British Coalition Partner Attempts to Block Web Censorship Powers

judgecorp writes "The Liberal Democrat party is attempting to repeal the controversial web-blocking powers allowed by Britain's Digital Economy Act. The move goes against the policy of the coalition government, and the tactic chosen is a roundabout one: Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert proposed an amendment to a different bill which would have had the effect of repealing parts of the DEA. The amendment was not discussed, but the proposal is a sign that the Lib Dems mean business on this policy, adopted at their party conference."

Comments

About bloody time

[EdZ]

Well, let's see if the Lib Dems can keep at least one of their pre-election promises. Not holding my breath though.

Re:About bloody time

[Vanders]

I'm not sure what people expect from the Liberal Democrats. Some sort of Night of the Long Knives where Nick Clegg eliminates both the Conservatives and Labour and declares himself Supreme Leader?

Re:About bloody time

[expat.iain]

I would suggest that the LibDems, like the Tories, have come into service of the nation only to discover the barren waste left by the Labour administration. It's all well and good having grand plans, but when one peers inside to find the coffers empty through abysmal mis-management, it's difficult to step forward with increased spending plans without looking completely nuts.

Clegg and his bunch are in a very difficult situation where they need to keep some stability in the country by not having an early election called that could potentially bring Miliband into government. At the same time they need to keep the Right in check and ensure that some Liberal views are represented. The key to all of this mess is to get the country back on its feet before the Reds are able to get close to another attempt at drowning the UK.

There's always horse trading in politics and this is one area that it would be very surprising to see the Liberals allow to pass through.

Re:About bloody time

[Vanders]

not have to make any compromises

Wait: you seriously expect a party that is part of a coalition to not make compromises?

would be able to do everything that they said in their manifesto that they would do if they had a majority

Why in the world would anyone with half a brain expect such a thing? They have 40% of the votes in the coalition. They have 9% of the seats in the House of Commons. How, precisely, do you expect the Liberal Democrats to do this without support from either the Conservatives or Labour? Bearing in mind that apparently they're also not allowed to compromise.

People expect magic. It's the same mind set of people who blame the President of the United States for absolutely everything but never question what the Senate or HoR are doing.

Re:About bloody time

[SimonTheSoundMan]

What do you expect? Lib Dems are outnumbered 6 to 1 by the Conservatives. I'm surprised at how much influence Clegg has had over the coalition when his party is a small part of the government.

Transcript of second reading in Commons

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'm on the 4th column at the moment, and so far all I've read are "Honourable Friends" thanking "right honourable Gentlemen" for introductions, support, thanking them for the thanks, offering support for other amendments which in turn gets further thanks for the support, and reciprocal thanks for their thanks!

Can't they just talk about sorting out these crappy laws instead of thanking each other?

Re:Transcript of second reading in Commons

[Sockatume]

If you were part of a club which gave you a huge wage and expenses account in exchange for arguing all day, you'd spend all morning high fiving the other members too.

Too late

[Cholten]

From the Open Rights Group's Glyn Wintle who sometimes gets stories posted on /.

++

They time ran out in parliament so they did not get to the digital economy act clause. So it will not make it into the bill.

Julian tweeted "Thanks all who contacted their MP about my #deact amendment; lots of MPs talked to me about it. Sadly, we'll have no time to debate it."
"So ... My #deact amendment wasn't reached in time, so wasn't taken. I'll keep looking for opportunities!"

The minister did say it would be

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2011-10-10a.80.0&s=Digital+Economy#g87.3

Dr Huppert mentioned the Digital Economy Act 2010. He will be aware that the Government announced in August that they did not intend to commence sections 17 and 18 of the Act. There might not be time to debate his new clause, but we are now working on a wide-scale review of the communications sector with a view to publishing a Green Paper by the spring of next year, and a draft Bill by mid-2013. Policy on tackling online copyright infringement, including site-blocking, is being considered as part of that review and, given our intention to conduct that wide-ranging review, it would be premature to act now to repeal sections 17 and 18 of the Act in isolation from any other legislative changes that might be needed.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/story/2011/10/12/uk-government-to-review-deact-isp-website-blocking-as-part-of-new-comms-bill.html

There was also a ammendment that was not reached that said some thing about charging for data, that could be interesting if any one has time to look at what it was about.

hu wa?

[sgt scrub]

The Liberal Democratic party in the U.K. are actually Liberal Democrats? The colonies have soooo much to learn.

You're right to be bitter

[Anonymous Coward]

But the UK political options still make the US two-party system look like Stalinist Russia. There you have a choice between two extreme right wing parties, one with extra extreme.

Here you have a choice between several moderate right parties, with the extreme rightwingnut unable to get traction.

Interestingly, the guy's a slahdotter

[Anonymous Coward]

JulianHuppert

Re:Interestingly, the guy's a slahdotter

[julianhuppert]

Yeah - but I very rarely have a chance to post!

Julian

Re:Something tells me this isn't going to happen..

[digitig]

And then at the deciding, decisive moment, the liberal party decided to throw in with the capital-c Conservatives without consulting its voters or setting out any ground-rules. Great job, guys! I really feel represented!

No, I'm not bitter.

Because Labour refused to enter a coalition with them, and the numbers wouldn't have added up anyway. And where do you get the idea that they didn't set down any ground rules? There's a formal coalition agreement setting down the ground rules.