Poll: Who Will You Be Voting For In The Next General Election?

economiser

Is there any point in voting unless you live in a marginal constituency? If our sitting Conservative MP was ousted the Conservative Party would be down to a couple of dozen MP's. Millions of people are in a similar position, in Labour or Conservative areas, where their vote can never really count. It's not really democratic is it?

shaven-monkey

Well, quite. Why bother voting in a democracy.... ?

bo_drinker

So "they" want to censor the internet, now there's a fkn surprise. They can't even police it to stop paedos wierdos etc. But they can and will censor it. 1984 Big brother again. Only a matter of time then. I thought it was a free country..........

beingjdc

tr3mor wrote: »

The counter terrorism bill has been used against opposition MPs and other sovereign countries.
:mad:

No it hasn't.

iltisman

Don't go voting for any wacky or extreme parties as it is not a secret ballot (the ballot papers are numbered and the number is entered against your name)

beingjdc

iltisman wrote: »

Don't go voting for any wacky or extreme parties as it is not a secret ballot (the ballot papers are numbered and the number is entered against your name)

Which can only then be accessed with a court order, in the event of an investigation into election fraud. On balance, a safer system than having no evidence of whether the votes counted correspond to the votes cast, and whether the votes cast were in fact cast by the electors that the voters were purporting to be.

You can buy a marked register after most elections, which will tell you who did and did not vote, but not how they voted.

bigfatbelly

Not one single person I know is intending on voting Labour next time round, and many of them did do last time! What does that tell everyone?:T

I'm not voting Labour either. I did do, but I never will again while this current Nulabour lot are pushing our country down the pan and robbing us!

Generali

beingjdc wrote: »

No it hasn't.

Wasn't terrorism legislation used to freeze the assets of Iceland? That's certainly what has been reported by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7784354.stm

But here, too, Britain's earlier actions - using anti-terror legislation to seize Icesave's assets - still rankle in Reykjavik.

Mr Green wasn't arrested for breaching anti-terror legislation but was arrested by anti-terrorist police.

It has also been reported that anti-terror legislation has been used by local authorities to probe such pieces of 'terrorist action' as throwing away stuff that might have been recycled and breaking the rules so you can send your kids to a school that they wouldn't otherwise qualify for.

The Nazis used the pretext of communist terrorism to pass the laws that enabled them to rule by diktat. I fear for the futue of the UK.

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

MissMoneypenny

Generali wrote: »

The Nazis used the pretext of communist terrorism to pass the laws that enabled them to rule by diktat. I fear for the futue of the UK.

They are all at it. The Iranian and Australian governments are bringing in Internet censorship

http://nocleanfeed.com/learn.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/3483844/Iran-blocks-access-to-over-five-million-websites.html

beingjdc

Generali wrote: »

Wasn't terrorism legislation used to freeze the assets of Iceland? That's certainly what has been reported by the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7784354.stm

The Anti-Terror, Crime and Security Act was the relevant legislation. Like most Bills in the UK, it was a hybrid act (in the sense that it dealt with a number of issues, not the strict legal definition of affecting an individual but being a public bill) . It also introduced offences including 'incitement to religious hatred', but it would be disingenuous if I went door-to-door with a leaflet saying "all Hindus are paedos" or whatever, to claim then that I'd been arrested under "terrorism legislation".

In this case, the action was presumably taken under Part 2 of the Act, "Freezing Order", rather than Part 1, "Forfeiture of Terrorist Cash". This provides as follows.

Power to make order

(1) The Treasury may make a freezing order if the following two conditions are satisfied.
(2) The first condition is that the Treasury reasonably believe that—
(a) action to the detriment of the United Kingdom’s economy (or part of it) has been or is likely to be taken by a person or persons
(3) If one person is believed to have taken or to be likely to take the action the second condition is that the person is—
(a) the government of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom, or

The likelihood was that the Icelandic Government were going to move assets back to Iceland, despite the fact that the money was needed to cover liabilities in the UK - the same trick was used by Lehman when they drained their London office of cash before going into administration, to window-dress the solvency levels of their US operations. It is right and proper to use the legislation above to prevent that being done - the same would certainly be done to us if we tried to repatriate foreign assets when we had clear liabilities we were unlikely to be able to meet.

Mr Green wasn't arrested for breaching anti-terror legislation but was arrested by anti-terrorist police.

Cases involving politicians have always been handled by Special Branch (Special Operations 12) for as long as it has existed. In 2005 Special Branch was merged with Anti-Terror Branch (Special Operations 13), and the overall lot called Counter-Terror Command (Special Operations 15).

It still carries out the functions of Special Branch, which extend beyond simply terrorism-related functions. I imagine "Counter-Terror and Political Command" would have sounded silly.

It has also been reported that anti-terror legislation has been used by local authorities to probe such pieces of 'terrorist action' as throwing away stuff that might have been recycled and breaking the rules so you can send your kids to a school that they wouldn't otherwise qualify for.

Yes this is rubbish as well. "It has been reported that" should always set alarm bells ringing. In reality, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (which I remember passing, and was never talked about as a Terror law at the time, in the media or in Parliament. If anything it was talked about as a computer hacker law) requires public bodies who use surveillance on people in any way (eg checking what is in their recycling bin* or whether they really live where they claim to) to record the fact they have done so and in some cases notify a higher authority. Taken together with the Freedom of Information Act, this means that the Newspapers can find out how often they're doing it, and get all excited.

The irony is, Councils and so on were doing this before these Acts came in, (generally quite rightly in my view, I went spare when the former Chairman of the Local Government Association said surveillance like CCTV shouldn't be used for minor things like people letting their dogs crap all over the pavement. If I got a Taxi to work I might feel the same way. But I don't) they just didn't have to tell anyone. That's all the Acts say - they don't give permission for it to be done, they require it to be above board.

* Nobody's been done for throwing away things that might have been recycled, they've been done for putting things in the recycling that can't be recycled.