OT: Something to hide?

On or around Fri, 18 May 2007 16:29:41 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

f****rs.

what happened to "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to worry about?"

only applies to the hoi polloi, it seems, not the pigs.

"4 legs good, 2 legs better".

bugger the lot of 'em, with a nice big pine cone, rounded-end first...

I see Gordon Brown, who could block it when he becomes PM, and has stated that he wants to rebuild trust in politicians, has decided to get off to a flying start and allow the shutters to come down...

So what to do eh. Vote tory? They bought in this amendment to remove the politicians from scrutiny, and they also started the NERC bill rolling, plus they're lead by a pale imitation of Blair, who we're all gagging to get rid of so no point voting for that shower. They were the reason for the Freedom Of Information Act in the first place, so the fact that they are behind the efforts to close it down shows they've not learned from their time in the wilderness.

Lib Dems? £1,000 per year 4x4 tax bandwagon jumpers, no thanks. Liberal my arse.

Labour? No chance.

Screaming Lord Such? Dead.

BNP? Joke candidates, not a serious party either.

Nuts!!

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

We are well and truly knackered.

Quel surprise! Did anybody seriously expect them to vote against it? Like the annual pay rise and expenses allowance, they're not gonna vote against anything that helps them feather thier own nests. Time-wasting, self-serving, sycophantic bastards, the lot of em.

Alex

Why not? After all the act it's nobbling was introduced by MPs in the first place, they weren't forced to put the freedom of information act in place, and it was a good bill with good safeguards and yet it got through parliament. This new act is a reduction of an act that had already been passed. If they were as bad as some think, the FOIA would never have been put into law in the first place.

That's why it's a shame that it's being nobbled, it demonstrated that they weren't afraid of scrutiny, but it seems they just weren't used to it and now they've had some, the tories in particular are suddenly afraid of scrutiny (having suffered from it before), with labour now implicitly agreeing.

It still applies to lots of other organisations, not sure if they have changed the charging rules or not, which was another proposal that was killed some time ago that would have made almost any FOI request to any organisation easily rejectable.

Also this is the second attempt to get it through, the first one was killed by MPs, but the second attempt wasn't expected and caught those who aren't afraid of scrutiny napping, so now it's down to the house of lords.

The five most popular stories on the been website right now, despite Brown turning a blind eye to FOI law gutting getting second billing, are that kidnapped girl, pictures of beaches, Neighbours going to channel 5, Tony Blair saying he wants a cup of tea, and a story about burning cocaine....

The stupid thing is that less than half of the population aren't comfortable with ID cards.... The rest either don't mind or think they're great! If they can manage to combine them with their tesco loyalty card then I'll bet they'll be even more popular...

If the exemption is total it is out of order, but I never trust the media to get the basic facts right let alone detail. I'd write to my MP but guess who my MP is...

It may well not be total but the criticism is that the supporters say that they're doing it to protect correspondence with constituents, but critics say that this is done by the data protection act and that the MPs really want to avoid people checking that they're not abusing their expenses claims. So it's plainly too wide an exemption.

There are some public bodies who are exempt from the FOI act, I'd imagine the police would be amongst them, the MPs are adding themselves to this list so it's not as if they're making themselves unique, but it's still dodgy.

On or around Fri, 18 May 2007 18:07:22 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

You sure?

move to Wales, and vote Plaid. or Scotland and SNP, I suppose.

On or around 18 May 2007 12:07:11 -0700, BeamEnds enlightened us thusly:

me neither

eff-all, AFAICS. latest is that they thing city academies, a brainchild of the nulab bunch, are quite a good idea, actually. How TF they think they'll get elected like that is beyond me. Trad tory voters will run a mile, and nulab voters will vote nulab, not fake-copycat-nulab. I suppose they could go more left-wing than nulab (not hard to do) and try for the trad labour vote. I bet all the old-guard labour types are turning in their graves.

goes for most of 'em.

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Despite their 'nationalist' image both the SNP and Plaid are really leftish Social Democratic parties well to the left of New Labour.

Salmond himself was kicked out of the SNP years ago for being way too left wing, but allowed back in later.

He's far more left wing than 'old Labour', he's far more "what never happened to the bed-sit Trots".

"Austin Shackles" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Quite true, remember that it was Blair and New Labour that pinched the Tory middle ground - without their having done so they wouldn't have had a hope in hell of getting elected ever, ever, ever again - period! If anyone here is old enough to remember the last real Labour gubbinsment then you'll understand why.

Tory and Labour are now the same, who do you trust? Personally I don't trust any of them, they all lie like cheap clocks to save their (thick) skins, but I think it's time for the Tories to have a go, Labour MP's have proven themselves to be corrupt on many occasions so I don't see what we have to loose - and as for that Hazel Blears tart, words fail me....

Julian.

Well, I've not prodded the cold corpse myself but I doubt he's gone into hiding. He hanged himself in 1999 after his mother died. The Monster Raving Loony Party is still going, but hardly the same any more.

Report of his suicide;

Nah, just as bonkers as the BNP.. They're all parties borne out of hatred.

On or around Fri, 18 May 2007 16:29:41 +0100, Ian Rawlings enlightened us thusly:

wrote to me MP about it today...

He has my sympathy, I had the trots a couple of times while living in bed-sits and it wan't very pleasant..... oh I see.... sorry.

Richard