A few thoughts on the Convention on Modern Liberty March 2, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Politics , trackbackWell over 1000 people in a lecture theatre in Bloomsbury, all ready to give up a Saturday because they’re worried about the erosion of civil liberties has got to be a good sign. We might be frogs in a pan of water heating slowly, to quote a metaphor used by a number of speakers, but some have noticed.
There are lots of Liberal Democrats, Tories, and even a few Greens, but very few Labour types. I guess that’s not a surprise. Sir David Varney, the Prime Minister’s adviser on Public Service Transformation, and an advocate of inter-departmental data-sharing, is a brave man just for turning up and being willing to appear on a panel.
Helena Kennedy talked about the problem of the politicisation of criminal justice, turning it into a contest of toughness. It always amazes me that politicians feel they have a right to comment on specific cases here, though at least that obnoxious business of the Home Secretary setting the tariff in high-profile cases has disappeared.
I went to the Tory panel in the morning, partly to see Phillip Blond, and partly out of sheer curiosity about the party which will probably be the government soon, and about which I know almost nothing. Apparently they see the essential difference on liberty between themselves and Liberals to be that they believe people are born with freedoms, whereas Liberals believe people take liberties from a state which grants them. Not sure about that, but its an interesting thought. If its true, I may just be a Tory. Surely not??
Sadly Phillip Blond, of Red Toryism fame, didn’t get much chance to speak. His ideas of communitarianism are interesting, though I’d hate to be reliant on my local community if, for instance, it thought women should live ‘traditional lives’, or didn’t like gay people too much. And I’ve not seen anything from him that explains how we get from here to his ideal.
Phillip Pullman is a delightful speaker, though the climate change deniers in the comments to the blogged transcript I’ve linked to just go to show that this issue attracts a very wide spectrum. His virtues a nation needs sound right, particularly the courage to act kindly when afraid. Fear of terrorist attack, of being seen to be weak, of failure, has made our government very unkind lately. I love the idea of modesty for a nation and the thought that ‘a modest kingdom would have to think for a moment or two whether or not it was a republic, because its royal family would be small, and its members would be allowed to spend most their time in useful and interesting careers as well as being royal, and because their love affairs would remain their own business; and people would always be glad to see them cycling past.’ This reminds me why I wasn’t much of a republican when in New Zealand, but have become more so since coming to the UK. In New Zealand, the monarchy is far away and holds little interest for most people, and having a head of state that is little more than a nice theory works well for a small country. The country can get on with its business without having to worry about all the paraphenalia that goes with monarchy, unelected chambers, odd bits of unlikely privilege floating around.
The Bloggers summit panel included Ben Goldacre, who is always worth listening to for good sense and entertainment. Perhaps he could sort out Public Service Transformation. Or at least become Minister for Health.
Written constitutions keep coming up. I’m not so sure about that. Who would write it? How would we get to agree it? Britain in 2009 is hardly the US in 1776, or even South Africa in 1996. I suspect it would be good if we had one, but getting from here to there doesn’t seem likely. And it didn’t stop the Americans from introducing the Patriot Act, now did it?
There are a lot of people here that I normally wouldn’t have anything much to do with. In some ways that’s interesting, but some of them are rather further to the right than I’m comfortable with. Still, that’s the point, isn’t it.
The final panel, on ‘How Do We Secure Modern Liberty’ was interesting, but didn’t seem to get very far. The LibDems are putting up a bill to repeal all the obnoxious legislation, and the Tories claim they’ll do similar if they get in next time – I hope someone has that on tape. Will Hutton thinks we should all keep arguing, which seems about all that can be done. There were lots of yellow cards around, encouraging people to pledge action, but few ideas on what that action might be.
Some thoughts on action:
Familiarise yourself with, and protest against the dodgy bits of, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the new communications bill when (and if) it is published.
Don’t register your oyster card. Why do they need to know where you’re travelling?
Get an email account somewhere other than your isp. The new communications bill is going to struggle to convince google to release records of gmail transactions, I suspect.
Get a good understanding of how to use the internet in privacy. There are some good tips on Spy Blog (bottom left) and Global Voices published a good guide for bloggers. Do remember that nothing is infallible though.
It might be worthwhile if a large number of ostensibly random people started doing the sorts of things that are now stupidly illegal such as photographing policemen to waste time and hopefully convince police and the government that there are better ways of dealing with their fears
Consider the No2ID pledge, but remember that you’ll probably not be able to renew your passport
Comments»
This morning I heard more about this conference on the BBC’s ‘Digital Planet’ programme, and was appalled by the story of the blogger who was wrongly arrested for terrorism because he’d been observed on a station platform using electronic devices. When I’m in the U.K. I use an Oyster card that was purchased by someone else. Will that be enough to confuse Big Brother?
Things are bad, but I don’t think they’re so bad that the Met are out to track lady kiwi tourists! Not yet, anyway.