INFORMATION

This website uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some of these cookies are essential to make our site work and others help us to improve by giving us some insight into how the site is being used.

For further information, see our Privacy Policy.

Continuing to use this website is acceptance of these cookies.

We are not accepting any new registrations.

2015 UK General Election

...on serious topics that don't fit anywhere else at present.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#761 Post by Alan H » May 14th, 2015, 1:22 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

animist wrote:http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/may ... servatives

"Scottish government source warns there could be a complete standoff as Holyrood says it will withhold legislative consent" to the scrapping of the Human Right Act
Since it's integral to the Scotland Act, the Tories would need to get that changed as well. I assume thy will just try the bulldozer technique.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#762 Post by Dave B » May 14th, 2015, 1:23 pm

Alan H wrote:On a more serious note, in the Torygraph: Making an opinion illegal is not going to stop terrorism
If 'British values' mean anything, they must prevent us from legislating against non-violent views that we find abhorrent
In essence, these measures target those who operate in what the police have called the “pre-criminal space” and therefore expand the definition of people who could be incarcerated from those who do bad things to those who think bad things. This is problematic for a number of reasons.
Looks like this could just be another of those, "Not-too-well-thought-out" initiatives, giving the legal types enough room to swing an elephant in (and make lots of lolly doing so).

Even the regime of "1984" could not legislate against opinion, but they did have Room 101 as a fall back. In this slightly freer regime they at least have to wait until extreme opinion is used, publicly, to incite others to illegal action. If you can prove the case even then.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

User avatar
animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#763 Post by animist » May 14th, 2015, 2:17 pm

Dave B wrote:

Even the regime of "1984" could not legislate against opinion
that is just what they did do, as did the Chinese Communists of Orwell's time (brainwashing). Sadly, a lot of Islamist brainwashing seems to be going on these days, and for non-totalitarian governments to simply try countering brainwashing by legislation is not going to work

User avatar
Dave B
Posts: 17809
Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#764 Post by Dave B » May 14th, 2015, 3:08 pm

animist wrote:
Dave B wrote:

Even the regime of "1984" could not legislate against opinion
that is just what they did do, as did the Chinese Communists of Orwell's time (brainwashing). Sadly, a lot of Islamist brainwashing seems to be going on these days, and for non-totalitarian governments to simply try countering brainwashing by legislation is not going to work
I suppose you are right, though - provided you make no action to indicate it - it is hard to define an unexpressed opinion. Any words or actions that may indicate such exists, hiwever . . .

The Chinese practiced class actions against any group that might possibly be a problem, slightly different, it was pre-emptive and made vast assumptions. The equivalent here wouod be the interment of all those with Islamic sympathies, whether Muslins or not. Just in case. McCarthyism had a point, the Commies were certainly out to disrupt and conquer, but the paranoia spread too wide and was used against any group the McCarthyites disliked.

So far we seem to have kept the actions quite specific, allowing that any situation like this is going to reap more potential suspects than actually exist. That allows a certain amount of shouting about intelligence/police incompetence and human rights, an inevitable side effect.

But, so far, we are allowed to do that shouting without fear of arrest providing we do not get violent, or threaten violence, over it.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#765 Post by Alan H » May 16th, 2015, 5:37 pm

Hunting ban ‘set to be repealed within 12 months’ with early Commons vote expected
Supporters of hunting with dogs are confident of overturning the ban imposed 10 years ago, claiming that a majority of MPs in the new House of Commons will vote to lift it.

David Cameron is under mounting pressure from Conservative MPs to honour swiftly the party’s election manifesto pledge to hold a free Commons vote on the ban. The pro-hunting lobby, which has analysed the views of the MPs elected this month, believes it has achieved the “magic number” of 286 votes it needs to win. The figure is less than half of the 650-member House because the Scottish National Party has said its 56 MPs will not take part.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#766 Post by Alan H » May 16th, 2015, 6:06 pm

Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Altfish
Posts: 1821
Joined: March 26th, 2012, 8:46 am

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#767 Post by Altfish » May 16th, 2015, 7:31 pm

Peter Bone 0 Adam Wagner 5

:laughter:

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#768 Post by Alan H » May 16th, 2015, 7:49 pm

:pointlaugh:

But was Bone just ill-informed, ignorant, or was he deliberately deceptive?
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#769 Post by Alan H » May 17th, 2015, 11:59 am

I would expect quite a few Tories will be backing him: Prince Harry calls to bring back National Service

Just like his father...
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#770 Post by Alan H » May 17th, 2015, 1:17 pm

Nicky Morgan: Coasting schools 'face intervention'
Under new plans, ministers could force schools rated as "requiring improvement" and missing new government benchmarks to become an academy and could sack head teachers.

Coasting schools have average results which have often flatlined over time.

Mrs Morgan told the BBC that results show that "students do do better in academies".
Totally misrepresenting the evidence, of course, but what's new?

It also looks like she went to same school as her inglorious predecessor: Michael Gove’s Kafkaesque logic
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#771 Post by Alan H » May 18th, 2015, 9:58 am

Of course Osborne had no absolutely idea how he was going to cut £12 billion from the welfare budget until just last weekend... It probably came to him in a reverie after the election and he is now eager to tell us all where the axe will fall: George Osborne calls emergency July budget to reveal next wave of austerity
George Osborne will reveal how the government plans to cut £12bn from Britain’s welfare bill when he announces a fresh wave of austerity measures in his second budget in less than four months on 8 July. The chancellor said he wanted to make a start delivering on the commitments made in the Conservative party manifesto and pledged that his package would be a budget for “working people”.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#772 Post by Alan H » May 18th, 2015, 10:26 am

By Keir Starmer: The arguments against the Human Rights Act are coming. They will be false
As Michael Gove prepares his attempt to repeal this fundamental act, here’s some myth-busting about what it is, and how it works

In the aftermath of the second world war, nations came together to say “never again”. They established the United Nations and agreed a simple set of universal standards of decency for mankind to cling to: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These standards were intended to protect the individual from the state, to uphold the rights of minorities and to provide support for the vulnerable.

The idea was simple; these standards would first be enshrined in regional treaties such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and then be given legal effect in every country. In the UK this was achieved when Labour enacted the Human Rights Act (HRA) in 1998.

The incoming Tory government now intends to strip our people of these universal rights by repealing the HRA. Michael Gove has been appointed as the new justice secretary to lead the assault. In a week when we celebrate VE Day, the irony should not be lost. British politicians, many of them Tory, participated in the drafting of the ECHR in Whitehall because they believed that they were drafting an instrument to reflect the values that we in this country took for granted and which, they thought, vindicated our military triumph.

No doubt Gove will peddle the myth that the HRA is effectively a villains’ charter. But the evidence is against him
No doubt Gove will peddle the usual myth that the HRA is nothing more than a villains’ charter. But the evidence is against him on that. There has been no fundamental shift in defendants’ rights under the HRA, mainly because legislation passed by the Margaret Thatcher government in 1984 set out clear rights for suspects that have been successfully embedded in our law for many years.

By stark contrast, the HRA has heralded a new approach to the protection of the most vulnerable in our society, including child victims of trafficking, women subject to domestic and sexual violence, those with disabilities and victims of crime. After many years of struggling to be heard, these individuals now have not only a voice, but a right to be protected. The Tory plans to repeal the HRA, together with the restricted access to our courts already brought about by the restriction on judicial review introduced by Gove’s predecessor, Chris Grayling, will silence the vulnerable and leave great swaths of executive action unchecked and unaccountable.

Gove may try another tack, arguing that the Tories are not against human rights at all, but simply want to keep those pesky judges in the European court at bay. But this argument also unravels quickly. The rights in the ECHR are very simple. They include the right to life, liberty and security of person; the right to a fair trial; protection from torture and ill treatment; freedom of thought, conscience, religion, speech and assembly; the right to marry; the right to free elections; the right to fair access to the country’s education system; and, to top things off, the right not to be discriminated against. Which of these rights would you not want? One of the reasons the much-vaunted Tory “British bill of rights” has never seen the light of day is because any proposal that does not match these basic ECHR rights will be torn to shreds.

That only leaves Gove with the shallow argument that our courts are shackled because they are bound to follow the decisions of the European court of human rights. But that argument runs into two fundamental problems. First, the HRA only obliges our courts to “take into account” judgments of the European court; they are not bound by them. Second, it is not the HRA that obliges the UK to respond to the judgments of the European court. It is Article 46(1) of the ECHR itself.

Article 46 states that: “The High Contracting Parties undertake to abide by the final judgment of the Court in any case to which they are parties.” The UK signed up to that international obligation when it signed the ECHR in the 1950s. Repealing the HRA would have no effect whatsoever on the UK’s obligations under Article 46. The only way for the Tories to achieve what they want is for the UK to pull out of the ECHR and, as a consequence, out of the Council of Europe.

That would leave the UK outside the family of nations upholding universal human rights and would hugely diminish our reputation abroad. It would also widen the fracture in our own politics evidenced by last week’s elections. When the bill of rights commission set up by the coalition government in 2012 went to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to find out what they thought of the HRA, they returned to London with a very blunt message ringing in their ears: the plan to repeal the HRA and adopt a British bill of rights is a ridiculous metropolitan Tory idea that should be put back in the box.

A proposal that deprives people of their rights, divides nations abroad and divides nations at home is a grossly disproportionate reaction to one or two adverse rulings from Strasbourg. It also cuts across the basic fairness, dignity and equality that all nations committed to nearly 70 years ago.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#773 Post by Alan H » May 20th, 2015, 10:04 am

A new publication by the House of Commons Library today: A British Bill of Rights?

It mentions David Allen Green's blogpost I linked to above.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

User avatar
Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#774 Post by Alan H » May 23rd, 2015, 2:19 pm

If Michael Gove Listens To Daniel Hannan’s Honeyed Polemic On Human Rights He Really Will Get Into A Muddle
Unfortunately, Mr Hannan’s argument, elegantly and persuasively as it is developed, displays the same utter confusion that lies at the heart of the Government’s policy on the issue.
The solution to the perceived problem of the European Court of Human Rights having too much power?

Repeal an Act that has almost no effect on the European Court’s power.

The solution to the perceived problem of judges having too much power?

Pass an Act that gives them all the powers they already have, plus a few enormous extra ones for good measure, but call it the “British Bill of Rights” instead of the “Human Rights Act.”

I am sure Mr Gove will read Hannan’s piece carefully and after his spell as Education Secretary he may well find himself mentally marking it. How should he grade it?

As a polemic it deserves an A, and would have merited an A* before Mr Gove put an end to grade inflation.

As a coherent solution to the legal problems it identifies.… Well, Mr Gove is, as Hannan says “the politest man in Christendom.” Perhaps, rather than give it a grade he should just write at the bottom of the paper those two words that send a chill down the spine of even the most self-confident pupil:

“See me.”
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

lewist
Posts: 4402
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 8:53 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#775 Post by lewist » May 23rd, 2015, 4:35 pm

Carpe diem. Savour every moment.

User avatar
Alan C.
Posts: 10356
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 3:35 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#776 Post by Alan C. » May 23rd, 2015, 7:42 pm

^
There's hell on up here (rightly so) the isles deserve another vote
Oh and he's forgoing his 'ministerial severance pay' 3 months 'wages' £17.000,
last year he claimed over £200,000 in expenses, my heart bleeds.
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

Fia
Posts: 5480
Joined: July 6th, 2007, 8:29 pm

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#777 Post by Fia » May 23rd, 2015, 8:11 pm

Quite right you deserve another vote Alan. (Shetland actually voted SNP, it was the Orcadian vote that squeezed him in.)

He should pay back the £1.whatever-it-was million on the investigation he set up when he knew full well he planted the story too :angry:

Is there enough volunteer work on Orkney to redeem himself? :)

Nick
Posts: 11027
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 10:10 am

Re: 2015 UK General Election

#778 Post by Nick » May 23rd, 2015, 8:21 pm

Alan C. wrote:^
There's hell on up here (rightly so) the isles deserve another vote
Oh and he's forgoing his 'ministerial severance pay' 3 months 'wages' £17.000,
last year he claimed over £200,000 in expenses, my heart bleeds.
Not defending the bugger, but....

Expenses are expenses. They may be justified or not. But that does not mean they go into his pocket. Or are you saying he should pay for his commute to Westminster out of his salary?

I'm not necessarily saying there shouldn't be a re-call, but if so, how about one for any SNP candidate who says that Scotland can keep the pound? Or end "austerity"? And any number of other fibs? :wink:

Post Reply