According to the Liberal Democrats Party website the Liberal Democrats Party will try to achieve the following if they gain power at the 2010 general election:
Your privacy’s being undermined. There are plans for intrusive ID cards, and the Government snoops into our lives and keeps losing private information. Liberal Democrats will stop identity cards and use the money to pay for more police. We’ll introduce a Freedom Law to protect your privacy.
The way Britain is run means the Government doesn’t have to listen to you – one party can get control over Parliament even if only a quarter of people support them. Liberal Democrats will stop MPs from fiddling expenses – and stop big donations too. We’ll give you a fair voting system so everyone’s opinion counts equally.
For the people, by the people – We will involve the British people in producing a written constitution. This would reform and reinvigorate the democratic process, putting individuals back in control. We will simplify the system for petitioning Parliament and ensure petitions are considered and acted upon. We will lower the voting age to 16, establish a fair, proportional voting system for elections to Westminster and local government, and decentralise decision making. We will reform the House of Lords, replacing it with an elected second chamber.
The power to be different – We will implement the devolution of power to parish, town and community councils so that local people are making the decisions that will affect their communities. Councils will be allowed greater financial independence and autonomy by increasing the amount of money councils spend which is raised locally; in the long term 75% (rather than the current 25%) of total revenue should be raised locally.
Open Government – We will operate transparent and open government with strong Freedom of Information legislation. The Data Protection Act will be reformed to accurately reflect the nature of today’s surveillance society. We will increase the accountability of the Information Commission and review its funding.
Stop government interference in our lives – We will introduce legislation to protect our most important liberties. We will remove the right of the state to retain DNA records of people who do not have a criminal record, restore the right to protest, revise Control Orders, and protect judges’ independence. We will also scrap ID cards and use the money to pay for more police.
Restore the public’s trust – We support reform of party political funding with caps on individual donations and procedures to ensure transparency in party spending.
I would be interested to hear both positive and negative views on Liberal Democrats Government and Civil Liberties policies in the comments below?
Introduce a freedom law to protect your privacy??!!??!!that is VERY disturbing.
We ARE FREE,it’s only labour that loves big brother and the fear factor.
Why not say we will dismantle all government interference in your private lives forever.We will tear down the speed cameras,we will give your independent mind back to think freely for yourselves.
No,you will never do this.Your just as bad as labour.
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Sp3ckled_Jim …. yes, and it usually goes something like “Just fill in the form with all of your details, and send a Check made payable to Mr Gordon Brown. No need for any of the above if you tick the box marked politician”.
It’ll be yet another scam like these passes you have to buy for £60 if you work anywhere near children. Good eh. The marxists plot to release all the paedophiles which makes us scared to let our kids play out alone. On top of which you now have to buy a pass to prove you aren’t a pervert yourself.
Oh and speeking of which …
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The libdem policies are better than labour or conservative on civil liberties, but they do not go nearly far enough.
They ought to be committed to removing imprisonment without trial … a grossly repressive power which has been in existence since 1974 and just keeps being extended.
They also ought to be committed to moving arbitrary powers away from the executive and to the courts, where people can defend themselves.
On the positive side, I’d like to see them promoting the right to give offence … ie to say things that other people don’t like. In particular, this would mean that religious groups should not be able to shut people up on the basis that they have insulted their religion.
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