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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.

Chances are they'll both be able to agree on repealing 'Stuff That Labour Did'.

Actually, since the Repeal Bill was a Lib Dem manifesto pledge that made it into the Coalition agreement, it might be worthwhile seeing what it was the Liberals had in mind. This might change because the Tories will have their own ideas and they might even bring in some public suggestions from that website (it is just about possible), but I'd expect the bill to end up looking a lot like that one.

Most of this was also in the Lib-Dem-drafted Freedom Bill: http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/

* Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.

* Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.

* Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.

* Abolish the flawed control orders regime.

* Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.

* Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.

* Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.

* Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.

* Stop criminalising trespass.

* Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.

* Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.

* Restore the right to silence when accused in court.

* Prevent bailiffs from using force.

* Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.

* Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.

* Remove innocent people from the DNA database.

* Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.

* Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.

* Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.

* Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.

I can't vouch for the Tories (they definitely want to keep the "biometric visa" ID cards for foreign nationals, among other things), but the claim that the Lib Dems would keep the National Identity Register is unmitigated horseshit and slander.

The Liberal Democrats have always said that they will scrap the card, scrap the register and repeal the Identity Cards Act which allows the State to create such databases. You can't get more strong opposition to the scheme than that.

Source: http://freedom.libdems.org.uk/the-freedom-bill/full-text-of-the-freedom-bill/#idcards is the text of the Freedom Bill which the Lib Dems would introduce to restore civil liberties.

Given the number of other rights willingly surrendered by the good people of the British Isles

We havn't all given them up, Some of us are fighting to retain the rights we have and get back others. We now even have an political party to vote for. And even if the Pirates don't win a seat, there is another major political party committed to passing a bill to reclaim our freedom. Even the TFA is about people standing up against government committing to free ideals, even if out of selfish motives. The cause of Freedom is nowhere near lost in the UK.

Their policies go far further than that - take a look at their proposed Freedom Bill. They're the only major party worth voting for on civil liberties right now, as far as I can tell.

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.

Vote Lib Dem!

I urge everyone to vote Lib Dem. They're committed to improving the electoral system (check out the 'better governance' consultation paper), which includes implementing a system of proportional representation. This is the foundation for good government. They may well have policies that you disagree with; I don't like their fondness for the EU, nor their support of Labour's road charging idea. However we only need them in office for 1 or 2 terms to fix our godawful electoral system, and then we can actually start voting for parties that are actually GOOD, and our vote will be useful. Vote Lib Dem.

• Peaceful protests outside parliament
• Not being sent to the US if a US court thinks maybe it might have some flimsy evidence that wouldn't stand up to getting a US citizen sent to face trial in the UK, because US congress hasn't ratified the treaty (and probably won't, it being *stupid*) while UK parliament has
• The right to free assembly without police interference
• Letting people who are suspected of terrorism-related offences out of their houses once in a while
• Public interest whistleblowing
• The right to silence
• The right not to be convicted on hearsay evidence

Because when I want somebody's ideas on what comprises a democracy, I ask somebody with a peerage.

The closest parallel I can think of would be one of your Chief Justices... They provide some oversight on Parliament's legislation, tend to be less bound by party politics and rarely bothered by winning votes.

Personally, given the parlous state of your nation, I'd think twice about throwing jibes around about democracy.

No, that isn't the solution, because the present leaders of the Conservative party follow almost exactly the same line as Blair's Labour party. For example, they supported Britain's involvement in the Iraq war.

The Liberal Democrats oppose ID cards, and opposed the Iraq war, so to that extent seem a little more likely to preserve some independence for Britain, from the madmen currently occupying the White House. They are also in favor of a saner voting system (did you know that Blair's overwhelming majority in Parliament - which is big enough to give him dictatorial powers, he can ignore the opposition - resulted from a general election in which his party received just 36% of the votes cast?). However, they have other policies that you may not like (and that I certainly don't like) - they are more socialist than the Labour party.

My present opinion is that the Lib Dems are the least bad of a bad set of choices.

There is also the "British National Party" which seems to me to be a bunch of lunatic racists, and the "UK Independence Party", which has been accused of racism, but possibly wrongly. The UKIP seems less likely to win seats in Parliament than the Lib Dems, though, hence a vote for them is less likely to have any effect.

>How, exactly, is any of that supposed to help >against crime / terrorism / illegal >immigration / whatever? Well, obviously, it won't help at all with any of these things. It's the same sort of misdirection that the US PATRIOT Act exemplifies. And, again like the US, once you have a form of ID (Americans use driver's licenses) which everybody assumes is reliable, identity fraud increases exponentially. Because they can be faked, and more sensible checks then fail to happen. I'm still constantly amazed that nobody ever bothers checking credit card signatures there. >This is going to cost the government some money. >That money comes from taxes and fees. What is >the British citizen getting for that expense? A multi-billion-pound government IT boondoggle which will be mismanaged to hell and back and come in either several years late or not at all. See the NHS and Child Support Agency fiascos for previous examples. Some of us are verging on unconcerned at this whole thing, solely because we refuse to believe that the UK Government has anything like the required competence to implement it. Still, I'd rather we didn't waste such a staggering amount of money on something which doesn't work. And I'd rather we didn't try even if it did, as would most of all of you. -- Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy.

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

*cough* some of us here in the southern rump of the UK are still properly radical... we'll be voting Liberal Democrat!

*cough* some of us here in the southern rump of the UK are still properly radical... we'll be voting Liberal Democrat!

In the UK, "Whigs" was just another name for the Liberal party, which still polls around 20% over here. They changed their name to the Liberal Democrats when they merged with the Social Democratic Party 20 years or so ago.

• no2id
• Stand
• Liberty

About a month back I was among several local members of the Liberal Democrats who went to help out with a by-election. We shared the local Liberal Democrat MEP's car and had lunch together. When I told him what I did for a living he brought up the topic of software patents and we had something of a lively debate. Now the party has a policy against software patents, but its MEPs are part of a group that is for them with a few reservations. When I emailed him before the first full parliamentary vote his (probably canned) reply stated categorical opposition to software patents. Unfortunately it seems he has been swayed towards them since them. What depressed me most was his reply to my claim that small businesses were mostly against them: "we must represent the large companies too". Shit, and there I was thinking they were representing people!

Your country is corrupt. I'm sorry to say it, but it is. It is no longer the shining beacon of incorruptible democracy it once was. After its prodigious economic growth, all subsequent governments have done is to continue the status quo where the US is king, through little escapades like the crushing of Socialism/Communism, kicking the shit out of smaller countries for economic reasons and many other happy fun little things which are all designed to keep America at the top and everyone else at the bottom. The permanent members of the Security Council are more or less only there for token reasons right now. The world revolves around the US, and any number of countries could collapse if the US removed economic support and financial aid from them. before all the "RAH RAH RAH AMERICA RULES" crowd pipe up, look at the big picture. Both your major parties are the same. Your president is hated-reviled even-worldwide because he acts like a jackass. Your country is overreacting to one terrorist incident, which, in my eyes, your government deserved for its relentless campaign of the bombing, napalming and slaughtering of innocent civilian people to get its way, and your civil liberties, which the government and the people love to crow about, are being systematically removed from you. Government is in the pockets of the corporations: GE, Microsoft, Exxon et al all practically own all of the parties. Open your fucking eyes up. I know I may be preaching to the choir here on Slashdot (the /. populace generally have a fairly left wing bent anyway) but just look at what is around you and what is happening to your country.

My call to you is this. Do something about your government. Don't just vote Democrat, that will do nothing in the long run: vote Green or, if you wish, Libertarian. Heck, vote Communist! Go hog wild! Get involved in the political protest. Turn up at the White House lawn with a picket and protest. Mail your senators and congresscritters. Get active. Do something and end the US-inflicted nightmare that has descended on the world over the last century. Please. At least do it for the children, who you all seem to love making rash political decisions for :)

As for my politics, I am a very left wing Liberal Democrat in the UK. May as well say that to appease all the people who will probably cry "UNAMERICAN BITCH COMMUNIST SLUTWHORE" :)

Goddamn liberal freak

are you talking American democrat liberal or european liberal democrat?

I'm confused!

It might also be because the US Government is internally corrupt and is owned by Halliburton, Arhusto, Exxon, Disney, GE etc etc etc.

I also am a Social Democrat (well, what we here in England call Liberal Democrat) and an atheist and the only person who can positively get America out of the shit right now is John McCain. Not John Kerry, John McCain. Yes, I know he's a Republican and right wing-but he's the only fucking politician over there with any sense besides Ralph Nader, whose chances of getting into power are slim to none.

My two hundredths of a pound...

In the UK at least, the Liberal Democrats seem to have some idea at least about copyright and patents as they relate to software. This paper mentions software patents as a bad thing, states that allowing only copyright protection on code rather than patents encourage competition in the software market place, along with a bunch of other generally sensible ideas.

See what the Liberal Democrats say about this.

Yes, they are against ID cards!

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.

I think the paranoia isn't really directed at the stores. Wal-Mart or Tesco knowing how much you spend isn't really a problem. Cross-store cards like Nectar aren't really a problem either.

The problem comes when this information is abused. Some people have a problem with shopping information being used to target junk mail etc.

Others have a problem with credit information being centrally controlled - personally, I'm blacklisted through no fault of my own, and haven't yet been able to find out the right shadowy organisation to address to get the information corrected. I consider this to be very annoying.

The really scary stuff comes from programs like TIA - governments taking this information from private corporations and "combining" it. The scary thing there is accountability - does buying the food I buy make me more likely to be flagged as a terrorist? Does buying guacamole flag some database somewhere that I might be a Zapatista sympathiser? Does buying a Michael Moore book make a difference? What about my payments to the Liberal Democrat Party?

Of course, opinion differs widely as to how realistic these scenarios are. I'm not ragingly paranoid, personally. The only store card I use is my OSG Co-Op card, because I like the co-op and it encourages me to spend my money with a retailer who seems to be more ethically sound than most supermarkets.

But I'm sure there are people in government like Poindexter who want access to this information, and I'm sure that their machine-defined algorithms will make mistakes and cause trouble for innocent citizens. When "trouble" can involve things like Guantenamo, that's a risk I want to avoid no matter how unlikely it is. And soon we Brits will have nice anti-terrorist legislation which includes life inprisonment without trial and secret arrests...

Here in Ireland, we run a system called Proportional Representation (or IRV, as the parent link calls it...), and it works pretty well. You rank all N candidates in order of preference, and as soon as your favourite is eliminated, your highest remaining vote becomes your no. 1. (i.e, if you vote Bob #1 and Joe #2, if Bob gets about 5 votes in round one and is elminated, Joe gets your #1 vote.)

This seems to have the desired effect of the more popular parties winning, so you rarely end up with a case of a "vote-split", where two fairly well-regarded candidates take votes from one another.

AFAIK, they are also beginning to experiment with this system in the UK, at the behest of smaller parties, like the Liberal Democarats (basically the 3rd party in a two-party system... :) )

I'd like to know who the hell keeps voting for the Conservatives

All the blue bits of countryside on this map; there's still a whole lot of them even though the major cities are almost entirely coloured red. Quite a bit of gold inroad into the blue, though-- six more than last time, and it'll be interesting to see how they're doing after the next election.

(BTW, it just gets confusing to call the Lib Dems "the Liberal Party", since the Liberals who didn't join up with the SDP back in 1988 are still hanging around somehow and still hanging on to the name.)

Is it just me, or is tending towards the facist and totalitarian a pre-requisite of being a British Home Secretary? I'm 29 and spent most of my life growing up under the Tories. They weren't any better. The trouble is, it's swings and roundabouts and not enough people will ever vote Lib Dem. Even if they got in, I'm sure they'd end up being just like New Labour or old Tory.

Or am I just too cynical?

Liberty

This is why I support the Liberal Democrats. They at least seem to be opposed to some of this crap. Additionally they're an excellent way to hugely annoy an American Republican friend of mine - they have the words "Liberal" and "Democrat" in their name, and are lead by someone called "Kennedy"...

UK Law (which strikes me as sensible) says that anything which is or appears to be child porn is illegal. Why?

Simple. If the fake is legal, it's almost impossible to prosecute the real thing as the instant defence becomes 'it's faked'. How do you prove beyond reasonable doubt that it isn't? You can't, in all honesty.

If you want to keep the real thing illegal and prosecutable, the fake has to be illegal too. A free speech advocate is almost certainly going to jump up and down on this, but this is the sort of thing which makes me GLAD Britain doesn't have absolute freedom of speech. It creates far too many problems and undesirable situations. For reference, I'm a Liberal Democrat. Slightly left of centre, basically.

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.

The brilliant STAND campaign against draconian encryption laws came across the same problem. MPs' email addresses aren't public domain; most of them bounce, and their offices won't give out contact details to non-constituents.

There's a real schism in the Government's attitude to technology here. Tony Blair makes well-publicised speeches about Britain leading the m-commerce revolution (m for mobile), and his ministers have pagers, mobile phones and laptops linked to a central database of stats and policy details, but most MPs have understaffed offices, no desk space, and no direct access via email, in spite of the fact that most of them spend their weeks miles away from their constituencies.

It's about time that politicians woke up to the opportunities of the Net. Of all the parties, only the minority Liberal Democrats have attempted to harness the technology, which is in keeping with their radical approach.