked well, which it kinda didn't in season 3. In 3 it didn't feel like there was a proper overall plan where there clearly was in 4.
I have to say though that it seemed to wrap up really well but then they said at the end there was going to be a series 5, so I'm a little trepidatious about how good 5 will be.
Thursday, 26 April 2012
drought that never dried
It's no wonder the British have such a strongly developed sense of irony.
A couple of weeks back the water company where I live (and several others in the South and South East) declared a hose pipe ban. Their reason for doing so was that it has been very dry over the last few years and, indeed, we were officially in drought.
Since then, of course, it has rained every single day. And I don't mean that as an exaggeration - every day for the last couple of weeks we've had some rain.
Now don't get me wrong - I know this relatively short spell of wet weather (April Showers have really been living up to their name) is not enough to completely negate what have been a reasonably dry few years. However, it is quite ironic that as soon as a drought is declared and a hose pipe ban goes into effect it starts raining.
Of course there's also the issue of leaks. The record of the water companies is generally appalling on the leaks front. Any small saving you personally can make is dwarfed by the amount of water that gets pissed away in leaks every single hour. Of course there's a cumulative effect of us all saving a bit, but still, even a small amount of Google searching will bring up some eye watering (heh) stats.
But for me the whole thing is much more fundamental than that.
Our water industry is privatised (as, indeed, are most all of our utilities). Now obviously if it were nationalised we would still also pay for the water, but with it being nationalised, surely these companies are under a different type of obligation to us, because we're now customers.
If you went to a shop and tried to buy some clothes you wouldn't expect them to only sell you half a pair of trousers because you were only allowed a certain amount of cloth. If they did that you'd go elsewhere.
But to me that's a ridiculous notion for the utilities - it still comes out of the same pipe or down the same wire. There may be a different person you're paying, but it's still coming from the same place. To use the shop analogy it'd be like going up to a different sales assistant and now they're going to sell you exactly the same thing, but they're going to charge you a different amount of money, or they're going to put slightly different restrictions on the length of the trousers you're going to buy or when you can wear them.
It's a ridiculous situation.
I've also never had much truck with this notion that private companies are more efficient simply by virtue of needing to turn a profit. It's a ridiculous and patently untrue notion.
Companies being driven by profit can just as equally lead to fraud, deceit, cost-cutting (as in the worst kind - skimping on safety, for example)
A couple of weeks back the water company where I live (and several others in the South and South East) declared a hose pipe ban. Their reason for doing so was that it has been very dry over the last few years and, indeed, we were officially in drought.
Since then, of course, it has rained every single day. And I don't mean that as an exaggeration - every day for the last couple of weeks we've had some rain.
Now don't get me wrong - I know this relatively short spell of wet weather (April Showers have really been living up to their name) is not enough to completely negate what have been a reasonably dry few years. However, it is quite ironic that as soon as a drought is declared and a hose pipe ban goes into effect it starts raining.
Of course there's also the issue of leaks. The record of the water companies is generally appalling on the leaks front. Any small saving you personally can make is dwarfed by the amount of water that gets pissed away in leaks every single hour. Of course there's a cumulative effect of us all saving a bit, but still, even a small amount of Google searching will bring up some eye watering (heh) stats.
But for me the whole thing is much more fundamental than that.
Our water industry is privatised (as, indeed, are most all of our utilities). Now obviously if it were nationalised we would still also pay for the water, but with it being nationalised, surely these companies are under a different type of obligation to us, because we're now customers.
If you went to a shop and tried to buy some clothes you wouldn't expect them to only sell you half a pair of trousers because you were only allowed a certain amount of cloth. If they did that you'd go elsewhere.
But to me that's a ridiculous notion for the utilities - it still comes out of the same pipe or down the same wire. There may be a different person you're paying, but it's still coming from the same place. To use the shop analogy it'd be like going up to a different sales assistant and now they're going to sell you exactly the same thing, but they're going to charge you a different amount of money, or they're going to put slightly different restrictions on the length of the trousers you're going to buy or when you can wear them.
It's a ridiculous situation.
I've also never had much truck with this notion that private companies are more efficient simply by virtue of needing to turn a profit. It's a ridiculous and patently untrue notion.
Companies being driven by profit can just as equally lead to fraud, deceit, cost-cutting (as in the worst kind - skimping on safety, for example)
Thursday, 13 May 2010
so it's dodgy dave then
I know politics is boring, but it looks like we finally have a government.
I can't claim to be happy about the result, but it's actually been quite fascinating watching it all unfold over the last week or so.
I think the most important thing that's come out of the hung parliament and the wrangling is that finally more people are starting to realise that our current system does not produce results that are fair on the people doing the voting.
There's actually an interesting summary of the different electoral options on the BBC news site. The system they're going to have the referendum on is the Alternative Vote System.
While this is a very mild version of PR, it would certainly address one of the biggest problems of the current system. If you look at last Thursdays vote, nearly a quarter (23%) of all the people that voted voted for the Liberal Democrats. And yet they ended up with just 57 seats, which is only 9%.
How can that possibly reflect the true feelings of the electorate?
I know there are lots of arguments for the 'strong' governments that tend to be formed under 1st past the post, but lets face it - giving total power to one party just gives them a mandate to ride rough-shod across the feelings of the majority of the UK population. How can that possibly be considered fair?
And isn't the whole point of democracy that it's fair - that it reflects the balance of opinion of the entire population?
I mean look at the Lib-Con coalition. The Lib Dems are, generally speaking, a centre-left party. The current incarnation of the Labour party is also broadly centre-left. A total of 52% of the electorate voted for these centre-left parties, and yet even combined they fell a long way short of %0% of the MPs.
It gets even worse if you look at the other party votes - many of these other parties are also either leftist or centre-left, so when you start adding their votes in, the proportion of left-leaning votes gets close to 60% and yet we've end up with a right wing government!
If you look at AV then while it still wouldn't even things up properly, it would likely have gone some way to redressing the balance. And yes this still would have produced a coalition government, but at least that represents the balance of the electorates feelings.
And at the very least it would stop this tendency we have to veer from one set of extreme policies to the complete opposite, which in my opinion can be more damaging than what the actual policies are.
I've actually felt this way for a long time, but I think finally people are starting to really get the point that the current electoral system does not produce results that truly representative of the British electorate.
Of course the irony is that, even with all the complaining people have done, given the innate conservative-ness of the British people the referendum will probably fail and we'll end up with the same old first past the post bollocks we've always had.
I mean look at al those opinion polls that said the Lib Dems were doing to do better than ever and what actually happened? People voted for the Tories :/. I actually remember the same thing happening in 1992 - all the opinion polls said labour would win, but people lied to the pollsters because they were embarrassed about voting Tory. Bizarre.
I can't claim to be happy about the result, but it's actually been quite fascinating watching it all unfold over the last week or so.
I think the most important thing that's come out of the hung parliament and the wrangling is that finally more people are starting to realise that our current system does not produce results that are fair on the people doing the voting.
There's actually an interesting summary of the different electoral options on the BBC news site. The system they're going to have the referendum on is the Alternative Vote System.
While this is a very mild version of PR, it would certainly address one of the biggest problems of the current system. If you look at last Thursdays vote, nearly a quarter (23%) of all the people that voted voted for the Liberal Democrats. And yet they ended up with just 57 seats, which is only 9%.
How can that possibly reflect the true feelings of the electorate?
I know there are lots of arguments for the 'strong' governments that tend to be formed under 1st past the post, but lets face it - giving total power to one party just gives them a mandate to ride rough-shod across the feelings of the majority of the UK population. How can that possibly be considered fair?
And isn't the whole point of democracy that it's fair - that it reflects the balance of opinion of the entire population?
I mean look at the Lib-Con coalition. The Lib Dems are, generally speaking, a centre-left party. The current incarnation of the Labour party is also broadly centre-left. A total of 52% of the electorate voted for these centre-left parties, and yet even combined they fell a long way short of %0% of the MPs.
It gets even worse if you look at the other party votes - many of these other parties are also either leftist or centre-left, so when you start adding their votes in, the proportion of left-leaning votes gets close to 60% and yet we've end up with a right wing government!
If you look at AV then while it still wouldn't even things up properly, it would likely have gone some way to redressing the balance. And yes this still would have produced a coalition government, but at least that represents the balance of the electorates feelings.
And at the very least it would stop this tendency we have to veer from one set of extreme policies to the complete opposite, which in my opinion can be more damaging than what the actual policies are.
I've actually felt this way for a long time, but I think finally people are starting to really get the point that the current electoral system does not produce results that truly representative of the British electorate.
Of course the irony is that, even with all the complaining people have done, given the innate conservative-ness of the British people the referendum will probably fail and we'll end up with the same old first past the post bollocks we've always had.
I mean look at al those opinion polls that said the Lib Dems were doing to do better than ever and what actually happened? People voted for the Tories :/. I actually remember the same thing happening in 1992 - all the opinion polls said labour would win, but people lied to the pollsters because they were embarrassed about voting Tory. Bizarre.
Friday, 30 April 2010
week away
Well, next week I'm on holiday, so I won't be doing any more blogging until after that.
I've decided the main job for the holiday is to try to clear out my room a bit. I discovered where the local recycling centre is and it's just down the road, so I'm planning to basically take a load of junk down there. Indeed, I'm planning to take several loads of junk, in order to clear out some crap.
I'll also be sorting through stuff generally, trying to decide what to either throw away, take down the recycling place or put on e-bay.
One of the biggest space consumers are my large collections of comics. I've had these kicking about for years with the intention of seeing if I can e-bay some of them. Problem is quite a lot of my comics are either very niche or very old and I really doubt they'll sell.
I'm also not at all sure whether it's best to whack them on as collections - issues x through y - or as single issues. If single issues, it could become a logistically nightmare to say the least. That's why I'm kinda tempted just to chuck them all out.
Next week also features the day of the general election.
The only thing I'm certain about is I won't be voting Conservative. Generally speaking, Tory ideas and views don't tend to mesh with mine, but there's also a specific reason for me not voting that way this time - the BBC.
If Cameron's mob gets in, I'm pretty sure one of the things they'll do is start the break-up and privatisation (that is to say, destruction) of the BBC. And to me, that's just not right. The BBC is one of the greatest things about this country, and I'd hate to see it go.
Imagine a world where all terrestrial TV is like ITV. It just doesn't bare thinking about.
I've decided the main job for the holiday is to try to clear out my room a bit. I discovered where the local recycling centre is and it's just down the road, so I'm planning to basically take a load of junk down there. Indeed, I'm planning to take several loads of junk, in order to clear out some crap.
I'll also be sorting through stuff generally, trying to decide what to either throw away, take down the recycling place or put on e-bay.
One of the biggest space consumers are my large collections of comics. I've had these kicking about for years with the intention of seeing if I can e-bay some of them. Problem is quite a lot of my comics are either very niche or very old and I really doubt they'll sell.
I'm also not at all sure whether it's best to whack them on as collections - issues x through y - or as single issues. If single issues, it could become a logistically nightmare to say the least. That's why I'm kinda tempted just to chuck them all out.
Next week also features the day of the general election.
The only thing I'm certain about is I won't be voting Conservative. Generally speaking, Tory ideas and views don't tend to mesh with mine, but there's also a specific reason for me not voting that way this time - the BBC.
If Cameron's mob gets in, I'm pretty sure one of the things they'll do is start the break-up and privatisation (that is to say, destruction) of the BBC. And to me, that's just not right. The BBC is one of the greatest things about this country, and I'd hate to see it go.
Imagine a world where all terrestrial TV is like ITV. It just doesn't bare thinking about.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
expenses
The other day my polling card turned up.
It's not long until polling day - the 6th of May. Weirdly, I'm actually on holiday that week. I'm not going anywhere exotic or anything, so I've not really got much of an excuse to avoid voting.
The media seems to be quite interested in the election this year. It's probably because this is the first time in a good while that it's not been guaranteed that Labour will get in. I'm not entirely sure that the general public is quite as interested.
Indeed, I think the whole expenses scandal could lead to lower numbers of voters than in most years. Well, I did think that until the whole TV debate thing. I didn't personally watch the debate myself, but obviously I've heard all about how Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have had a surge in popularity since.
I'm not sure that will translate into an increase in their share of the votes. Certainly I doubt it would result in a sufficient change to give them power. Instead, it makes a coalition government more likely.
Traditionally coalition governments are inherently weak affairs, which sometimes pull in different directions to such an extent that they collapse. And there's always the risk of effectively giving power to a minority. Also it's always assumed that the Lib Dems would form a coalition with Labour as they tend to have similar views on things.
Anyway - the upswing of interest by the media means that there's been a lot more talk from the political parties getting air time. Which has also mean there's been quite a lot of things with the public questioning MPs, especially the heads of the parties.
One of the things these people naturally want to talk about is the expenses 'scandal' and I've found it fascinating.
Not for interest in the scandal itself, but because it's clear that people are angry, but many of them don't really know what they're angry about.
I mean, the impression I've been getting from some of the questions is that many people seem to be fundamentally opposed to MPs claiming any sort of expenses at all. Also, they don't seem to grasp that the vast majority of them were simply acting within the rules that had been established.
The first of those is bizarre. Part of my job often involves me travelling to places and therefore I claim that money back as expenses. Also, sometimes I need lunch or have to stay overnight or whatever, so I claim that as well.
That's what expenses mean - they're an expense you incurred in order to do your job. So when an MP does similar, in my opinion there's fundamentally no problem with them claiming the same. And yet people just seem to be angry that they claimed anything, which is bizarre.
The aspect that represents the real area of controversy is this issue of being able to claim for a second home and the costs of upkeeping said home. This is where things get a bit tricky, because an MP's job has a split personality.
All MPs obviously need to attend Parliament, which is in London. But an MP's job is also in his constituency, which could literally be anywhere in the country. Most people don't have a job where half the time you need to be in London and the other half you need to be somewhere else.
And the point is that your job requires this - it's not simply a lifestyle choice. And for some MPs we're talking hundreds of miles of separation - Cornwall or Scotland spring to mind as being rather distant locations.
The problem I guess is while I think rationally you could therefore justify the claiming of the travel costs, being able to claim for your second home is a might trickier. Especially when you add in all the dodginess of nominating which is your second home and that it's a house they're buying for themselves - once they stop being an MP they could sell it keep the money.
Plus on top of that they were able to claim for the upkeep costs, which is where you got all the stuff about duck ponds about. And of course it's a blanket system - MPs in London and close by were able to claim in the same way as MPs up north, or wherever.
But as I say, it's a trickier problem for me - on some level I don't totally disagree with them being able to claim for something to compensate for this issue of having to work in two places, it's just they set up a system where tacking the piss was the norm. I mean, if your job required that of you, you'd want some way of it not affecting your standard of living, right?
And it's that I don't think people have really grasped. The only thing they really did wrong was set themselves up with a bad system. It's a little unfair to judge them for what they actually claimed within that system.
And let's be frank - the amount of money we're talking about was actually pretty small. And only a tiny minority have been accused of anything like embezzling it.
Anyway, my real point here is that people just don't understand things. It's scary sometimes how they grasp the wrong end of the stick. And then they get to vote.
It's not long until polling day - the 6th of May. Weirdly, I'm actually on holiday that week. I'm not going anywhere exotic or anything, so I've not really got much of an excuse to avoid voting.
The media seems to be quite interested in the election this year. It's probably because this is the first time in a good while that it's not been guaranteed that Labour will get in. I'm not entirely sure that the general public is quite as interested.
Indeed, I think the whole expenses scandal could lead to lower numbers of voters than in most years. Well, I did think that until the whole TV debate thing. I didn't personally watch the debate myself, but obviously I've heard all about how Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems have had a surge in popularity since.
I'm not sure that will translate into an increase in their share of the votes. Certainly I doubt it would result in a sufficient change to give them power. Instead, it makes a coalition government more likely.
Traditionally coalition governments are inherently weak affairs, which sometimes pull in different directions to such an extent that they collapse. And there's always the risk of effectively giving power to a minority. Also it's always assumed that the Lib Dems would form a coalition with Labour as they tend to have similar views on things.
Anyway - the upswing of interest by the media means that there's been a lot more talk from the political parties getting air time. Which has also mean there's been quite a lot of things with the public questioning MPs, especially the heads of the parties.
One of the things these people naturally want to talk about is the expenses 'scandal' and I've found it fascinating.
Not for interest in the scandal itself, but because it's clear that people are angry, but many of them don't really know what they're angry about.
I mean, the impression I've been getting from some of the questions is that many people seem to be fundamentally opposed to MPs claiming any sort of expenses at all. Also, they don't seem to grasp that the vast majority of them were simply acting within the rules that had been established.
The first of those is bizarre. Part of my job often involves me travelling to places and therefore I claim that money back as expenses. Also, sometimes I need lunch or have to stay overnight or whatever, so I claim that as well.
That's what expenses mean - they're an expense you incurred in order to do your job. So when an MP does similar, in my opinion there's fundamentally no problem with them claiming the same. And yet people just seem to be angry that they claimed anything, which is bizarre.
The aspect that represents the real area of controversy is this issue of being able to claim for a second home and the costs of upkeeping said home. This is where things get a bit tricky, because an MP's job has a split personality.
All MPs obviously need to attend Parliament, which is in London. But an MP's job is also in his constituency, which could literally be anywhere in the country. Most people don't have a job where half the time you need to be in London and the other half you need to be somewhere else.
And the point is that your job requires this - it's not simply a lifestyle choice. And for some MPs we're talking hundreds of miles of separation - Cornwall or Scotland spring to mind as being rather distant locations.
The problem I guess is while I think rationally you could therefore justify the claiming of the travel costs, being able to claim for your second home is a might trickier. Especially when you add in all the dodginess of nominating which is your second home and that it's a house they're buying for themselves - once they stop being an MP they could sell it keep the money.
Plus on top of that they were able to claim for the upkeep costs, which is where you got all the stuff about duck ponds about. And of course it's a blanket system - MPs in London and close by were able to claim in the same way as MPs up north, or wherever.
But as I say, it's a trickier problem for me - on some level I don't totally disagree with them being able to claim for something to compensate for this issue of having to work in two places, it's just they set up a system where tacking the piss was the norm. I mean, if your job required that of you, you'd want some way of it not affecting your standard of living, right?
And it's that I don't think people have really grasped. The only thing they really did wrong was set themselves up with a bad system. It's a little unfair to judge them for what they actually claimed within that system.
And let's be frank - the amount of money we're talking about was actually pretty small. And only a tiny minority have been accused of anything like embezzling it.
Anyway, my real point here is that people just don't understand things. It's scary sometimes how they grasp the wrong end of the stick. And then they get to vote.
Friday, 13 June 2008
42
I've tried not to include politics in the blog as, well, it's not all that interesting, but I've been kinda intrigued by the issues over the extension of the detention without charge powers to 42 days.
In theory this power is only for use with terror suspects and will allow police to detain them for up to 42 days without charging them. This is important as, since the signing of Magna Carta way back in the early 1200's, every person arrested or detained by Police in England has had the right to be released unless charged within 24 hours.
It's called Habeas Corpus and it's essentially seen as a fundamental human right. They cannot hold you without formally accusing you of an actual crime. It's important because it's what separates us from despotism and dictatorship - this is your real and actual freedom that people who talk about freedom actually mean when it comes down to it.
This power to hold was extended for those suspect of terrorism up to 28 days a while back now, and has recently been approved for extension up to 42 days by the House of Commons.
Really, this, for me, is a very scary thing, because it's the thin end of the wedge. Where does it go next? What other suspects of crimes might start to have longer periods of detention? How long does it become? 84 days? 168 days? 365 days? As long as the police need in order to manufacture evidence?
But the really scary thing is that, apparently, surveys indicate three quarters of the UK population agree with the move. To me, that's staggering, and it seems it's because it's about terrorism.
For some reason, people have become so brainwashed about terrorism that they somehow feel it is okay to abuse people's human rights because of it. And here's the key point in this - these people are suspects. They have not necessarily committed a crime.
There seems to be an attitude that if you're arrested for terrorism then you must be guilty. But what about those that aren't guilty? This is the fundamental point about freedom and why it is so important - everyone has the right to due process. Even the bad guys.
Of course, to some extent, I believe it to be a little academic, as I don't see why the house of lords won't just throw the law out the window, but bizarrely, this means that the unelected part of our democratic process is better able to safeguard our rights than our actual elected representatives :/.
In theory this power is only for use with terror suspects and will allow police to detain them for up to 42 days without charging them. This is important as, since the signing of Magna Carta way back in the early 1200's, every person arrested or detained by Police in England has had the right to be released unless charged within 24 hours.
It's called Habeas Corpus and it's essentially seen as a fundamental human right. They cannot hold you without formally accusing you of an actual crime. It's important because it's what separates us from despotism and dictatorship - this is your real and actual freedom that people who talk about freedom actually mean when it comes down to it.
This power to hold was extended for those suspect of terrorism up to 28 days a while back now, and has recently been approved for extension up to 42 days by the House of Commons.
Really, this, for me, is a very scary thing, because it's the thin end of the wedge. Where does it go next? What other suspects of crimes might start to have longer periods of detention? How long does it become? 84 days? 168 days? 365 days? As long as the police need in order to manufacture evidence?
But the really scary thing is that, apparently, surveys indicate three quarters of the UK population agree with the move. To me, that's staggering, and it seems it's because it's about terrorism.
For some reason, people have become so brainwashed about terrorism that they somehow feel it is okay to abuse people's human rights because of it. And here's the key point in this - these people are suspects. They have not necessarily committed a crime.
There seems to be an attitude that if you're arrested for terrorism then you must be guilty. But what about those that aren't guilty? This is the fundamental point about freedom and why it is so important - everyone has the right to due process. Even the bad guys.
Of course, to some extent, I believe it to be a little academic, as I don't see why the house of lords won't just throw the law out the window, but bizarrely, this means that the unelected part of our democratic process is better able to safeguard our rights than our actual elected representatives :/.
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