While the uncharitable among you often suggest I don’t know my arse from my elbow, my recent musings could now be interpreted as a carefully constructed scheme to further the cause of civil liberties. On the other hand, it may be wild coincidence. I’ll let you make your own mind up.
A couple of weeks ago I suggested in these august pages that commentators were more effective at getting stuff done than our elected representatives. And I cited the hero of the Lib Dem grassroots and MP for Cambridge, Julian Huppert, as a typical example of a politician who kept voting the right way, doing the right thing – and losing.
I clearly riled him.
Stage two of my sophisticated attack strategy was to suggest that the Lib Dems’ reputation as defenders of civil liberties would be seriously damaged if the Defamation Bill didn’t get sorted smartish, and if there was any suggestion of support for any bill that could be called a snoopers’ charter.
This has clearly given Nick Clegg some sleepless nights. And as I sit here this morning, stroking my white cat and pondering world domination, we see the pieces of the civil liberties jigsaw fall neatly into place.
Earlier in the week, the Defamation Bill passed into law, with an appropriate amendment introduced to prevent corporations bullying individuals using the threat of libel, as promised and expertly chaperoned through Westminster by Julian Huppert, my words no doubt ringing in his ears.
And now, terrified at the prospect of what the Guardian has started to refer to as “influential activists” doing their nut, Nick’s confirmed that a blanket record of digital activity is “not going to happen with Liberal Democrats in government”. So it seems the snoopers’ charter is dead and buried too (Incidentally, I bet they use another term to describe “influential activists” inside Lib Dem HQ. But I digress).
Of course, I think we all knew Julian was always going to sort out the Defamation Bill without my, um, ‘help and assistance’; and that Nick would have seen the proposed Communications Data Bill as the pernicious and (not especially) thin edge of the wedge towards state invasion of our internet privacy. After all, one or two other people have made similar points.
The point is, we’re a more free society today than it looked like we would be a week ago. And we’re not going to allow a snoopers’ charter onto the statute books. Civil liberties are safe in our hands. Because we’re Lib Dems – and we’re very much in favour of that sort of thing.
Richard Morris blogs at A View From Ham Common, which was named Best New Blog at the 2011 Lib Dem Conference
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