A Fairly Straightforward Answer to This one.

December 18, 2010 Longrider Civil Liberties, Humour, misanthropy, Political 6

Mehdi Hasan asks a pretty reasonable question. So what, Nick Clegg, made you forget liberty?

Lest we forget, this is a government that says it is committed to freedom, and is due to unveil a “freedom bill” in the spring to prove its self-proclaimed liberal credentials. Civil liberties, we were told, was the glue that bound Clegg’s party to David Cameron’s Conservatives – in the words of the coalition agreement: “The parties agree to implement a full programme of measures to reverse the substantial erosion of civil liberties under the Labour government and roll back state intrusion.”

Mehdi, I haven’t forgotten. Many of us haven’t forgotten, just as we haven’t forgotten your party’s record on civil liberties during thirteen years of misrule. Indeed, we still await the outcome of the Freedom Bill with less than bated breath. Already we have seen this adherence to liberty watered down. Recall, as I do, the website that went up soon after the coagulation was formed in the wake of the hung parliament in May? Remember that? Oh, yes and what happened to all those responses? Not least those who wanted to see the state rolled back on such lifestyle choices as smoking? Ah, sorry, wrong sort of liberty. Next!

Sure, I was hopeful. After the unmitigated train wreck of a disaster that was the Brown government, who wouldn’t have a little gleam of optimism? A smidgen of belief –  against the odds –  that things really can get better this time? Or, at least, not any worse. It does rather look as if not any worse is about all we are going to get. We have seen the back of the ID cards, yes (and good riddance, too), but lurking in the shadows, dagger poised for the kill, is the serial killer waiting for his next victim. One idea may have bitten the dust, but there will be another vehicle for the control freaks who whisper their poison into the ears of home office ministers, to use for their nefarious purposes. If politicians do not enter parliament with the intention of misusing power for their own ends, the influences of the political class will, sooner or later, corrupt them until they do –  and, perhaps, they come to believe in their own propaganda. Perhaps they forget what they once were. The monster absorbs all within its path, assimilating those who voice such foolhardy ideas as liberty. Liberty is for the abuser, not the abused. Nick Clegg may have been one of the good guys once. Who knows? He may have believed when in opposition in all those things he said about liberty. Again, who knows? However, the simple answer to the question; what made him forget liberty, is answered relatively easily; power.

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6 Comments

  1. I too was hopeful at the beginning. Particularly when they binned ID cards, but that just seems to have been a little sweetener. Nothing alse has improved and Im just as disillusioned as I was under the last lot.

  3. I had a small amount of hope that the coalition would make part of the Lib Dems rediscover their liberal roots and split from the loony left, but even that meagre ration of hope has evaporated, and all that remains is the same old sh*t.

  5. I really don’t know what you think you are achieving by repeatedly referring to this post. However, as it’s becoming increasingly tiresome, I’m going to stop ignoring it and put it to bed once and for all. Nothing I said then contradicts with what I have said since. There is only one way that you can find out if a politician will deliver on a promise and that is to vote and see if they follow through. Had I been in the UK at the time, I would have voted Conservative and enjoyed the added bonus of knowing that my vote had helped to oust Roger Berry.

    I would have had no regrets and given the benefit of hindsight, I would still have voted Conservative as getting rid of labour was the most important issue and a Conservative vote was what was needed to do that in our constituency. I would still be critical of the failure to follow through on civil liberties and my comments at the time were qualified, but you choose to repeatedly ignore that in your attempts to make a cheap point. There was no naivete on my part, nor is there any hypocrisy since. All that you achieve by attempting to score points is to make yourself look a bit of a twat. Your prerogative of course and I won’t stop you from doing it, but this is my only and last word on the matter. I would, however, appreciate it if you put a sock in that one, thanks.

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