Tories grapple with the idea of principle
The Conservative Party has come up with a wizard idea over internal passports, a.k.a. ID cards: they will support the idea in principle but pick holes in the legislation if they can. Principle? Principle? Wot dat as far as the Tories are concerned?
Do they believe in individual liberty or not? Answers on the back of postage stamps, please.
Of course, one can argue that in wartime or during any sort of a major emergency individual liberty has to be curtailed for the common good, if that common good can be discerned. As we have pointed out in a previous posting, the police have no particular notion of whether ID cards will be useful to prevent terrorist attacks or deal with the inevitably chaotic aftermath.
Last week Sir John Stevens announced that a Madrid-type attack on London had been stopped. Nobody pointed out the obvious: the potential attack was stopped as numerous IRA attacks had been stopped in the past, without ID cards. Spain, on the other hand, does have them. The Madrid attacks were not stopped and neither were the more recent ETA ones.
One must remember that it was the present leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard, who, in his days as Home Secretary, suggested that ID cards were necessary to prevent social security fraud. Now they appear to be necessary to deal with crime and terrorism. In fact, internal passports are the solution looking for a problem. So far there has not been a problem they could solve.
It seems that some members of the Shadow Cabinet have had “severe misgivings”, though, as ever, not severe enough to think of resignation, despite this being a very serious matter. Then again, am I being old-fashioned? Perhaps, matters of individual liberty no longer constitute serious political issues.
A spokesperson for Conservative Central Office said:
Well, we in UKIP at the London Assembly are not afraid of saying it: internal passports are a weapon of an authoritarian government against law-abiding citizens. They do not help in the fight against terrorism (have they helped in Russia?); they do not help in the fight against crime; they do not help in the fight against social security fraud. Why have them?
Do they believe in individual liberty or not? Answers on the back of postage stamps, please.
Of course, one can argue that in wartime or during any sort of a major emergency individual liberty has to be curtailed for the common good, if that common good can be discerned. As we have pointed out in a previous posting, the police have no particular notion of whether ID cards will be useful to prevent terrorist attacks or deal with the inevitably chaotic aftermath.
Last week Sir John Stevens announced that a Madrid-type attack on London had been stopped. Nobody pointed out the obvious: the potential attack was stopped as numerous IRA attacks had been stopped in the past, without ID cards. Spain, on the other hand, does have them. The Madrid attacks were not stopped and neither were the more recent ETA ones.
One must remember that it was the present leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard, who, in his days as Home Secretary, suggested that ID cards were necessary to prevent social security fraud. Now they appear to be necessary to deal with crime and terrorism. In fact, internal passports are the solution looking for a problem. So far there has not been a problem they could solve.
It seems that some members of the Shadow Cabinet have had “severe misgivings”, though, as ever, not severe enough to think of resignation, despite this being a very serious matter. Then again, am I being old-fashioned? Perhaps, matters of individual liberty no longer constitute serious political issues.
A spokesperson for Conservative Central Office said:
“During the course of the Bill, the Conservatives will continue to hold ministers to account over our five tests: the exact purpose of the scheme,whether it will meet those objectives, whether this Home Office is capable of delivering them, the cost-effectiveness of the scheme, and whether proper protection can be provided for privacy.”Well yes, one could ask all of those questions and, even without asking them, most of us know the answers? Why, therefore, are the Tories not opposing this useless, expensive and authoritarian scheme? Errm, apparently, they are afraid of being seen as weak on law and order.
Well, we in UKIP at the London Assembly are not afraid of saying it: internal passports are a weapon of an authoritarian government against law-abiding citizens. They do not help in the fight against terrorism (have they helped in Russia?); they do not help in the fight against crime; they do not help in the fight against social security fraud. Why have them?
posted by Helen at 5:15 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home