Following the legislative trail......

Reverting back to this post in which it was shown how countries introduce legislation, not necessarily voluntarily but as a member of an international body at which certain 'policies' have been agreed, it is worth looking at another example.

We will all, no doubt, recall that only last month the Guardian reported that Denmark had imposed a tax on certain foods and that, lo and behold, David Cameron was reported in the Mail as being inclined to follow the Dane's lead.

Following the 'trail' we have to go back to 2006 and a conference held in Istanbul, Turkey, one promoted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), at which all EU countries signed up to the European Charter on Counteracting Obeisity (ECCO); and on which further comment can be found here. According to the November/December 2011 Newsletter, 'Free Britain', from the Campaign for an Independent Britain the treaty commits signatory nations to 'economic measures to facilitate healthier food choices'. 

There is currently, the second reading debate being on 20 January 2012, a bill going through Parliament entitled: 'Public Bodies (Sustainable Food) Bill' which will enforce low-fat, high-carb diets upon all public institutions - including schools, hospitals, care homes and prisons. Whilst this Bill may be a Private Members Bill, hey what the hell does it matter how legislation, to which agreement has previously been reached by nations, is actually put on the statute book - but I digress.....

Let us now return to the matter of honour and principle in politics and the Coalition promise of transparency in public life. From the Foreward:

"And we are both committed to turning old thinking on its head and developing new approaches to government. For years, politicians could argue that because they held all the information, they needed more power. But today, technological innovation has – with astonishing speed – developed the opportunity to spread information and decentralise power in a way we have never seen before. So we will extend transparency to every area of public life."

So where, pray, is there any mention in the Bill, the Guardian article, or the Mail article; of the WHO, the EU, or the ECCO? Cameron and the rest of our political claque maintain that our nation is 'self-governing' - well, you could've fooled me (not)!

Just saying....................

 

More on that 'democratised dictatorship' thingy (2)

Gerald Warner, writing in the New Scotsman, on Cameron:

"TOMORROW’S parliamentary debate about a referendum on Britain’s continuing membership of the European Union is, like every other travesty performed on the slime-green benches at Westminster, a complete charade."

Do read the entire article as it is vintage Gerald Warner.

I was remiss in the first post under this title as there is one aspect of this debate that not many, if any, have mentioned, namely that David Cameron is no believer in democracy. Witness the fact that he creates an e-petition scheme whereby the electorate can propose a subject to be debated by their elected representatives and then promptly kills the initiative by instructing his MPs to vote against it. But this is not the only example of Cameron's idea of 'democracy' as witness:

• From the Coalition's programme for government: "We will bring forward early legislation to   
  introduce a power of recall, allowing voters to force a by-election where an MP is found to have engaged in serious wrongdoing and having had a petition calling for a by-election signed by 10% of his or her constituents. This they did, however they did not mention in their 'manifesto' (one on which no-one had the chance to vote) that the final decision would rest with a committee comprised of their own political class.
• Likewise, the promise to allow local people to demand a referendum on local matters suffers from a similar 'block'. Section 59 of the Localism Bill states that if a local authority wishes to ignore the result of any referendum, it may do so.
• There does not appear to be any haste to establish the 200 all-postal primaries, nor the 'public reading days' - both of which were promised in the same document.

All of which makes a mockery of the introduction to 'Political Reform' which is a heading in the Coalition's 'programme for government'. That introduction states:

"The Government believes that our political system is broken. We urgently need fundamental political reform, including a referendum on electoral reform, much greater co-operation across party lines, and  changes to our political system to make it far more transparent and accountable."

Cameron is quite correct to state that our political system is broken, but in acknowledging that fact he is doing his utmost to ensure it remains broken. For someone like Cameron, who has lied and used obfuscation, having previously written about the need to make our political system more transparent beggars belief and also begs the question how he sleeps at night.

As I have posted previously, Cameron and the political clique are assisted in their efforts to lie and obfuscate by members of the media and this is an example. As I posted in the comments, Jonathan Jones needs to go back to school!

That I 'bang on' about the European Union and the lack of democracy in our country is readily acknowledged - and if that bores some readers then I can only apologise. It is important though that those two subjects are brought to the attention of the 'public at large' who rely on their daily dose of 'truth' from the media, especially the BBC. To misquote an unattributed quote from Lenin; the more the truth is spoken the more chance it will be accepted as the truth!

That Cameron has 'faith' in his political beliefs, regarding renegotiation of our membership of the European Union, is best illustrated by a quote from Eric Hoffer:

"There are similarities between absolute power and absolute faith: a demand for absolute obedience, a readiness to attempt the impossible, a bias for simple solutions to cut the knot rather than unravel it, the viewing of compromise as surrender. Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence, absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power."
Eric Hoffer, The New York Times Magazine 25/04/1971

Crackdowns (2) - And Cameron 'governs' this country?

I posted yesterday about 'crackdowns' and how they are used to take the public's eye of more important matters du jour. But then, of course, these 'crackdowns', presented as 'government initiatives' are nothing of the sort - they are, in some instances, policies being implemented prior to a forthcoming directive from Brussels, the basis of which has already been agreed.

Politics Home advises, with links to other media, that subscribers to four of the UK's biggest internet service providers will have to opt-in to view pornographic websites as part the Government's plan to curb sexualised imagery online. Then further searching reveals this - and the two are not linked? For the Mail to report (presumably having been briefed by No10) that the crackdown is being introduced in response to a report by Reg Bailey, chief executive of the Mothers’ Union charity does stretch incredulity a tad. That Bailey was not aware of the EU involvement and that Member States would have two years to implement the directive is rather shot to pieces by his demand in the Guardian that if service providers did not voluntarily implement the recommendations in his report, they should be forced to do so within 18 months.

It is noticed from the other media reports that access to pornographic sites will be denied by service providers unless the subscriber has 'opted-in' - which begs the question for those that do, what other draconian measures may be forthcoming. Presumably those 'opting-in' will have their names placed on a register, which will then provide children's social services the opportunity to visit and make a case for taking any children in the family into care as those parents will be deemed 'unsuitable'?

What people wish to view and what parents will allow their children to view is not my concern (do not pre-empt my views on this subject - that would be the subject of another post). What does annoy me - and is the point of this post - is the obfuscation that our political elite use to hide the fact that they no longer form our government. What happened to transparency?