If last week was about anything it was about freedom of speech.
I believe in freedom of speech. I admit, I think it is a right matched with the obligation (and I mean, obligation) not to abuse, but that does not stop it being a right.
In this context it is odd that I might want to draw attention to a pice on the Guido Fawkes blog, which rarely recognises that obligation to act responsibly, but on this occasion it is appropriate to do so, via this screenshot:
In the week when freedom of speech has been the highest priority on the international agenda and in the week when the UK prime minister went to Paris to supposedly affirm that right the UK Electoral Commission is writing to bloggers to suppress their right to comment in accordance with the right to free speech.
You could not make it up. This is the UK in 2015: a country where freedom of speech is now denied to vast numbers of people and organisation who quite reasonably would wish to comment on, but not campaign in, the political process in the run up to a general election, but are denied the right to do so.
If the UK parliamentarians who are now saying they support Charlie Hebdo's right to comment had one iota of credibility they would now pass emergency legislation in the UK to remove the restriction on blogger's right to comment in this country.
I regret I can't see it happening.
And for the record, I do not think this Act applies to this blog for the simple reason that however numbers were calculated I do not believe it could ever be construed that Tax Research LLP comes anywhere near the monetary limits laid down in law.
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We needed a law to control lobbying and keep big money out of politics. We got one which lets all but the stupidest lobbyists do what they like, increases costs for trade unions and limits the capability of low-level non-governmental activities to engage politically (often through fear).
That’s about it
And it was not chance
It was deliberate
I’m one of those who regularly takes part in 38 Degrees on-line voting initiatives and also contributes a small amount to them financially.
Not because it’s easy but because it enables me to hold down a demanding full time job and look after two young children. 38 Degrees enables me to try to influence the decision making process in our ‘democracy’.
Our politicians just do not get it at all. They bemoan that the electorate don’t want to take part in politics and then attempt to strangle something like this which has the potential to expand public participation beyond the army of lobbyists and other vested interests and ideological tosh that exist in Parliament.
Talk about stupid. They should embrace and welcome the diversity of views. That is what politics is for. Balancing competing interests (honest!).
Well, it would be stupid if we could re assured that it wasn’t deliberate. Our politicians seem a bit to hung up about their right to exercise the ‘royal prerogative’ that parliament pinched from our monarchy during the civil war. They have grown too fond of their own ideas and have stopped listening.
Stuff like this will only serve to push the electorate and the politicians further away from each other and the results of that are being seen now. You’re right – it needs to be repealed now!
There is a simple answer. Host the blogs in Jersey or Guernsey. Rules do not apply.
I think they do if the activity is in the UK
Where does.Leveso sit with your commitment to free speech Richard?
To be candid, I have not studied it in detail
So no comment
How long before this is extended, by whichever party is in power, to a year before an election? Or 2 years? Or becomes permanent?
Not long, I fear
A blogger, very exercised.by.and very committed to the principl of free speech, but no opinion on Leveson?
I am sure I would have if I had read it recently
Who decides what falls within the “new rules”? I am also a member of 38 Degrees and Avaaz and many other campaign groups that give us a voice. The government, including NHS England are really worried about the actions of 38 Degrees and have been trying to discredit their campaign about the TTIP saying that members don’t know the facts. Actually anyone who takes time to campaign via these websites has looked into the actuak “facts” more thoroughly than policticians and some journalists. Sheleigh Forgaty a LBC journalist last week said on ait that she had no idea what the TTIP was or how it could affect this country. Thank goodness for War on Want, 38 Degrees and all the members who continue to campaign against it. James O’Brien from LBC privately told me when I met he that he felt the TTIP is the most dangerous thing our country faces today.
I agree with you Min
Richard, in your recent post “This is our task for 2015, whatever else you’ve got on” much ink was spilt, and passion displayed in discussing the charge of “gerrymandering” laid against the Tories, with much valid argument being brought to bear on the current bias against the Tories and in favour of Labour.
As both a long-time Labour voter AND a committed supporter of PR, I wanted to comment on this, which is indeed unfair, and should be remedied, even if it proves disadvantageous to the Party I support (though it should be noted that fairness under the FPTP system SHOULD have allowed Atlee to stay in power in 1951, as Labour won more votes than the Tories, who were [aid back in 1974, when the Tories won more votes than Labour, but Harold Wilson became PM).
However, it is clear that the seat reduction was a mere “tweak” designed for Party advantage, and not a real reform, and the Tories went on to campaign against the mildest of reforms, AV, which is NOT a PR system, and now have the GALL to seek effectively to impose an AV type criterion on strike ballots! So, it’s OK to have restrictions on a strike that may last a week, but voting for our representatives and legislators, whose injuries to society may last a generation, any bodged up system will do?
We could indeed do with fewer MP’s – providing they were given properly funded offices (ALL of whom should be public employees, bound by Civil Service rules, and not wives/mistresses/nephews/”needy” family members, as happens too often now) – but I CERTAINLY won’t go for docking 50 of the MP’s that MIGHT redress the bias against the Tories, when we have a Tory Party that aims to trash our Human Rights, has already trashed Legal Aid and access to justice in the form of the right to apply for Judicial Review – not to speak of the damage to the Probation Service, employment rights, the NHS, and in particular, mental health and child safety services. And, of course, this appalling “gagging law”.
I’ll support a thoroughgoing, radical, reform of our voting, providing it REALLY gives power to the voters, and isn’t the shameful stitch-up – one of many – that the Tories envisaged. In other words, either the full implementation of the Jenkins Report and AV+, or straightforward STV, and Multi-member constituencies.
Agree with your last para