The Wardman Wire

Human Rights

The LibDem-Conservative coalition is about to starting on their “Great Repeal” or “Freedom” agenda to roll back laws from the Blair-Brown administration which impact on individual liberty in the UK. From the Telegraph:

Mr Clegg said the Government wanted to establish “a fundamental resettlement of the relationship between state and citizen that puts you in charge”.

In a speech in London he will say: “This Government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state. This Government is going to break up concentrations of power and hand power back to people, because that is how we build a society that is fair.”

He will describe the plans as “the biggest shake-up of our democracy since 1832, when the Great Reform Act redrew the boundaries of British democracy, for the first time extending the franchise beyond the landed classes”.

I like the sound of this.

So the landscape has changed, and the new Coalition has already started dismantling years of laws restricting the individual.

Where do you go with a government which has created a political climate where a senior police officer, who entertains notions of proactively DNA testing six-year-olds ‘because we can tell which ones will turn out be criminals’, can keep his job?

I’m pleased with the outcome, as the best prospect of recovering from an extended attack on the freedom of the individual.

I’ve spent some time in the last week watching the dismantling of the forums over at the Richard Dawkins Foundation go up in flames, and the explusion of part of the community therefrom.

One thing I’ve discovered is this excellent video, which I missed first time round.

It’s a satirical video which can be read as being against “both sides”, if you accept that a narrative based on “science” vs “religion” (actually creationism) is a valid framework to assert – I don’t accept this. I think it is just very well produced and funny.

The BBC has done a survey of 27,000 people across 26 countries, and of those 80% have expressed a view that Web access has become so basic as to be a fundamental human right.
Almost four in five people around the world believe that access to the internet is a fundamental right, a poll for the [...]