Have you forgotten the 13 years of legislation eroding civil liberties, ID cards, summary justice, the surveillence state and so on?
Quote from: Sloper on May 12, 2010, 07:47:59 pmHave you forgotten the 13 years of legislation eroding civil liberties, ID cards, summary justice, the surveillence state and so on? Every cloud...http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/may/12/coalition-proposals-civil-rights
Quote from: Kim on May 12, 2010, 08:37:55 pmQuote from: Sloper on May 12, 2010, 07:47:59 pmHave you forgotten the 13 years of legislation eroding civil liberties, ID cards, summary justice, the surveillence state and so on? Every cloud...http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/henryporter/2010/may/12/coalition-proposals-civil-rightsHmm, people seem to forget the freedom of information act.... which quietly has probably become one of the most important items of legislation to appear in recent years... think of all the things that would not have happened or been exposed without it...
one of the most interesting (and potentially most far reaching) aspects of Big Society is the desire to equip consumers with far more information so that they can make informed decisions, be actively involved in service design (co-production), make public services be more accountable to electorate. this is one of the areas of consensus across lib -tory coalition. as an example, you could 'reverse' the way FOI works. so instead of submitting an FOI to get a piece of information, all information is freely available, unless a civil servant has gone through a process to stop it being released. another example, 311 (NYC), a portal to help consumers in NYC on public services. but instead of an information service, its participative, so if you spot grafitti/vandalised bus stop/ can't access local school/whatever, you send in a picture of it/report via text or email or phone, they case manage the issue etc. so it not only gets citizens involved, its personalises those services, and makes the state accountable to the individual.
As for reporting graffiti or whatever by email, you can do that already.
Labour leadership venn diagram:
We'll only get a 'Big Society' when we go into the 'Big Whopping Lies Store' and get one on Special Order from the 'Big Vacuous Statements Department'.Looks like yours is on special pre-order Sloper.When you unwrap the packaging you may be surprised to find more troubled youths on your street, screwing with your property, because the funding for addressing the problem should be coming from the community-based Big Cheque Book only where it actually is remains a Big Mystery.
Folks may care to remember that we used to have a 'big society' until the corruption of the welfare state and the development of the work shy scum element of society.
Nice to see the Tories getting rid of HIPS
Once again it shows that you can't trust lefties with civil liberties let alone economics. . . .