The agreement signed yesterday between the Conservative and LiberalDemocrat parties to frame their relationship in the new ruling coalition has now been published and can be downloaded
here.
This initial agreement document is not very long and is worth reading in full. Of particular interest to me (although other parts of the document are of great importance, too) is point 10., which covers the broad issue of
Civil iberties and I quote this section below in full:
Conservative Liberal Democrat coalition negotiations
Agreements reached
11 May 2010
- 10. Civil liberties
The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour Government and roll back state intrusion. This will include:
- A Freedom or Great Repeal Bill.
- The scrapping of ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point Database.
- Outlawing the finger-printing of children at school without parental permission.
- The extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency.
- Adopting the protections of the Scottish model for the DNA database.
- The protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury.
- The restoration of rights to non-violent protest.
- The review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech.
- Safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation.
- Further regulation of CCTV.
- Ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason.
- A new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.
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If these plans are carried through, and I hope they are implemented fully and rapidly, it will be nothing less than the destruction of the '
Police State' the previous Labour government has been busy implementing these part 13 years.
Quite apart from all the other sensible and pragmatic matters touched upon in the Coalition agreement, the section on '
Civil Liberties' does it seems to me justify a special celebration!
Cameron can't be trusted, Bill. That's the bottom line.
ReplyDeleteHi James
ReplyDeleteHaving some inkling of your somewhat 'reactionary' views (forgive if this offends, but it is my strong impression) I am not surprised by what you write, but I certainly don't agree.