« More Theories. | Main | What Does It Mean to be British? »
July 27, 2005
Our Incompetent Masters.
We’ll have to wait and see how this plays out but it does look like another example of the sheer incompetence of the current rulers. I’m not even sure that this is a Nu Labour fault or one of the consitent deterioration in the standards of Parliamentary drafstmanship, or simply a fault of the entire cast of trolls, fools and guttersnipes who presume to rule us.
You recall the Act that bans demonstrations in the area around Parliament? The destruction of ancient liberties to deal with one particularly persistent demonstrator? It appears that the Act does not in fact apply to him.
Under legislation passed earlier this year, it will become an offence for a person to carry on a demonstration in a designated area if, "when the demonstration starts", authorisation has not been given by the police.
Parliament Square, where Mr Haw has been protesting since June 2001, is part of a large area designated under the Act.
Richard Drabble, QC, appearing for Mr Haw, said he was seeking a declaration that Mr Haw did not need to apply for authorisation in order to continue, rather than start, his demonstration.
"On the ordinary principles of statutory construction, it is quite clear that the section does not apply to demonstrations which had already started before commencement [of the new Act]," Mr Drabble said.
We’ll have to see whether the courts agree of course, but what a demonstration of the care and attention that is lavished upon us eh? Use the entire might of the Crown in Parliament to get rid of one annoyance, in the process stopping the citizenry from exercising their right to tell MPs what fools they are, and fail to remove the annoyance. All by incompetence.
A worthy parable for our times I feel. These are the people who pass the laws on how we are educated, fed, earn our livings, raise our children, pay our pensions, in short who control our births, lives and deaths, and they cannot draft a law to get rid of a guy with a megaphone.
The argument in favour of the State controlling our lives is what, again?
July 27, 2005 in Your Tax Money at Work | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c2d3e53ef00d83484549f69e2
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Our Incompetent Masters.:
Comments
"The argument in favour of the State controlling our lives is" that when you rob Peter to pay Paul, Paul votes for you. That's all.
Posted by: dearieme | Jul 27, 2005 10:52:54 AM
snigger
Posted by: Chris harper | Jul 27, 2005 10:58:40 AM
Extremely funny. New Labour gets rid of ancient freedoms in order to curtail a minor annoyance that looks bad on TV (which I guess to them means a major crisis). But the minor anoyance is completely unaffected!
Posted by: chris | Jul 27, 2005 1:56:51 PM