Slashdot Mirror

Conservatives (blue) aka ("Tories") see website (our current party for the last 5 year term and current term who were reelected in May) - are right wing, the Labour party (red) aka ("Idiots") [you can look for the labour party website yourself] are left wing socialists, although in recent years people like Tony Blair for example from the Labour party, were actually more centre right, resulting in an arguably ok PM that made some equally substantial fuck ups.

Our conservative party cuts welfare and taxes for business and drives an economy built on business that rewards the people that create jobs and grow the economy, Labour just hires more people to work for the government and public sector and increases welfare spending for those that manipulate a system Labour are too fair with.

Unlike the US, our welfare system isn't funded by paying back what you borrow, it's funded by every tax payer constantly; so it's great news that a lot of the sponging c**ts have fucked off to support another political party and left the conservative goverment that aids the further development of our economy and rewards all the hard workers instead of the lazy c**ts that sit on their arse all day expecting everything to be handed to them on a silver platter.

We're planning on ditching the European Human Rights bill now with our gov and adopting a 'British bill of human rights', among other things; which is shaping up to be more like the constitution you guys have to protect number 1, your nation, the UK becomes more like the US every day, fortunately though I feel we have it slightly better in areas where we have regulatory / administrative bodies that protect us from monopolisation and other corporate fiasco's that damage the interests of the nation. We have those because well, we've been around quite a while longer than you guys.

I love the concept of the American dream but, it really is just that. America's great if you have lots of money, but any country is TBH. In the UK we're referred to as 'middle England', because everyone has access to healthcare, welfare etc, in some ways Obama has tried to make the US more like the UK in that respects while we in the UK try to adopt a more firm approach to civil liberties like the US has.

This is why the UK and the US have a 'special' relationship.

On the subject of this thread btw, I like Cameron, but to claim to be able to intercept and decrypt traffic across the board the way stated is nothing short of a naive and dumb statement. We're a nation of incredible engineering minds that go back to the industrial revolution, the code breaking world war era and lots of funky shit we do now and I'm proud of that, but really? What a crock of shit, there's always going to be a way to secure communications traffic, if there wasn't, our intelligence services and governments across the world wouldn't be able to use computers or networks now would they?

Rubbish.

It also blocks the Tory's (also known as Conservatives) own web site: http://www.conservatives.com/Splash.aspx under Parental Control. The irony is delicious!

Destruction of public infrastructure is not only not a separate charge in the UK, there is even a whole party that advocates for it!

Police can be bought at any of these fine websites:

http://www.conservatives.com/
http://www.labour.org.uk/
http://www.libdems.org.uk/

Committed a crime against humanity and could use some support? Are you a mass murderer willing to pay for some publicity whore of a soulless cunt to shake your hand while telling the world of your indefatigability? Are you sickened by discrimination against people who want to kill jews in a hail of shrapnel on a crowded bus?

Yes to any of the above? You need George Galloway. Mr Galloway has over 10 years experience of representing his interests in elected office. Remember our catchy jingle! "If the cheque clears and you're not a Jew, there's no end of things George can do for you!"

http://www.votegeorgegalloway.com/

Controllable in the sense of voting either democrat or republican to maintain the status quo

The people in the country where the detention took place don't have that choice. They do have the choice of voting either Conservative or Labour or Liberal Democrat to, I suspect, maintain the status quo, or voting for various minor parties.

or they can find another party with "Donate" button AND Google ads

The GOP has Google ads and a Donate page. I suppose you may reply and be pedantic and say that the button text is "Contribute" rather than donate, but the text "Complete the form below to make a donation." makes it pretty clear that the action is considered a "donation".

The British Conservative Party uses Google ads and they have a Donate page. The text "Why Donate?" "Make a donation" makes it obvious that this is considered a donation.

And that was just the first two that I checked, I'm sure you can find more examples.

Also, from The Fine Article, it appears that Google is being inconsistent:

the Greens candidate in the state by-election, Cathy Oke, has ads running on Google despite having multiple donate buttons on her web page. "We've sent them screenshots of the donate buttons on the ALP and the Greens sites and they've allowed all of those ads to run," she said. Google said in an email to Patten, seen by this website, that it "doesn't allow the solicitation of funds (donations) unless they're tax exempt". The Sex Party is an Australian political party and so, according to the ATO, donations are tax deductible. The party specifies this on its website.

It's not the body of the communications that can be trawled, but the headers. The government want to be able to see who is communicating with who, and when. The plan was written about in The Telegraph last monthbut the plans are much older than that. The last Labour government, lover of all things authoritarian, came up with the Interception Modernisation Programme which in its original form would have had details of all electronic communications sent to a central government database. When the government eventually realised that this would be completely impractical they shifted the work to the service providers, who would all have to keep the details of the communications travelling through their networks and give the government access to their database at all times. The service providers realised just how much this would cost and so the government committed £2 billion to cover those costs over ten years. The plan was heavily criticised by the Conservatives, who published a paper titled Reversing the rise of the surveillance state. (Which is still on their website.) It was also criticised backthen by the London School of Economics.The plan was shelved in 2009 after opposition from communications service providers and a realisation that it would not be popular with the public.

After the election, though, the Conservatives decided to resurrect the plan, giving it a new name, theCommunications Capabilities Development Programme. (CCDP) Questions were raised in 2010 bythe Information Commissioner's Officeand it was mentioned in The New Statesman. Now the government are pushing ahead with the CCDP and the queen's speech will say that they intend to introduce legislation to implement the programme as soon as possible.

There are many things wrong with this programme of spying. It is impractical, expensive, a huge violation of our privacy, it places too much power in the hands of government, a government who we cannot trust. Making the full details of who talks to who available will allow security personnel to trawl through our data on fishing trips instead of requiring some basis for suspicion. Combined with the database for Universal Credit, which will be almost as comprehensive as the National IdentityRegisterthat was criticised so much by the Conservatives, and the centralisation of medical records, this provides private information about us all to the government on anunprecedentedscale with huge scope for abuse and for life-destroying mistakes.

If these plans scare you, please write to your MP to tell them your objection to the Communications Capabilities Development Programme. You can use WriteToThem.com to send it if you don't have their details. Pleasesign theOpen Rights Group's petition against government snooping and maybe consider joining the group too.

published evidence of the Conservative party's deputy treasurer admitting you could buy access to the prime minister and influence policy for a £250,000 party donation.

I'm not sure why this has been presented as a shocking expose. The list of donations and what access it gains you are on the Conservatives website.

The point I was attempting to make is that charitable giving correlates just as well if not better with religion.

It may well do, but as the article notes

conservatives tend to regard giving as a personal rather than governmental responsibility

David Cameron, the current British Prime Minister, a conservative, said:

it’s about actively doing the good things. Not waiting for the state to do it all, but taking responsibility, making a difference, saying loudly and proudly: this is my country, this is my community: I will play my part. That is social responsibility.

There was a very good three part, radio piece on conservatism. That might be of interest.

It's in the new 'manifesto', pg 11, along with scrapping ContactPoint, next gen biometric passports & almost certainly making the medical records database opt-in:

We will adopt the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.

In case anyone doesn't realise, there's going to be an general election in a couple of months or so. The current extremely unpopular party is likely to be replaced by another slightly less unpopular one with broadly similar policies, the main difference being that instead of being fronted by a dour Scotsman they have a posh ex-PR bloke with a nice smile. At this time politicians on all sides are more likely than ever to say stuff and not mean it.

What the Tories actually said was this:
http://www.conservatives.com/News/News_stories/2010/01/Conservatives_to_deliver_nationwide_superfast_broadband_by_2017.aspx

The key weasel words there are "up to 100mbps" and "the majority of homes". Roughly 50% of UK homes have cable available now, and Virgin Media are already offering headline speeds up to half that. 100Mbps by 2017 is hardly flying car territory.

They were actually responding to a Labour suggestion of universal (i.e. 100% not 50%) of UK homes getting 2Mb coverage by 2012:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7858498.stm

The Labour plan sounds less exciting but would actually be much harder to achieve (not that they'll have to - they're unlikely to get reelected and have been careful to say it only in an "interim report").

As to what orifice the PCPro writer pulled Google out of, your guess is as good as mine.

Why would you need to spend more money on health benefits for the poor if you have the National Health Service? Doesn't that provide universal health care regardless of income?

The person you replied to is probably American (they wrote "incentivizing", a Brit would have written "encouraging"). They are suggesting these improvements for Chicago.

But yes, spending more on the NHS benefits everyone. In the upcoming election in the UK it's likely all the parties will suggest how they'll do this.

The Conservative Party's policy is here and here, for instance. (And yes, that's not a joke, they really do say they'll increase health spending).

Why would you need to spend more money on health benefits for the poor if you have the National Health Service? Doesn't that provide universal health care regardless of income?

The person you replied to is probably American (they wrote "incentivizing", a Brit would have written "encouraging"). They are suggesting these improvements for Chicago.

But yes, spending more on the NHS benefits everyone. In the upcoming election in the UK it's likely all the parties will suggest how they'll do this.

The Conservative Party's policy is here and here, for instance. (And yes, that's not a joke, they really do say they'll increase health spending).

It seems to be overlooked that the opposition Conservative Party has also pledged to ditch ID cards.

They may not be as sexy as the Pirate Party and no doubt fail to appeal to the rebellious outsider image of the typical /.er, but on the other hand have considerably more chance of winning and actually scrapping the scheme.

I have to be very careful here as I certainly do not want to get in to trouble, but I will say that a family member was quite senior and notable in the Home Office/Passport Office said she was a little upset that all her idea's about ID cards were "Scotched" and I was very proud of the fact they have been. She was not impressed that I found this great news, but she thought she would "Impress" me of her secretive business. This woman, ought to remain nameless, however she was also close to getting dismissed for trying to "delve" in to cross government IT systems a few years ago to gain a personal and political advantage. I am sure that some slashdot users can take some good guesses of who she might be, but thankfully I have a completely separate name and disassociation. AMEN!

It seems to be overlooked that the opposition Conservative Party has also pledged to ditch ID cards.

You seem to have overlooked the fact that the last Conservative government repeatedly introduced proposals for national ID cards, and were generally even worse than the current lot on civil liberties. There is no reason anyone would believe their pledge.

It seems to be overlooked that the opposition Conservative Party has also pledged to ditch ID cards.

They may not be as sexy as the Pirate Party and no doubt fail to appeal to the rebellious outsider image of the typical /.er, but on the other hand have considerably more chance of winning and actually scrapping the scheme.

As if the Tories are any less concerned:

We cannot tackle crime unless we also address the causes of crime, such as family breakdown, drug abuse and binge drinking.

All of which these cameras probably will help with. The Conservatives are very unlikey to remove them, at least, if set up before any change of government.

http://www.conservatives.com/Policy/Where_we_stand/Crime_and_Justice.aspx

Interesting that two of your concerns about the UK are mandatory ID cards and a future Conservative government, given that the two are mutually exclusive.

This relay irritates me. Whenever somebody criticises Gordon and his dreadful Stalinist government, somebody always pipes up an says well the conservatives are no different and there is nothing we can do. Well for a start if you vote Conservative we will not get the dreadful ID cards: http://www.conservatives.com/Campaigns/ID_Cards_Labours_Bad_IDea.aspx

Well yes I do and here is why:
1. Assuming Labour do not get re-elected, the most lightly party to take over would be the Conservatives. One of there stated policies is to scrap the ID card scheme:

http://www.conservatives.com/Campaigns/ID_Cards_Labours_Bad_IDea.aspx
2. Considering just the ID card scheme for a moment it will cost a load of cash. The goverment is way over spent, and who ever comes to power will have to make cutbacks. This one very obvious target - the public wont miss it. The only reason it have not been scraped is because it is sombody's babby and the goverment has 'comitted' to it.
I do agree with you centiment some what, but I do feel the current lot have a very Starnilistic tendency, and so far the Conservitaves under Cammoron have consistantly voted against crazy stuff like the 42 day dentention period. --but as allways that is only me opinion.

If open source software is socialist, that means the UK Conservative Party has taken a very sharp turn to the left. Or maybe they've just realised it makes good sense?

To be fair, the Conservatives are hardly the model of consistency on this matter either:

http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.conservatives.com

However, that's just picking nits. I've looked at George Osborne's original article and am amazed that a very senior politician (the second most powerful figure in the Conservative party) has managed to develop a clue of this magnitude.

I'm even more surprised that this has come from the Tories (the 'big business' party, somewhat comparable to the Republicans).

They also seem to have more sensible economic policies at the moment (not wasting 12bn GBP on a pointless cut in VAT) and for the first time ever, an interest in social mobility and environmental issues.

I can't believe I'm writing this, but I think I'm actually going to vote Tory at the next general election.

I wish ID cards were a political suicide pill. I really don't understand why both main parties are pushing ahead with them come what may.

One of us has got completely the wrong idea here: I thought the Tory lot had given a pretty much black-and-white statement that they would repeal the Identity Card legislation, and had consistently opposed the introduction of all the biometric nonsense from the start.

Yep, here we go: ID cards on the Conservatives' web site is pretty clearly against them.

To be fair, all the opposition parties (Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP) oppose ID cards and say they would scrap them, if elected.

Sorry, I don't follow. What does what a party says pre-election have to do with what it does if it gets into power? Once the businesses that want to cream another GBP93 (about US$170) from every person in the country offer some healthy party donations to whoever is in power, pre-election promises will quickly be abandoned.

The GBP93 is an old figure; http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005/may/25/immigrationpolicy.idcards -- it's probably more by now. And it doesn't seem to take into account the annual running costs estimated in 2005 to be GBP584m (about £10 -- US$18 -- for every man, woman and child in the country. Even if there were no civil liberties argument, I would resent having to pay that for something that appears to offer no benefit whatsoever except for lining the pockets of a couple of businesses.

the Conservatives look even more prone to SnakeOil salesman that the incumbent idiots.

To be fair, all the opposition parties (Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, SNP) oppose ID cards and say they would scrap them, if elected. Labour are trying to hurry things through before the next election, in the hope of getting far enough that it will be hard to turn back.

And assuming this doesn't please you greatly, do what I did this morning...

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=david.cam eron.contact.page

I'm not naive enough to think he's reading every message personally, but some Slashdot weight in there could mean someone realises this could matter enough to swing a few votes... which is of course all they care about.

The government could save more than £600 million a year if it used more open source software, the shadow chancellor has estimated.

George Osborne said the savings would cut 5% off Whitehall's annual IT bill.

This?

From David Davies (Shadow Home Secretary) to Sir Gus O'Donnell (head of the Civil Service):

'I am writing to you in relation to the Government's planned roll out of its national identity card scheme, commencing this year. You will be aware that there is a longstanding convention that one Parliament may not bind a subsequent Parliament.As you will also be aware, the Conservative Party has stated publicly that it is our intention to cancel the ID cards project immediately on our being elected to government. You are now formally on notice of our position and fully appraised of the contingent risks and associated liabilities arising from the national identity card scheme.'

The UK gov't has a long history of staggeringly expensive IT disasters. The current national ID card plan has been blinking red since inception.

David Davis, the tory shadow home secretary - (the ID card scheme is owned by the Home Office) - has a BSc Joint Hons Molecular Science/Computer Science 1968-1971 and is OPPOSED to the ID cards scheme.

I think the Tories said that LRRB would have to be further amended to get it thru the Lords.

Davis on ID cards:
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.stor y.page&obj_id=123647

As regards a grab for power, I wrote this blog entry:
http://waronfreedom.wordpress.com/2006/02/16/have- new-labour-systematically-legislated-to-abolish-el ections-ii/

A bit out of date and I left the Queen out. She still has powers to block Bills, dissolve Parliament and change the PM.

Hi ABG,

I don't know why anyone thinks LRRB is any safer. Rather than explain my doubts about the amendments, I'll merely point you at my blog entry on the subject:
http://waronfreedom.wordpress.com/2006/07/02/is-ou r-democracy-still-on-the-verge-of-destruction/

Here is what Cameron actually said about the ID Bill:
"A vast and growing maze of bureaucracy, pen-pushing and paper-chasing. It's now moving towards its grotesque conclusion in the nightmare, waste and shambles of Labour's ID cards scheme: costing billions, curtailing our freedom, and failing to protect us in these dangerous times. This costly ID card scheme, this plastic poll tax, will be a monument to the failure of big government. And we must tear it down." - http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.stor y.page&obj_id=128289&speeches=1

Not to be picky, but "must" doesn't mean they'll do anything. The Tories subsequently let the Bill through the Lords at a time when we were reasonably placed to force it to go to the Parliament Act (and might have even won that vote). Even Lord Falconer was surprised and was recorded in the Lords wondering what the hell the Tories were doing.

The Human Rights Act only works in hindsight. The Civil Contingencies Act could dismantle Parliament, the monarchy & the judiciary before anyone gets a chance to legally challenge the Govt.

As far as Blair's summary orders speech, I was campaigning outside the building in Bristol. I was even the first to tell the media where and when it was. ;)
Of course, none of us got near Blair. The audience was thoroughly vetted for anyone with an interest in human rights...

And as for why the opposition parties and UK media aren't mentioning it, I have no idea.

They have. Here's some links:

http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.stor y.page&obj_id=128487

http://www.libdems.org.uk/government/story.html?id =9824

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/ cmhansrd/cm060321/debtext/60321-05.htm#60321-05_sb hd3

What is it with political loyalty in this country? I just don't vote conservative sounds like a fashion statement rather than a thought out political opinion. Particularly when followed up with how entirely useless the current government is. I don't mind which way round people want to vote, but you have got to do better than that. The reason labour got into power was because conservatives became unfashionable? I think not... They were screwing up and people got rid of them. By that metric I would have chucked out Tony before the last election. But no, can't vote Tory, gotta put up with them and whinge about how bad they are. You had your chance, you voted them back in (repeatedly) and now you're upset when they are the same detached and self-serving government that went into the election.

Anyway as I understand it the conservatives _are_ against ID cards.
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.stor y.page&obj_id=127852
(I'm no fanboy btw I just googled that)

What I want to see is if the House of Lords turn it down, and then the Government use the Parliament Act again to force it through with utter disregard for the legislative structure of this country. Their attempts to weaken the influence of the Lords and to replace many of its members with their own carefully selected candidates didn't quite finish the job, so they just ignore them instead. That is not how it's supposed to work. The entire reason for the Lords is to provide a check on the government. If the party has a majority and its MPs vote on the party line then Tony is pretty much dictating what goes on. The Lords are there to limit that power. Which sounds like a good reason for the Government to want rid of them. Like I said, I'd be interested to see what happens if the Lords kick it back again. I don't think they'll let that stop them.

The UK is thankfully not as skewed as the US party system, but it is still pretty depressing.

There is so little to choose between New Labour and the Conservatives, simply because people don't care or understand politics, nor believe that their vote will have any impact.

You recommend voting for the Lib Dems. They will replace the Tories in about 15 years (when the last remaining Tory voters have died of old age), and then we're back in the same shit situation.

You shouldn't vote for someone because they're not the main two. People need to get off their collective arses, and read about what each party believes in and then make an informed decision.

Hey, pompous I'll take. I've been accused of being pompous by a Conservative MP, and I had to accept I was dealing with an expert.

I'm incurably curious as to what you thought was self-contradictory... s/They disrupt/Such corrections disrupt/ would remove an ambiguity in my first paragraph.

To summarise: if someone writes "there" when they mean "their", don't sweat it, it doesn't matter. If someone writes "up" when they mean "down", it's worth correcting them -- for one thing, they might point out they meant what they wrote, in which case you've cleared up a misunderstanding. Saying "effect" instead of "affect" is more like saying "up" instead of "down" than it is like mistyping a word or splitting an infinitive.

Example: "The planned redundancy program will not be affected by the new management team" == keep on sending those resumes out.
"The planned redundancy program will not be effected by the new management team" == It's all cancelled, your job's safe!

... it comes out OK for the "little" guy. My fave was the one during the last UK general election when www.williamhague.com got disputed (I advise you not to look at the actual content). IIRC William Hague (the naturist) won because he had been running the site for ages before William Hague (the politician) got elected leader of the Conservative party. There's nothing they could do about it.

Mind you, I'm not sure the result would've been much different if the naturist guy had stood instead. All OK now as they've got a completely different slaphead nonentity in charge now.

Following a little research of my own:

• The site www.conservatives.com is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98. [NETCRAFT]
• The site www.labour.org.uk is running Oracle_Web_Listener/4.0.8.2EnterpriseEdition on Linux. [NETCRAFT]

Says it all to me...

It's not the people, but the Prime Minister who can dissolve Parliament and thus cause a general election (in fact, it's theoretically the Queen).

I'm not sure what you mean by "proper credibility" for political parties-- AFAIK whether Members belong to a given party is not taken into account in the original design (any more than it is under the US electoral college system), though there are organisations that keep tabs on what parties are doing.

You might have meant that the people respect political parties in the UK more than they do in the US, and since I haven't lived in the US, it's difficult to say. Anyone know? Do bear in mind that we're still not under a multi-party system, though; even though the centre party have grown in the last few decades, we're still in a first-past the post system, mainly a race between the other two.