Two little calls to action ...

First little call to action:

Visitors may have noticed that about a week or so ago I put up a small button at top left in support of a campain to 'Save Parliament'. Melodramatic language, I fully agree, but justified when you read and understand the terms of what the Government is proposing in its Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which I wrote about in some detail in mid-February. Whilst it is true that the Government, in the light of the furiously negative reaction of many people to what it is proposing, responded in late March with its proposals to amend it original Bill, this continues to be an exceptionally alarming piece of proposed legislation which will severely curtail the ability of the citizenry to keep tabs on what their elected Leaders are doing, ostensibly in their names - as recent articles in the Guardian and the Telegraph make very clear. If you share my profound concern, I urge you to visit the Save Parliament website and support its aims in any way you can.

Second little call to action:
Renew your passport as soon as possible -


Now that identity card legislation, in the form of the Identity Cards Act 2006, has been enacted and signed into law by Her Majesty the Queen, a major part of the battle to thwart this pernicious legislation has been lost. However, if you act quickly - preferably now or during the month of May at the latest, you may be able to avoid registering for an identity card for the next ten years.

I decided to renew my own passport at the beginning of March this year, despite my existing passport still having some time to run until its expiry, specifically so that I would be able to avoid registering for an identity card, but there may be time for others to do likewise if they act quickly and so send a perfectly legal, but quite effective, message to this Labour Government that there are a significant number of citizens who reject their authoritarian policies. As the only likely alternative governing Party, the Conservative Party, opposed this legislation before it became law, although I am not aware that it has formally pledged to repeal the Identity Cards Act 2006 should it be elected to govern, there is at least the possibility that I will not have to register even when my current passport expires toward the end of 2016 if pressure is kept up on them to promise repeal - and of course the third main Party, the Liberal Democrats, have consistently opposed this legislation too. To learn more, I urge you to visit the Renew for Freedom website and, above all, to get your renewal/application for a passport off as quickly as possible - if you value freedom there is no time to delay.

My use of the word 'little' to describe these two calls for action is, as I am sure regular readers will already have appreciated, merely an example of classic British understatement in the face of very real threats to our democracy and our collective freedoms.