Last month I wrote a letter (republished here) to all the Manchester Gorton Constituency candidates regarding civil liberties and more specifically the recently passed Digital Economy Bill. To date, only Justine Hall of the Green Party has replied, although the Press Officer of the Pirate Party has been in touch offering to have Tim Dobson call me personally (I have asked for a letter).
Here is Justine Hall’s letter:
“Dear Ms McCulloch
Thank you for your email. I am very supportive of the 5 points raised by the Power2010 pledge. I joined the campaign some time ago as an individual and have now signed the pledge as a candidate – currently the only candidate for Gorton who has!
http://www.power2010.org.uk/pages/north-west1
All 5 of the points are Green Party policy and have been for some time. We believe that a written constitution is important for citizens and lawmakers to understand what our rights are, and it would make it more difficult for the government to take rights away from us.
ID cards must be stopped, and the registering of every child in the UK is ID cards by the back door. I cannot believe that MPs children may be ‘shielded’ from this database – the fact they vote for an abhorrent database and protect themselves is truly a mark of how out of touch they are.
I am appalled that the Digital Economy Bill was pushed through at the last minute. Even more appalling was the low number of MPs that actually bothered to turn up to vote. A small ray of sunshine is that the law sems unworkable and looks very unlikely to survive any legal challenge against it, particularly as even the MPs that drafted it got rather confused about what they were asking for, with one convinced that IP meant ‘intellectual property’, not ‘internet protocol’ as it actually does.
Some more information about the Green Party view is here:
http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/19-04-2010-greens-debill-opposition.html
MPs MUST be subject to the laws they pass, as every other citizen is. The Green Party will continue to press for any exceptions to be made public and repealed immediately.
A vote for the Green Party is a vote against politics as usual, a vote for transparent politics and against shady lobbyists and MPs self interest.
You can learn more on our website www.greenparty.org.uk/policies.
Thanks
Justine Hall
Green Party candidate, Manchester Gorton”
Thank you very much to Justine. :)