Comments on: Free Votes for All

By: e-tat

e-tat — Fri, 17 Feb 2006 02:20:43 +0000

Here, more material for thinking about organised vs. disorganised politics. Anne Galloway makes an indirect but nonetheless very good point about the very Anglo nature of witans, which for all we know, may be due for a comeback! Perhaps we should send them all over to Runnymede.

By: Dave C

Dave C — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:27:11 +0000

How many MP’s actually get up off their ass and talk in te debates? I doubt many of them actually even bother to read the laws they vote on, they just do what the ‘whips’ tell them.

Blair claims to be ‘in touch’ with the public mood. I assume by that he means the xenophobia being propogated in the popular press. Islmaic terrorists under the beds, that God we have St Tony to save us!

Politics is for suckers. Even agitating for a revolution is a waste of time… here comes the new boss, same as the old boss. I actually wrote to my MP a couple of times (Huhne, the guy now tipped to become leader of the Lib Dems) and got the usual standard reply that hints he is interested without actually answering the specific question or stating his opinion, in the hope that you will a) Stop writing and b) Vote for him again. I suggest by-passing the MP’s and just go for direct action instead. Lets face it, they can’t lock us all up :) I might even start smoking!!!!!!

By: Pete Ashton

Pete Ashton — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 07:11:37 +0000

e-tat: That makes sense and I hadn’t really considered the implications of a house of utterly independent MPs, but the Whip system still makes me uneasy. I think it comes down to wanting politics to be a bit more pragmatic and intellectual, especially in what are after all called “debates” rather than all about the point scoring.

I also have a feeling spending more time debating and thinking about the issues might not be a bad thing. I mean, how many rather major things have been passed this week? How can MPs possible keep up with it all?

By: e-tat

e-tat — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 02:17:07 +0000

Free votes are a bad thing because they undermine Party efficiency and dominance, and Britain is nothing if not a Party-dominated nation. I’m not talkin’ Animal House. What would national politics be like if every other MP was an independent? There’d be no force in numbers, and things would have to be agreed on a person-by-person basis. Just look at the US. Republicans have developed a whip-like system, and they rule. Democrats, Libertarians and everyone else have their free-thinking caps on and cannot organise a piss-up. But for sure, US politicians are more interesting! You want that here? I didn’t think so.

By: Big James

Big James — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 23:47:27 +0000

And of course with the introduction of biometric fingerprinting in bars and clubs and the potential introduction of ID cards system, 1984 here we come but with an even bigger and badder brother to watch over you.

By: Dave C

Dave C — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 22:52:07 +0000

Emigrate seems to be the sensible thing to do.

Prohibition by the back door on fags. Add to that the introduction of ‘thought crime’ now that the law on ‘glorification of terrorism’ has been passed… the UK is a less and less appealing place to live.

By: Jez

Jez — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 21:34:21 +0000

In this case, the free vote does look like a dodge to avoid an embarrassing government defeat. However, they would have lost not because the House, as a whole, disagreed with the principle of the bill, but because the proposed private clubs and pubs without food exemptions were fairly large loopholes. So, in contrast to much of their recent difficulty, it wasn’t because they went too far, but because they didn’t go far enough.

The government might have avoided some degree of egg on face, although not much. Haven’t seen the papers, but the Radio 4 analysis made it pretty clear they’d wrong-footed themselves pretty convincingly. However, free vote or not made no difference to the outcome – the House was always going to vote for the full ban.