Slashdot Mirror
British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg 'Kills' Snoopers Charter
judgecorp writes "The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, has effectively 'killed' the Communications Data Bill which would have required service providers to share personal communications data with the police. Clegg has withdrawn the support of the Liberal Democrat Party (part of the Coalition in power in the UK) from the so-called 'Snooper's Charter.' The announcement is timed to block the measure from the Queen's Speech on 8 May, which introduces the next programme of planned legislation."
Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use.
Don't count your chickens yet: Clegg has said he'll withdraw support. This is the guy who signed a pledge not to increase tuition fees and then almost as soon as the coalition had been formed backed them being roughly tripled.
Lilly livered little Cleggy has actually some use.
Don't count your chickens yet: Clegg has said he'll withdraw support. This is the guy who signed a pledge not to increase tuition fees and then almost as soon as the coalition had been formed backed them being roughly tripled.
"backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge', it was in their Manifesto which may be splitting hairs, but let's not forget that was if his party got in sole power. They didn't. They had to compromise. He was naive, the coalition is not 50/50. It's more like 90/10 in favour of the other party (for those of non-UK and who care). What he didn't do was defy the rise after the fact (much).
Now that the election is only a couple of years away and the fixed term parliament (that was bought in) is pretty much likely to go the distance, Nick Clegg and the LibDems don't have anything (more) to lose and a lot to gain.
I think you will see more of this as we get nearer the election. I don't particularly have string feelings for Nick Clegg but by Christ, theirs was the only party to care about our deomcratci system enough to try to push much needed Lords Reform - scuppered by their coalition partners, also get rid of the ridiculous first-past-the-post voting system (yes AV was a silly compromise which in the end they didn't get either) again scuppered by their coaltion partners they give a damn about Freedoms of Joe Public and still push for Human Rights for instance, the Blue party would have those excised from statute as soon as look at you and the Red party would put us under evem more surveillance and government scrutiny on our every day lives.
Sorry but most of the adult population without kids (or kids past university age) simply don't give a shit about tuition fees.
If you look past the stupid media portrayals of the lib dems (who are not all Nick Clegg) you'll see they have a good record for the the little person.
"backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge'
Actually, he did. If you look you can see it says "I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative", and you can just about see his scrawled signature below it. In his apology "It was stressed that Clegg was apologising for making the pledge...not to raise tuition fees, but not for the eventual decision by the coalition to lift the cap on fees to £9,000." So, he pledged not to, then at the very minimum didn't object to it happening and then apologises for the pledge itself but not the decision which contradicted the pledge.
As for the "LibDems are better than the others" comments, I'm not convinced by any of them. You've outlined the problems with the Conservatives and Labour pretty well, and summed up the LibDems with "they don't have anything (more) to lose".
At any rate, I wouldn't take his word on this issue until it actually comes to the crunch, because it's not the first time he has said X and then allowed Y to happen anyway.
"backed" is a bit strong and he didn't 'sign a pledge', it was in their Manifesto which may be splitting hairs, but let's not forget that was if his party got in sole power.
I'm sure this is how lib dem supporters prefer to remember it, but he (and 500 other candidates from his party, including every elected MP) did indeed sign the pledge:
http://web.archive.org/web/20101215160749/http://www.nus.org.uk/Campaigns/Funding-Our-Future/Lib-Dem-MPs-sign-the-pledge/
The wording was: "I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative", a personal promise which does not assume the lib dems would hold sole (or any) power.
Here's a photo of Nick holding up his signed copy of the pledge for the cameras, and some quotations from confidential documents in which senior party members were planning to betray this promise in the event of a hung parliament (which is, of course, exactly what they did):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/nov/12/lib-dems-tuition-fees-clegg
'Clear yellow water' indeed.