Daily Archives: April 22, 2010


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Charlotte Gore writes on Guardian Comment is Free: Britain’s government is not constitutionally limited in its reach and power. The only check against absolute power of the government is other politicians voting in the two houses. For example, Jack Straw attempted to give himself the power to be able to access any data in the country if he felt it “necessary” – and they stopped him. Lord Mandelson attempted to give himself the power to be able to do “anything necessary” to deal with copyright infringement in the odious digital economy bill … but he was stopped, again, by the House of Lords. On other issues where the potential for abuse of power isn’t screamingly obvious, we haven’t been so lucky: the ID card programme, for example, lurks quietly in the background, waiting for another act of parliament to become compulsory for all. There’s 13 years of authoritarian legislation on […]

Coalition is good for civil liberties