The Lib-Dem conference has started in Brighton, and their home affairs man, Nick Clegg, has launched a website called the great repeal act. It invites the public to suggest a law to scrap, and starts by suggesting 10 laws least needed. Quite a novel move really, normally politicians are sniffing around for laws to create, not abolish!
What was most refreshing was Nick's speech, where he gave the most confident and robust, yet heartfelt and sensitive defence of British Liberalism I've ever heard of any modern politician.
He ended with these words: "... but we now face an equally momentous challenge, to safeguard our society from new threats, but to do so by cherishing, not trampling on the very values and virtues that some seek to destroy. Not by creating false enemies, but by winning new friends. Not by taking away our historic freedom, but by enlarging all our freedom. Not by pandering to the powerful, but by defending the weak."
Moving stuff.
7 comments:
Thanks for this. Food for thought... and deed.
Peace,
Jamie
Aren't there some more bizarre and fun laws that need to be repealed. There is a law that allows londoners to drive a herd of shep across london bridge should they so wish...
see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/425364.stm
Ben, why would you want to repeal thaat... surely you would prfer them to bring in a similar law for Manchester?
Nick mentions a couple of recent bizarre laws that have been introduced. For instance, it is now a criminal offence for us to sell grey squirrels!
Some commentators fear that by prohibiting squirrel sales, the government will introduce not so much a black market, but.... a grey one.
LOLOLOL!!!
...Lev
How about the law about not protesting near Parliament without permission? Can we repeal that? They should also take away all the stupid ones, most of which are probably urban myths, like it being legal to shoot a welsh man inside Chester on a Sunday afternoon using a longbow, and Cromwell's decision to make Christmas illegal. Or Christmas pudding. Or something. So no-one can ever tell me about them again and think they're funny.
Sorry, suddenly had a fit of grumpiness.
If I could make a law, it would be that word verification things on blogs had to actually be legible.
Actually Sarah, that law you mention is number #1 on the list that the Lib-Dem's want to repeal!
If you click through to the great repeal web site link, you'll see:
"1. Restrictions on protests in Parliament Square. Sections 132 to 138; Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005
The police can now impose any restrictions they think fit on demonstrations in the vicinity of Parliament Square. Citizens of this country should not have to ask for the right to protest outside the Parliament that they elect."
As for the silly ones... I'm tempted to keep them simply because they add to our charming eccentric national character... Something to boast to foreigners!! "Did you know that as a son of a Welshman, if I found myself inside the ancient city walls of Chester on a Sunday morn, you are legally allowed to shoot me with a longbow? No? Well there you go mate, that's how good Britain is to you. Shooting the Welsh, on a Sunday, with a bow, for sport. Genius."
What would happen to our tourist revenue if we rid ourselves of these inane laws? Would we still receive the flocks of fascinated Japanese on the look out for our quirky ways?
Would you want to make all those people selling postcards and ice creams in Chester at the weekend redundant Sarah? Where they would miss their mortgage repayments, have their homes repossessed by the bank and sold to a Japanese investment bank that turns it into Christmas-pudding-fed-Koi-carp breeding-centre? Would you want that Sarah - would you?!?!?!
You make me sick!
...Lev
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