Posts Tagged ‘liberal’
Civil Liberties in today’s news
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on January 12th, 2010
Today’s BBC news was interesting for anyone interested in the freedom of humans from oppression by their so-called democratic governments.
Innocent men who were held for over two years without trial and tortured, Shafiq Rasul and Rahud Ahmed, were able to meet one of their former guards after he contacted them to apologise on Facebook.
The next story was about the European Court on Human Rights’ decision that ruled illegal the Stop and Search powers used in a draconian manner by some police forces (sorry ‘services’ — another 1984-ism). For a while people who look like they have Asian ancestry may be safe when taking photos in London’s tourist hotspots.
But unfortunately, it’s not all good news. A trial has begun without a jury for no reason other than that the police have lost so much authority that they are no longer able to keep safe twelve individuals to the extent that they can be trusted — at least that’s the state’s excuse. The sooner this ‘trial’ is stopped, the better. An innocent group of men (as they are until the completion of a valid trial by their peers) should not have to trust a judge with their liberty.
Two bits of good news — one piece of bad. Not a bad score by most counts. Vote Liberal Democrat and perhaps we can have even more good news from May onwards!
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Second Adur Councillor Joins Liberal Democrats
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on December 3rd, 2009
Carl English says
LibDems offer real democracy for residents
The ruling Conservatives in Adur have been rocked by a second defection in a fortnight, as Southlands Councillor Carl English has followed colleague Gavin Ayling in choosing to cross the floor to the Liberal Democrats.
“Since my election in 2006, I have found it increasingly difficult to defend Tory policies, locally or nationally,” said Councillor English. “On the doorstep, when people have attacked the Tories, I have found myself agreeing with them more and more that Adur is being let down by the Conservative administration. When you are asked to put party ahead of people; when you’re told what to think and say by an inner circle: then democracy goes out of the window. I felt that as the electors of Southlands ward had elected me as a Conservative then I should serve as much of my term as possible as a Tory, but I also wanted to have time to explain on the doorstep my reasons for leaving a party that has no interest in serving the community.
“Now it’s time to go, and I look forward to being able to campaign and fight freely for the residents against unjust plans and policies. I’ve joined the Liberal Democrats because they offer a chance for real change; the Labour party have nothing to offer and no chance of winning in Adur.”
Cllr English was elected for Southlands ward in 2006. With Carl on board, the LibDems have now become the official opposition to the Conservatives on Adur District Council.
Councillor James Doyle, leader of Worthing Liberal Democrats, said “Carl has made this decision because he believe in putting the residents of his ward first, a belief at the heart of Liberal Democrat philosophy, and a principle apparently sadly lacking in local Conservatives. Like Gavin, Carl sees the ongoing merger plans being pushed through for Worthing and Adur as undemocratic and unfair to Adur. I’m delighted that Richard Burt and Gavin Ayling have another colleague so soon, and I look forward to working with them to increase the number of Liberal Democrats on Adur Council, and increasing the real representation for Adur residents.”
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On European Rule
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 28th, 2009
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The totalitarian regime that has “subverted our freedoms” is the failed constitution we have in the UK which allows those powers to be handed over without intervention by referendum and without insisting that, when those powers are handed over, they’re handed over to a democratic alternative.
If you want to be picky, of course, the sovereignty of the UK has never existed — since the UK was formed in 1707 sovereignty has remained in the hands of the monarch. At no point has that constitutional reform taken place which would have placed sovereignty with the people.
Personally, I blame the Conservative, Labour and the Liberal Democrats for this. And it is no good David Cameron thumping his chest when, actually, he hasn’t put together a coherent alternative to treaty after treaty after treaty.
What is needed is a vision for Europe setting out appropriate democratic reform of its governance (an elected Commission or at the very least an elected President of the EU who could appoint that commission).
But with constitutional reform on our side of the channel, the EU would seem more democratic in any case. Why, for example, should an MP for one constituency, be able to act like a President and appoint not only his entire cabinet but also the policy-maker for Europe who happens to come from these countries (the UK)? Wouldn’t it be much better to have an elected head of the government who could then appoint a Commissioner? If our electoral process, for this head of government, were as robust as the French presidential election system, a majority of the people would have voted for that person!
Reason number 2
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 28th, 2009
Throughout this blog I have described myself as a ‘liberal Conservative’.
Now however, I have no need to describe my political ideology in couched terms — I was previously a ‘liberal Conservative’ and now I am just a liberal. I have always believed that where appropriate, the government should avoid interaction with peoples’ lives and I used to think the result would be a society of people who take responsibility for their actions and who genuinely work as hard as they can to improve their own life and that of those around them they care most deeply about.
I have since grown-up, however, and I now realise that there’s often a back-story. Bad people were not made bad by molly-coddling of the state, and not because they were born that way (in most cases) but because they have had a bad experience of life so far.
Where previously I limited ‘appropriate’ interference by the state to collecting minimal taxes and funding the police force, I now see a role for the state in providing a framework in which good people can live and in which people who don’t have the same life chances as everyone else are treated with compassion and provided with assistance. Where the Conservatives would have compassion provided by charities, I would have that compassion provided by the most appropriate body in any given situation.
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Reason number 1
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 23rd, 2009
Constitutional and societal reform is required in the UK. This is an unsupported assertion that I hope I have covered to some extent in past posts and that I hope to polish in later posts. I have an imaginary UK and Europe in my mind that we could create given the public’s buy-in.
In my opinion, the only party that is brave enough to make those changes and that is sufficiently free of the lobbyists is the Liberal Democrats. In fact, even individual parliamentary Conservatives who have supported some more radical constitutional reform in the past, have since shied away.
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Liberal Democrat Councillor
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 22nd, 2009
Sincere apologies to those of you who are not able to read my comments on Facebook — I have been busy and then sick over the last few days hence the failure to update you all (following my last post).
On Tuesday I joined the Liberal Democrats. I would love to go into detail but I’m not feeling up to it but I welcome your comments — maybe its better to discuss my reasons than for me to write a long essay (which I could do).
A new party
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on November 14th, 2009
I have long found it interesting that I was so easily able to convince liberal people of my opinions. Unless they were the rare close-minded liberal, I was normally able to explain my point of view and come to an agreement.
Equally interestingly, I often had trouble relating to so-called Conservatives who it seemed were entrenched in their opinion and were irreconcilably wrong. I have slowly come to realise, of course, that there’s often no right or wrong answer (clichés like that sound so much less trite if you believe the underlying sentiment).
If I’m totally honest, I sometimes wondered whether those Conservatives who did not agree with me were just a little stupid (in some cases I was right about that, but that’s not the point of this note).
But reasonably recently I realised that there was an alternative explanation. The world was not full of Conservatives who did not agree with me and liberals who did because I was an unusually liberal Conservative, rather it was because I am at heart more liberal than most Conservatives.
I posted letters yesterday by first class to the appropriate people to explain why I am leaving the Conservative Party and so will no longer be a Conservative Councillor. From this moment I shall refer to myself as Independent until the party I am joining have officially accepted my application for membership.
A straight answer on Turing
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on September 11th, 2009
It’s nice to, for once, get a straight answer. Gordon Brown has responded to the Turing apology petition. Here’s a copy of his reply:
Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.
I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.
But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.
So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.
Gordon Brown
If only all the responses to the surveys were so precise and to the point. Maybe cynicism in politics and with politicians would be lower.
Freedom under grave threat
Posted by: Gav in Gavin Ayling's blog on February 12th, 2009
I was once described, by the leader of Adur District Council, as a right-wing anarchist. And he may be right — much of what government and Councils do I consider an imposition on freedom.
I have expressed, to the dismay of the Conservatives, my distress that civilian-enforcement of parking restrictions will be introduced in Shoreham, Lancing, Sompting and Southwick. I express, publicly and often, my dismay that there is no party that promises to repeal or amend the Road Traffic Act 1991 and to remove charges for parking on public roads.
But these concerns are nothing — less than nothing — when we, as a country, support the oppression of freedom of speech.
Geert Wilders made some unfortunate comparisons between the Qu’ran and Mein Kampf. Now I cannot pretend to have read either but that does not matter to me. The principle here is that a man of conviction, who criticised a religion not a race, has been stopped from entering this country.
Worse, the Liberal Democrats, the Liberal Democrats support this ban (Chris Huhne’s quote).
As I said in 2006, we are under attack by people who would rather control our thoughts and our actions. It’s not enough that we must respect those who do not respect us by law; we must now not say anything against a book written 1,100 years ago. Presumably if I said that the writings of the Ancient Greeks were nonsense, I would not be roundly assaulted by the machines of state, but if I dare criticise a more modern religion I must be censored by the Orwellian machinery?
As I say, I have not read the holy book of Islam or the full-text of the frightening witterings of Germany’s most famous mass-murderer, but some points should be made about Geert Wilder’s claims.
- The Old Testament could safely be described as fascist if taken literally
- The principles of Islamic Finance that I have recently studied are about fair trade and commerce — fairer trade than the Western fiscal model
- Islam is a religion that, unlike Judaism and Hinduism, can be practised by anyone who manages to find faith in the God of Muhammed
- Criticising a religion, and especially Christianity or Islam, is not the same as criticising a race
I suspect that none of those points could be competently criticised as they are not opinions (okay, maybe the first one but then read Leviticus and Exodus and come back to me), but facts.
Some people accept, and I have to say, I have some sympathy here, that there are things people can say that can manipulate people and endanger other peoples’ lives. It is possible, but to criticise a religion (no matter how specifically) is not to tell people to attack any group or individual. Of itself I can see no way that comparing the Qu’ran to Mein Kampf (or by showing video of appalling atrocities committed in the name of Islam) has placed any individual or group in danger (except maybe Geert himself — from his government, ours and the misguided Muslims that he shows).
I know some Muslims (not many, I grant you, and surely not enough to make any statistical sense) and they are not, as a group, different to any other group. You could find, within any organisation, people who would do bad things or twist the meaning or exaggerate and in this respect Islam is no different. In the same way, a group of people who would normally be expected to be in favour of free speech (the Liberal Democrats) have amongst them the mealy-mouthed Chris Huhne.
Having watched a part of Fitna, Wilder’s video, the quotes he gives are not dissimilar from quotes you would find in the Old Testament of the Bible. If Wilder is guilty of anything, he is guilty of suggesting that it is only Islam which, if its Holy Books were taken literally, could be used to commit atrocities.
It is not news that the verbatim words of some religious texts could be used to commit acts of violence. I don’t have the answers but I do know that blocking freedom of speech is not the answer to greater understanding and liberalism in those Islamic countries that we, as a nation, do not count amongst our friends.
I don’t know how much we can trust the claims of the BBC’s Science and Islam programme but if we can, then we must know that Fitna is over the top; that Islam allowed other religions to live alongside it; and that the aggression in the passages that Wilder quotes (and that could be quoted, as I said, just as easily from the Old Testament of the Bible) was not acted upon even shortly after the Prophet passed on his message.
But it is key, is it not, that I can only make these comments, only criticise Wilder, only criticise Islamic extremists, only criticise people who believe in God (any God), only question people who would do something only because their Rabbi, Mullah, Priest, Vicar or whatever tells them to… I can only make these comments, if the other side is available. We cannot debate without hearing all sides.
How could I convince someone on a doorstep in Crawley (as I did at an election in 2006) that the BNP is not for them if the things that the BNP believe and promote are not public knowledge, if what they say cannot be criticised? The same would be true of Respect, if their version of political insanity was under threat of state-censure.
We need free speech in order to ensure all other forms of freedom and I demand it. We must all demand it. We must all vote tactically at every opportunity, to ensure that this Labour government does not continue on its path.
See also montanareddog’s comments on the Guardian.
Final thoughts “A spokesman for the Conservative Party said it did not wish to comment.” according to the Daily Malice.
