Wokingham News

“Government of the people, by the people and for the people” was Lincoln’s immortal description of democracy, as he gazed on the battlefield of Gettysburg.

This government would do well to rediscover that.

They have picked a fight with too many largely law abiding people. They have created a nasty surveillance society, eavesdropping and spying on the normally law abiding. We need to save some money on the cameras, the prying, the email eavesdropping. The first public spending cut I would make is to cancel the ID computer and the ID cards. They will not make us safer, but the system will make us poorer.

They have picked a fight with too many MPs, on their own side as well as across the Chamber, by their juvenile and unpleasant spin. Mr McBride’s departure was widely welcomed by Labour, but it has not ended the culture of spin at the heart of government. Even in a crisis budget, which should have concentrated on sorting out spending and borrowing, they could not resist a “Tory tax trap” with a nasty 50% income tax on higher earners coupled with yet more tax on pension contributions.

They have undermined that mutual respect and support for our society and its traditions and conventions that keeps the social fabric together. They have badly damaged our freedoms and our democracy. We need to restore more of our freedoms, by strengthening the independence of the courts, the criminal law and Parliament so all can defend our liberties against a powerful executive.

When people no longer think their system of government is safe in the hands of an incumbent government, it is time for change.

2 Comments

  1. witteringsfromwitney
    May 5, 2009

    And to apply all the necessary corrections you mention, we need to withdraw from membership of the EU and the accompanying political ramifications, return government of this country to its Parliament and thereby its people and proceed to a trading relationship; which is what Heath’s government led us to believe we were getting.

    Not too much to ask, I believe.

  2. Kit
    May 5, 2009

    “as he gazed on the battlefield of Gettysburg” – does anyone else get the irony.

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