James Graham

James Graham (Quaequam Blog!): Anyone who thinks our civil liberties will be any better protected by a Conservative Government should think again. Speaking in Bangor (the Northern Ireland flavour) on Friday, the News Letter reports Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve saying:

… there is “a rights culture” which is “out of control”, not just in Ulster, but throughout the UK.

It did not help that “the undeserving in society” can often use rights legislation for personal gain, he added.

The Conservatives, he suggested, intend to create a UK Bill of Rights which would have in-built safeguards to prevent those “whose own behaviour is lacking” from abusing the powers.

I’m used to people from across the political spectrum differentiating between the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor when it comes to welfare but not when it comes to fundamental rights. This rhetoric even goes beyond the talk about “rights and duties.”

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James Graham

James Graham (Quaequam Blog!): That is certainly the conclusion of Lib Dem blogger and New Statesman columnist Jonathan Calder:

"It is now clear that Davis's political suicide bombings damaged his career and - far more important - has made it easier for the enemies of liberty in the Conservative Party (a club with a large and thriving membership) to prevail.

"Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity."

Why this conclusion? This week the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary has announced proposals to make it easier for the police to access surveillance powers. Reading Davis' campaign website you could certainly be forgiven for thinking that he was opposed to such measures.

The key word that Grieve is keen to emphasise is "proportionality," yet there is already growing evidence that the existing RIPA regulations allow public bodies to monitor the public in a completely disproportionate manner. These are powers which are currently being handed out to councils on the nod, for goodness' sake; just how can the police be said to be restrained?  Surely you don't have to be an anti-police paranoiac to think that these are precisely the sort of police powers which should be tightly regulated?

I don't automatically condemn Davis in the way that Calder does; it may well be that his decision to resign was spurred by the fact that he had already lost this particular battle in the Shadow Cabinet. He has also given us a pretty colossal stick to beat Cameron with, should we choose to use it. But for the sake of his reputation and the faith in which hundreds of individuals put in him, he really ought to respond to this sooner rather than later.

James Graham

James Graham (Quaequam Blog): I'm probably one of the most pro-Labour Lib Dems you are ever likely to meet. A Georgist and an electoral reformer, I'm very conscious of the fact that I am likely to meet more fellow travellers within Labour than the Conservatives (although not as many as I'd like). Despite spending the day knocking up voters in a hopeless (for us) Lib Dem-Labour marginal, in the evening on 1 May 1997 I cheered as loudly as anyone when it became apparent that the Tories were finally on their way out.

What, then, should I make of the prospect of a Miliband Premiership, given his stated aim of uniting the traditions of social democracy and radical liberalism "into a single narrative"? - an approach that like other matters appears in a transparently clear but nonetheless coded form in his Guardian article. Read the rest of this post...

James Graham

James Graham (Unlock Democracy): The latest Lords reform white paper is both a step forward and a step back.  It is positive in that for first time ever an official government document is unambiguously in favour of second chamber which is either mostly or fully elected.  It also nails the lie about an elected second chamber being a threat to Commons primacy:

The Government welcomes a confident and assertive second chamber. It sees this as further enhancing our democracy and something that is entirely consistent with the primacy of the House of Commons. That primacy rests in the fact that the Government of the day is formed from the party or parties that can command a majority in the House of Commons. It also rests in the Parliament Acts and in the financial privilege of the House of Commons. The Prime Minister and most senior ministers are also drawn from the House of Commons. A more assertive second chamber, operating within its current powers, would not threaten primacy.
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James Graham