Identity Card Bill
// June 17th, 2005 // Uncategorized
I have just wrote to my MP Natascha Engel protesting the idea of National Identity Cards via Write to them. I have done this after signing and being encouraged by a pledgebank proposal to boycott ID cards. I’ve explained why I don’t like the bill and asked her views, lets just hope she replies.
I have read about the national identity cards on No2ID as well as in various other places and I cannot see how they are justified, both from a civil liberties point of view and an expense point of view.
The current Home Office forecast is £5.5billion, but independant experts (LSE report) forecast £18billion, the governments (well, their contractors) inability to forecast costs for computer projects is well known, look at the CSA fiasco for example.
I hope that people reading this will be influenced read more about this matter, to campaign against ID cards and most importantly to write to their MPs about the matter.
16 Responses to “Identity Card Bill”
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Just after her election I wrote and asked her seven questions covering a variety of topics ranging from vote reform through climate change via liberties and rights, including ID cards. This has been followed-up by a couple of polite reminders.
So far nothing but silence, not even an acknowledgement. If Harry Barnes couldn’t get back to you straight away he’d send a card and get back later in detail even if it was to disagree.
Nobody knows anything about her stance on much of anything. In my last reminder I said it would be nice if we knew what her take was on things before entering a debate and not just after the division.
There’s a web site Sonowwhodowevotefor and some commentary on her by claimed past acquaintances and if you survey it I’m sure you will see it is none too complementary about her.
So I guess I would say the profiles there begin to look accurate (New Labour Pod Person, for example) from my own probes and don’t hold your breath
Maybe you’ve scanned the division record from last night: she turned up and voted with the Government (can’t say I’m shocked).
All, I knew about her was that she was a member of the Fabian Society. The information on So Now Who Do We Vote For looks interesting, if it is true.
I don’t know if it’s the norm but I’ve had three MEPs reply to me and I wrote to them after Engels.
Yeah she’s the sixth most conformant M.P. (not that she’s there often)
I was wondering if your email was doing better than my smail to her. Now we know. I’ve sent all my correspondence “Signed for” so I, sort of, have a record. It all goes to the standard Commons address so we’ve no choice but to take it on trust that it gets to the right office at least.
She was pregnant going into the election and delivered her child – now named Anton – shortly thereafter. I didn’t know anything about her pregnancy when I drafted and sent my first letter (the original “seven question” letter). I can’t remember if I found out about her condition when I went into my council offices (North Wingfield) to ask if she’d planned surgeries or when I came on the Net to find something out about her but the lady in the offices told me that she understood that Ms Engel planned to take some time off. Always a good way to start a new Parliament
. Anyway, that’s the reason for the low attendance, so far.
She’s put standard press releases into a variety of local newspapers – the DT for example – that, arguably, cover this “transition time” and there are on-line BBC press cuttings (sorry don’t have the URL to hand, but its easy to find) explaining that she plans to use the time to “get to know her constituents.” I also understand it was an all-femail shortlist (and safe labour – no pun intended in her case – of course).
And, unless I have a card/letter through the mail today, that’s as much as I know.
In closing this comment, what is, of course irksome, is that you get Puttnam and his Commission looking at the “Crisis of Democracy” – although with the help of Chomsky I’m at least able to decode that one now – and writing articles in t’Grauniad about MP’s having to “earn respect” and all that, but when we *try* to exercise our “right” to participate (UN Declaration on HR Article 21) this is what we get.
“They pretend to give us democracy and we pretend we have it.”
(After old Soviet saying, “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.”
Breakthrough (of sorts)!
Got a reply back from my letter 3 (22 June) yesterday saying that she got letter 2 (6 June) but didn’t get letter 1 (7 May) and will reply “soon”. By that I take that there will actually be some content. BTW this was from some assistant she’s set on her payroll down in London, so that, at least, appears to be working.
It’s “unfortunate” that letter 1 didn’t make it because it was there I asked the “seven questions” and set a good deal of context. Not to worry, easy to reconstitute and fire off again (next Wednesday). Letter 2 was, in the main, a re-working of one of the questions based on the “No” votes on the EU Constitution so she’s got something to chew on in the mean time. Might not be a bad thing actually because it’s relevant to what we’re blogging about here, by and large: the “democratic deficit.” (I know we came in on ID cards, and there’s much to say there too, but its all good stuff
.)
After the French and Dutch votes my original question mutated to something like, “What action do you intend to take to help your constituents bridge the democractic deficit between themselves, Parliament and the EU?” Kind of like a constitutional learning exercise for when they finally get around for putting reforms/EU Constitutions before us through the promised referendum (not that Our Dear Leader is going to chance it any time soon).
Got another card too. This one was from David Puttnam’s (Lords) office. Don’t know if you’ve followed it, but given the dismal GE turnout and the 1/5th of the electorate “legitimizing” (ROTFL) this government he was tasked with the Hansard Commission (I think that’s what it’s called) to see what can be done to “rescue” our democracy. I cc’d letter 3 to Puttnam’s office at the same time as I sent it to Engel. Now it would be toooooo cynical, wouldn’t it to think that that made somebody sit up and pay attention ?
Closing on ID cards, yes I’m signed up with NO2ID and also Liberty’s collection of names. Read in the Mirror yesterday that our “listening” Dear Leader plans to invoke the Parliament Act if needs be to force the business through, saying, “We’re the democratically elected Government.”
You’ve just got to laugh, don’t you ?
Have a great weekend.
Later.
Well that’s rather good to know, I’d be gratetful if you let me know when she got back in full – I’m rather curious about the amount of time it’ll take.
It does seem rather coincidental that they reply when a letter gets cc’d to Puttnam, I may well bear that trick in mind
. I’m glad she’s at least took on someone to deal with her correspondance, I think the budget for ‘researchers’ usually stretches to two.
I’ve not signed up to Libertys list, I’ll make sure I do something about that very soon.
I can’t believe that he’s got the cheek to say that or that he’s threatening the parliament act again, there needs to be some kind of check on the government that can’t just be waited out. Maybe a proportionally elected Upper Chamber would solve the democracy problem of the lords and prohibit the use of the parliment act. Although then there’s a risk of a party having a huge majority in both chambers. :/
Liberty is interesting.
(BTW let me say, up front, that the stuff I bring to the table is what you might call “real time” [I come from a background of computing science too.] stuff. Not making it up, but learning as I go along. They’ve called for “more” democracy – but I bet “they don’t like it up ‘em.”)
Its former incarnation was the National Council on Civil Liberties (NCCL), I understand, but morphed (I’m not being pejorative here, I understand what they were doing) into Liberty with the subtext, “Protecting civil liberties; promoting human rights.”
That “branding” transition is consistent with the “bringing home the rights” through Labour ’97′s Human Rights Act 1998, when the European Convention of Human Rights (from 1950 and tracing *it’s* heritage to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948[?]) was incorporated into national law here. That meant that folks didn’t have to trudge to the European Court for Human Rights (Strasburg) in the first instance, for remedy.
Of course, the oft confused issue is that this is all about transfers of parliamentary sovereignty to Brussels when, in fact the ECHR(Court) and the ECHR(Convention) have *nothing* to do with the EU (which has it’s *own* Charter on human rights – Treaty of Amsterdam/[proposed] EU Constitution] and which has finer granularity than the 1950 Convention).
Perplexed ? It takes a bit of figuring out, but when you’ve done it, I tell you, you start to get a nasty case of Emperor’s Clothes. I’ve come to the conclusion that part of our “democratic representatives’” fear of engaging with us (I believe that “fear” is not too strong a word to use) is that we start to see the mess the lawyers make of national and international law. This is what the real “crisis of democracy” is. We’ll actually want to get *involved*, and call crap (and corrupt) work for what it is.
What was it that Shakespear said (though one of his creations)? Something like, “First, let’s kill all the lawyers.” I begin to understand what he was getting at.
The point being that *I* didn’t start to get to grips with much of *this* (I’ve been concerned with other stuff, such as the lies on Iraq: I opposed from minute 1) until the EU debate came up. I knew sod all.
(But you know, it’s all part of the *same* puzzle.)
Anyway, coming back to Liberty. They seem to be an NGO standing at the nexus of the tension between traditional British ideas on “freedom” versus alien ideas on (positive) “rights.” The tension is crystalized by the HRA 1998. Thus the change of name. The organization itself dates back to the 1930′s according to my studies. (BTW, I’m not a member of Liberty and this is, by no stretch of the imagination, meant to be a promo. for them.)
The immediate practical side in this? Look up at Edinburgh and the “right” to demonstrate. Do you know (says he in his best Michael Caine voice), there is *nothing* in our national law of a “right” to demonstrate/protest ? The import of ECHR gives the “right” to *free assembly* but no more. The protest part is all tradition and interpretation (and, in the limit, Her Majesty’s Pleasure). That’s why the police, by and large, can make up a large proportion of the “rules”, in real time, during the course of a demo. (Their coding of this is “proportional and *robust*. LOL)
So now we come back to ID cards and rights. Arguably, for the first time in the history of this country, through (positive) rights the subjects/citizens can challenge “traditional” ideas of parliamentary sovereignty through the courts.
And this *is* a whole can of worms since it goes back to the original settlement of the Bill of Rights (168?) and that was all about, in the main (from what I understand) the rights of Parliamentarians i.e. not the likes of you and me. So you can see the genetics of the persistent arrogance of power in this country vis-a-vis “the people.”
Doubt it ? Here’s the empiricism: Geoff “Buff” Hoon sums it all up this past weekend when he gives us his response to the “crisis of democracy” – compulsory voting with one or two salutory cases – he thinks a fine or two here and there will do it – to drive the message home. Then we’ll have the *restoration* of democracy. And yet we pay him !
And now we’re back to our friend Natascha. I’m launching off the “repeat” of my “seven” questions today and so we’ll see. Be sure, any response will be fed back to here too. But you know, somehow, I just have this feeling that we’ll be underwhelmed
.
I believe you don’t even have the right to free assembly around parliament (tradition and interpretation be damned!) without obtaining permission from the Police Commissioner. They have to give you permission but can place severe limitations which can be adjusted by any police officer on the day without notice. The limitations can be things like number of people allowed to gather and what size the placards are. It’s quite ridiculous imo.
Poll Tax demonstrations wouldn’t have have took place, basically any spontaenous uproar at the seat of democracy is disallowed.
I find it very disconcerting that a “”"”labour”"”" government has outlawed so many civil rights.
The E.U. isn’t exactly democratic, transparent and open either. No-one knows what happens to all the money that goes into it, the accountants (Arthur Anderson of Enron fame) haven’t signed off the accounts in 10(?) years. Whenever someone questions this, they get sacked, demoted, or ignored.
Compulsary voting will just succeed in driving people to destroy ballots while allowing the winner to claim that they have a “true democratic mandate”, or some such.
I’ve got an email back from Engels’ assistant (East Midlands Labour party had obviously forwarded it on), basically saying all post should go to the HoC address or her phone number is – 0207 219 4709.
BlOOD. BTW W-re being interfered with ?
Uhm, not as far as I know. At least I’ve not noticed anything…
Nope, looks back to normal to me, now. Virtually unreadable on the 7th though. Probably just a screw-up on my browser. Getting paranoid. Must keep up with the medication. Got to love that chlorpromazine.
Don’t know about you but just generally feeling negged out. It’s all so heartbreakingly predictable. How do you square Clarke’s, “It came out of the blue” with anybody with half a mind, since Iraq especially, saying it’s not “if” but “when” ?
At least the word seems to have gone out not to make political capital (right now at least) on the back of these poor people’s blood for ID cards. There are some harrowing reports from those first on the scenes, particularly from the tube train on the Piccadilly line that caught full blast pressure given its enclosure (Russell Square used to be my local station during my undergrad. days: deep, claustraphobic and hot even with the pneumatic effect of the trains in the tubes. Must be almost intolerable by now.)
Words just seem so pointless, for a while …
Galloway forgot to remind his self though….He made some speech soon after, I heard it the next morning on the way to work anyhow.
Clarke went on the radio to say that I.D. cards wouldn’t make any difference too….
Yep. But how short it lasts eh ?
All over Europe now, like the fly on shit that he is, Clarkey-boy is talking up all the repressions. How long before the “Euro-Patriot” Act ?
Did you see them all “dance” in union ? One or two journalists “dared” ask the question – CAUSALITY. It was … *priceless*. I listened to all the channels and all our leader’s responses. It was, of course, soooo… -> infinty predictable. “No,” (as they keep straight faces) “there’s no connection between this and Iraq etc. etc.”
Then, just when, Kennedy started suspecting he might have to be a little bit more forthright (after all he, eventually got off his political fence on Iraq) – “no ‘causal’ connection but ‘culture’” the tons of bricks came down. The idiots in the conservative party, following their innate genetic disabilities, immediately spouted “Hitlerain Appeasement” (gawd… I can’t program a computer to be better than this).
Our Dear Leader via our New Labour party was more enlightened. He said, Charley Kennedy was “naive.” ROTFL. Yep. They were telling the truth via a lie. Kennedy just didn’t have the guts to go all the way !!!!!! But what can you expect of a party built on triangulation. Hopeless. Three-party politics (?) Give me a break.
Just cross-party, Establishment satisfying bullshit. The problem is now, of course, somebody else is asking ‘em questions – not like the likes of you and me, told we have a democracy, write letters etc. etc. etc. and STILL get no answers (nope, still nothing from our dear Natascha).
Heh, I’d made a mental note to come on here and mention the Clarke thing.
If I didn’t know better I’d say that it was Bliar that is naive, to think that. It is dissapointing that this will be barely debated or investiaged properly, let alone be learnt from. No inquiry, no real questions asked, New Labour have the arrogance to just deny that Iraq had anything to do with it, despite knowing that everyone thinks it regardless. The other two are just too inept to do anything, even if they wanted to do.
Engels btw, only accepts post sent to Westminster, phone calls at westminster and only has a westminster email address. Shame she’s never there to utilise them.
No. She’s busy judging scarecrows apparently:
http://www.ridgewayvillage.org.uk/news/scarecrow
I just remembered I passed through that village about three weeks ago. The scarecrows at the end of every garden was quite bizzare.