It appears to me madness to base all our political efforts upon the faint hope that we shall be successful in obtaining excellent, or even competent rulers.

The Open Society & It’s Enemies – Popper

David,

Thanks for getting in touch with me on a subject that has clearly touched a very raw nerve indeed.

We have the most up-to-date and liberal policy on freedom, creativity and the internet of any of the parties (at our Spring conference last month, an emergency motion was passed setting out our Party’s views in the context of this Bill). That led to our vocal opposition to the web-blocking provisions of the Bill and our MPs voting against the whole Bill at 3rd Reading. By contrast, the Conservative candidate failed as our MP to turn up for the vote; his party’s position was to let the Bill go through.

Subsequently, Nick Clegg has confirmed that he would seek to have the Act repealed altogether. The use of affirmative resolution procedure would enable us to cast our votes to try and block the Regulations to use disconnection/interference. Our MPs said during the passage of the Bill that they will veto any implementation of disconnection powers until there has been full discussion and debate.

Our party’s position is not 100% against everything in the Bill, but we have more concerns than the other parties, and our MPs were the only ones whipped against the Bill at 3rd Reading. I was one of 25 Liberal Democrat candidates who signed an open letter which succeeded in strengthening the Party’s resolve to oppose this legislation. (see http://www.libdemvoice.org/twentyfive-lib-dem-ppcs-sign-letter-asking-lib-dem-parliamentarians-to-think-again-on-digital-economy-bill-18185.html)

The other points I would make are:
Web-blocking: the LibDems are opposing web blocking unlike Labour. Our stand would lift the threat of blocking from all manner of websites from community noticeboards to YouTube, and the fact that this was ever proposed shows how out of touch and illiberal Labour are. [The minister responsible, Stephen Timms has been ridiculed for getting the concept of an IP address (Internet Protocol) muddled with IP (Intellectual Property) in a standard letter to objectors. As someone who is far from an expert on these matters, even I understand the difference!].

Disconnection: there are widespread fears that the disconnection measures proposed are arbitrary and disproportionate. Many internet connections, from a family PC to a public wifi service, are shared so the Government will be imposing collective punishment for individual sins. While our position is not against all disconnection ever, we are firmly against disconnection as proposed by the Bill. We have a presumption against disconnection.
Our Peers moved the power to disconnect from the whim of the Secretary of State to the rigour of the courts.
LibDem MPs have set out specific conditions which would have to apply before any disconnection could be implemented, including a minimum of a year’s notice in writing (itself a challenge to write to an online user!) AND the need to prove guilt not simply accuse. This may not be as far as some opponents of disconnection would like to go, but it is the most comprehensive set of protections for internet users proposed by any of the main parties.

The reality has been that the arcane parliamentary procedure plus Labour’s majority meant there was a limit to what the Lib Dems could have achieved in the last Parliament, especially with the Tories supporting the Bill (the two old parties in action!). I genuinely believe that we are not the villains in tht we did not propose this legislation!

The important thing is to get as many Lib Dem MPs as possible in the next Parliament because they are web-users’ best safeguard against Labour introducing arbitrary disconnection powers. We are also the only party committed to reforming the voting system and the parliamentary process so that Labour’s railroading of this Bill can never happen again. In Reading East, the bookies’ odds and the advice of increasing numbers of commentators is that we can beat the Conservatives here. On this issue, it is clear that anyone wishing to see this ill thought-out and dangerous legislation halted in Reading East should vote Liberal Democrat.

I hope this helps. Happy to answer any further questions on this or any other issues.

Yours sincerely

Gareth Epps
Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Reading EastPolitics, General Election, LibDems, digital economy bill,

Thank you for your letter of 12 April.

I was gladdened to hear that you found the manner in which the Digital Economy Bill was passed ‘distasteful’. I wholeheartedly agree.

In your previous correspondence you explained that even if:

‘every Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP voted against the Bill, it still would have passed if every Labour MP had turned up to vote’

In and of itself, this is a factual statement. Taken in the context of your explaining why you did not even bother to turn up to the vote however, it takes on a rather disturbing implication.

If this is a valid position to take, (and I would strongly suggest that it is not), then it would follow from this that any non Labour MP voting on any bill for the last five years has not been the exercise of democracy, but merely an empty façade.

As the opposition party, it was your duty to oppose bills that are badly thought out or badly written. I would hold (and you have given me every indication that you agree) that the Digital Economy Bill was both of these things. Being in opposition to a government with a majority does not absolve you of your democratic responsibilities.

In your letter you went on to say that:

‘My party has pledged that, if we are elected to Government on May 6th this year, we will revisit the Bill and look at alternative options for a balanced solution as part of a broader update of copyright’

This is a start, but not nearly enough.

You are standing for re-election and asking for my vote. In order for me to consider this, given what has happened with regards to this bill in the last few months, I would ask you to personally pledge the following if elected, whether to Government or opposition:

To take all actions within your power, including but not limited to:

• Speaking in the House of Commons
• Voting there accordingly
• Attempting to raise the priority of the issue within your own party

in order to accomplish the following:

• Removing all reference to disconnection from the internet as a possible penalty.
• Ensure that before any action can be taken, infringement must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt.

Regards

David Miller

Dear Mr David Miller,

Thank you for contact[sic] me about the Digital Economy Bill.

I would like to make it clear that this Bill is a piece of legislation introduced by the Labour Government, without prior discussion with my party. As the Labour Party was elected to Government in 2005, it dictates the legislative programme and has the mandate provided by the electorate to pass such bills – without opposition support if that is the case.

Conservatives took the decision to seek to remove those clauses of the Digital Economy Bill that we did not support or feel received proper legislative scrutiny. We were successful in several areas in this respect.

Even if every single Conservative and Liberal Democrat MP voted against the Bill, it still would have passed if every Labour MP had turned up to vote – regretfully it was Labour that was elected to Government back in 2005 with a majority of 66, not the Conservative Party.

My party has pledged that, if we are elected to Government on May 6th this year, we will revisit the Bill and look at alternative options for a balanced solution as part of a broader update of copyright.

Whilst I appreciate that this does not detract from the distasteful way in which this Bill was rushed through by Labour, I hope that it does offer some indication that we will not let matters rest.

I shall be continuing the conversation…

At the present time that is all.

Love regards etc

Basically, the political class is waiting for the civil population to come back to the church of the free market and get over the fact that its cardinals walk in public with no clothes on.

You’re starting to see weird forms of acting-out, neurotic displacement activities. Fetishes, even. Sarah Palin, for instance. I could go on about that woman every day. And so can everybody else, which is why they do.

Genocide has much more proven shelf-appeal than any of these hokum Rube Goldberg geo-schemes. It’s by no means easy to kill off half of everybody, but we’ve already invented a wide variety of ingenious ways to attempt that, and almost all of ‘em are much simpler, more rugged and more plausible than putting the North Pole under a tinfoil hat.

Bruce Sterling’s State of the World 2010

File under: Too long for twitter, too fun to edit

euphoria is a four letter word

Even now, having had time to calm down, I am overwhelmingly pleased that Obama won. Despite early misgivings, the Obama campaign has eventually won me over. Especially this video interview with Joe Biden and some of Obamas later speeches. The sense is there, that this might actually have been an election where it was possible to vote for somebody rather than against somebody else.

prediction is hard. especially about the future

What I would like to do here is to give a brief idea of what Obama would need to do in order to keep this faith. At least as far as I’m concerned. As I see it, there are four major problems facing him at the moment:

1. The way the US is viewed in the rest of the world
2. Keeping the still almost 50% of the US population that didn’t vote for him happy
3. The economy
4. The rest of our problems

plans are easy

Obama has to address all of these things to keep the undeniable momentum he has, and the faith that people have put in him. There are obviously countless ways that these things could be addressed, but I my agenda would be the following:

To get a US led mission out of Iraq as soon as possible. By which I mean within months. Keep troops there, but relinquish all strategic control to the UN. This would go an incredibly long way towards restoring America’s world standing. Especially if it was done in a quick and humble manner.

To push through with the house gains that the democrats have made and the good feeling towards them, a vastly extended universal healthcare program. There will be massive objection to this from the ‘interest’ of the medicine industry, but should he manage to push it through in such a way that benefited the average American, I cannot believe that once it was in operation it would have any other outcome than to consolidate the moderates he has won over, and also quite possibly to win new voters of the disillusioned republican variety.

To commit America to more renewable energy and reductions in greenhouse gasses than is currently thought possible. This would also be a hugely positive move in terms of world opinion and establishing America in the position that she seems to want to take. America is a hugely inventive and highly developed (technologically speaking) country. If anyone will rise to the challenge, it will be them, and for the first time they have a leader with enough political capital and enough of a mandate to make it happen.

And then comes the task of sorting the economy. For which I have no solid propositions to offer with regards to how it can be ‘sorted’. Possibly, if you were committed to radical green policies as above then you could begin to operate a New New Deal type program whereby you partially state-sponsored both research into the development & deployment of green technologies, and also the improvement of existing practices. As an industry, if backed by serious tax breaks, the energy efficiency industry could be massive.

[cynicism]

In truth I suspect that very few if any of these things will happy in a way that I will be able to endorse wholeheartedly & without strong reservations. Just for the minute though, I am still happy to hope.

love regards etc