A Minister for Liberty

The back of Lib Dem membership cards leaves us in do doubt what our core values are - liberty, equality and community. Our mission is to ingrain these values into British society. As part of this, we need them ingrained into the heart of government.

The UK executive has a whole department dedicated to Communities. There is also an Equalities Office within the Home Office, albeit with a narrow anti-discrimination remit which is far from encompassing the whole wide topic of equality.

However there is no Ministry or Office which is dedicated to looking after our liberty. If we're to entrench our values while we're in government, what better way than to create an office and a government minister fighting the corner of liberty.

Freedom Bill - Now and Then

Two years ago, the Liberal Democrats launched a draft Freedom Bill.

Today, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister announced a real-life Freedom Bill.

Let's go through the 2009 list of measures to see how progress is going:

• Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals - Already scrapped by the Coalition, but for British nationals only.

• Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud - In the Bill.

• Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy - Fail.

• Abolish the flawed control orders regime - Already replaced by 'Terrorism Prevention and Investigation Measures'.

• Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States. - Fail.

• Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people. - Fail.

• Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain. - Already scrapped by the Coalition.

• Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the information commissioner and reducing exemptions. - In the Bill.

• Stop criminalising trespass. - In the Bill.

• Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers. - Fail.

• Prevent allegations of "bad character" from being used in court. - Fail.

• Restore the right to silence when accused in court. - Fail.

• Prevent bailiffs from using force. - Fail.

• Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping. - In the Bill.

• Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law. - Fail.

• Remove innocent people from the DNA database. - The Bill makes good progress, but suspects of serious crimes could still have their DNA retained for three years.

• Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days. - Permanently fixed in the Bill.

• Scrap the ministerial veto that allowed the government to block the release of cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war. - Fail.

• Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children. - In the Bill.

• Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras. - No specific mention of a Royal Commission, but further regulation is in the Bill.

So out of 20 items on the original Lib Dem draft Bill, 8 are happening, 3 are happening in a limited form, but 9 have yet to see any progress.

The situation basically looks like this:

There are also several bonus freedoms that are to be restored in this Bill:

• It will be illegal for a vehicle to be clamped or towed away by anyone but the police.

• Restrictions on stop and search powers.

• The Vetting and Barring scheme will be scrapped.

• Old convictions involving consensual gay sex will be stripped from criminal records.

• There will be no more restrictions on the times when a marriage or civil partnership can take place.

And that's still not all. In 2012 the Ministry of Justice plan to introduce a Defamation Bill to reform our suffocating libel laws and a Repeal Bill to remove unnecessary laws from the statute.

Given that the Lib Dems didn't have any of this as their Top 4 priorities in their manifesto (much to my disappointment), I'm delighted we've made significant progress in all these areas. My only concern is that the Your Freedom website had little to nothing to do with any of programme, but perhaps the Repeal Bill will take more inspiration from the public suggestions.

Your Freedom - Why Did They Do It?

The government's Your Freedom site is an embarrassing mess. It is full of suggestions that are wither well-rehearsed opinions on the issues of the day, nothing to do with restoring liberty, or repeat suggestions. The whole project has basically become an online stress ball for people who believe what they read in the papers.

So what's the point? Practically none of the 'ideas' there are even slightly inspired. I really hope that the government didn't set the site up as a cynical gesture to give the false impression of fake interest in the views of the great unwashed. The public's response if nothing of substance comes of the site will be equally cynical, and the government is pretty brain-dead if it didn't realise this.
But Cameron, Clegg and their spads aren't stupid.

So allow me to indulge in a little fantasy: isn't it possible that they need the public to suggest things that the government itself doesn't want to be seen suggesting itself? If there was a can of worms the coalition feel needs opening, but doesn't want to be the ones to first tug the ring-pull, this website would be the ideal cover.

Now what can of worms could the coalition have in mind? Allow me to delve deeper into my happy fantasyland: what if that issue was drug policy reform? It's not totally crazy - both the Prime Minister and his Deputy have a history on this. David Cameron went on record before he became his party's leader talking about the decades of failure of drugs policy and the need to consider alternatives, as did Nick Clegg in his MEP days. The problem is those pesky tabloid journalists who would tear them and all their distant relatives a new one if they dared suggest any course other than prohibition. However if a consultation took place triggered by overwhelming public demands from the Your Freedom website (which was always bound to attract suggestions that prohibition should be repealed), this would be politically more manageable.

OK, back to reality - I think this is all unlikely! It's both too Machiavellian and would be too good to be true. But if it does happen, I reserve the right to shout 'I TOLD YOU SO' whilst grinning wildly (and possibly drooling slightly).

Anyway, stay tuned for my next blogpost on how the moon landings were faked ;)

My Pulled Entry to "Your Freedom"

I was making a serious point, albeit in a not so serious way... But the mods disapproved.

Keep drugs illegal, don’t regulate them

by duncanstott on July 01, 2010 at 05:44PM

Speaking as a criminal drug dealer who makes millions from the insatiable desire for my produce, it would be a personal disaster if I were to lose my ability to operate in the illegal drug market.

That’s why I support the government’s current stance on drugs. Ending prohibition and applying mountains of red tape around the supply drugs would put dealers like me out of business.

Why the contribution is important

I operate in an illegal drugs market worth £5bn in the UK. It is the perfect business: no tax, no bereaucracy, and a customer base that can’t get enough of my products. The drugs market is also tied up in many other valuable trades like prostitution and people trafficking, and where would the UK be without them?

Ending prohibition would ruin all this.

First of all, so-called "legal companies" would take virtually all of my customers. I might even have to consider operating legally myself, and start paying tax. This would obviously hurt my profit margins.

At the moment I can sell drugs to whoever I like, but if drugs weren’t prohibited, no doubt the government would start applying age restrictions, and restrict my customer base. Mr Clegg, you must keep drugs illegal so I can keep selling drugs to teenagers. Just look at how the government has hurt sales with its tobacco regulation. The health warnings on the packaging are causing less and less young people to take up smoking. Don’t let the cocaine market go the same way!

At the moment I maximise profits by cutting drugs with bulking agents. There’s no quality control, but there doesn’t need to be. Under a legal framework, the government would apply a load of red tape to make sure drugs were of a standard purity and quality. Again, this would severely hit my profits.

If the government cares one bit about drug barons like me, they’ll leave our drug laws well alone. Things are fine as they are.

Infinite thanks to Al Jahom for copying my entry in the first place :)

Integrate You Bastards

Here's a quick Home Office video explaining yet another layer of bureaucracy that is being added to visa applications:



The government is coercively insisting that people are an integrated member of society, and that English is the only language that will enable someone to integrate.

There are plenty of other societies that muddle along just fine with multiple languages. Britain still has a few itself. When will the government start coercing Welsh to start speaking English?

But why stop at language? There's lots more the government could do to promote integration. Religion for a start. Those bloody immigrants most likely hit by this rule are likely to be from the Indian subcontinent, and therefore unlikely to be Christian - the national faith. So enforce compulsory church attendance for all who wish to enter. We do it for our state schools, so why not for our borders too? It'll mean less of those unsightly minarets, and the end of terrorism, because Christians are never terrorists.

Or perhaps the state should insist on patriotic tattoos to emblazoned across the torso. A small cartoon British bulldog would suffice, but extra points for an enormous dewy-eyed Winston Churchill waving the Union Flag on top of an implanted speaker that plays a monophonic rendition of "Land Of Hope And Glory" when firmly pressed.

Only for immigrants though. If you fluked being born here, that's British enough. Otherwise that would start affecting me, and that's just not on.

You may have spotted a tiny bit of exaggeration above. But the crux of it is this: if someone can't speak English, that's not your problem. You might not like hearing a foreign language for the three seconds when you and an immigrant share the same bit of pavement, but that's just tough. Lump it or chill out.

I'll leave you with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. I can't see how this new rule will fit with this:

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

My Top 3 Acts for Repeal

Nick Clegg wants our suggestions of liberty infringing laws we'd like to see reviewed. Here are my top 3, with bonus accompanying Facebook groups to show your support:

1. Misuse of Drugs Act, 1971. The Daddy of the UK's drug laws, which criminalises millions of people for engaging in activity that is only harmful to themselves. This criminalisation leads to a whole host of knock-on problems: profits for criminal gangs, dangerously inconsistent purity, addicts treated as criminals rather than patients, addicts turning to crime to fund their habit, billions spent on futile attempts to stop the trade, confused messages about the dangers of drugs. Our part in the global War on Drugs makes us complicit in civil war in central America, the funding of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and capital punishment for drug offenders across much of Asia. Facebook: Nick Clegg: Order an Impact Assessment of the Misuse of Drugs Act!

2. Digital Economy Act, 2010. With the Internet playing an increasingly central role in everyday life, the government has introduced powers that will allow entire households to be cut off based on allegations of copyright infringement. The Act has not yet come into force, so we don't yet have any idea what the practical consequences will be, but it will may well lead to increased Wi-Fi theft, the end of public Wi-Fi in cafés and libraries, and increased use of encryption that ends up encouraging illegal filesharing. Remember, from June 12th, if anyone in your home is accused of sharing music online, you could end up without Internet. Facebook: Against the Digital Economy Bill

3. Health Act 2006. The smoking ban in public places was introduced in this Act. I have to admit I was initially in favour of this ban. I find smoking disgusting. I used to hate having to sit around in smoky pubs in order to be sociable, and I hated the way my clothes smelled when leaving the pub. But on reflection the smoking ban has gone too far. Since the ban came in the number of pub closures has exploded, with all the resultant bankruptcies, job losses and damage to communities. A more sensible approach would allow smoking in separate, well ventilated rooms away from the main bar would allow smokers and non-smokers alike to have a social life without government interference. Facebook: Nick Clegg: Include an Amendment to the Smoking Ban in the Repeal Bill

Legal Equals Safe

Two teenagers have died after taking MEPHEDRONE!!1!

(oh and alcohol and methadone.)

The toxicology results won't be back for weeks. Until then, we don't know how these young men came to their sad end. But the press have decided: they died because of mephedrone.

What has alarmed me about today's moral panic is the prevalance of the attitude that 'legal' must mean 'safe'. I find this a terrifying attitude for individuals to take towards their own well-being.

This is yet another conseqeunce of prohibition. When the government's remit becomes to protect people from themselves, some people - perhaps inadverently - outsource their personal responsibility to the state. When the daudling machine of government is inevitably too slow to keep pace with social progress, the people who handed their personal well-being to the government are left without a safety net. This will always be a failure of an authority-led society, no matter how democratic and well meaning.

It's one fucker of a problem to solve. Moving away from a culture of state dependancy for our own safety after decades of the nanny state is an almighty effort. All we can do is keep pointing out how the prohibitionist solution fails us. Over and over and over.

Missed Off The Shopping List?

Apparently the Lib Dems will not go into a coalition, but would support a minority government who makes concessions in four key areas - the Lib Dem 'shopping list':

• Investing extra funds in education through a pupil premium for disadvantaged children.

• Tax reform, taking 4 million out of tax and raising taxes on the rich by requiring capital gains and income to be taxed at the same rate.

• Rebalancing of the economy to put less emphasis on centralised banking and more on a new greener economy.

• Political reforms, including changes to the voting system and a democratically elected Lords, that go further than proposed by Labour.

These sound like the same four objectives outlined by Nick Clegg last month.


I support all four, but to my mind there's one glaring omission: the restoration of civil liberties.

Throughout this parliament, the party has spent a lot of time talking up a Freedom Bill that would reverse the countless erosions of civil liberty by consecutive Conlabourtive governments. The party created an in-depth website that goes into the history of civil liberty, the detail of the 20 freedoms we'd restore, along with a petition and quiz. During the leadership contest, here's what Nick Clegg said would be his first bill as Prime Minister:



...and here's what Chris Huhne said:



So it always seemed like a top-level priority to me. And so it should be. Civil liberty is a crucial element of liberalism. It is central to our values, and is fundamentally what unites the social- and classical-liberal wings of the party.

As mainstream British politics comes to a broad consensus around economics, the dividing lines are becoming increasingly about the amount of government intervention necessary for society. By not giving the proposals set out in The Freedom Bill their deserved place in this shopping list, it seems that all this good work in setting out our stall for the general election may fall at the last.

Gagging For It

This is the BBC Newsnight report on Trafigura that has been gagged:





Now do the same.