Democracy in action?
Democracy is the process by which the citizens of a country, all who have an equal opurtunity, get to decide together how they want their nation to be ruled.
We don’t live in a true democracy. We live in a parliamentary democracy. So we elect our representatives and they go and do what ever they want on our behalf. They don’t need to check with the electorate about every decision, though if they make too many bad decisions they end up being voted out.
Douglas Carswell (Con: Clacton, Essex) is different from other representatives has decided to open up his private members bill to the demo or masses. With the help of Guido Fawkes of order-order.com who has set up a poll you too can help choose what the contents of his private members bill will be.
The choices are as follows.
- Bloggers Freedom Bill: Us bloggers don’t have the facilities of in-house lawyers, nor the bottomless pits of a trust paying for our expenses and losses. So if we make a mistake and libel someone, we would get a period of grace before legal action starts. This period would allow for the person libelled to request removal of the libel and only if no action was taken would the legal process start. The period would be something like 48hours.
- Defence Procurement Bill: Currently big defense contracts are handed out to a number of big companies with details kept secret for commercial reasons. This works in the favour of the big companies, but not in favour of the armed forces themselves. Nor us taxpayers who foot the bill. What this bill will do is make a legal requirement that defence contracts are put out to public tender. It will also prevent civil servents from working for the defence contractors without signficant checks having been carried out.
- Great Repeal Bill: The goverment made a great play of saying that they would repeal some of the 3000 laws created by Tony Blair. However nothing much has happened. Details of this bill can be found here at Wikiversity.
- Repeal of the European Communities Bill: This one doesn’t need much explanation. Basically it requires the UK to leave the European Economic Community which it joined in 1973.
- Competing Currencies Bill: This bill will remove the requirement that legal tender is the Pound. With the growth of the internet it becomes easier for many currencies to be used seamlessly. This would mean that the government couldn’t keep printing money just because its decided to bail out some bankers. This would also mean that the economy would be more stable and not driven by the whims of bonkers prime ministers(NSFW).
Make your vote in the form below. Your email is required to validate your vote.
Logo from the Open Source Initiative.
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1
June 1, 2012 at 08:58 -
Good Morning. Error on “Great Repeal Bill”. It was 3500+ laws under Blair/Brown. Cameron instigated the “Protection of freedom” bill to deal with this. Very little movement. DNA of two million innocent folks to be deleted – HOWEVER – we have no method of verifying this. Given police mendacity it is thus far farcical to say Tories are aiding civil liberties.
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2
June 1, 2012 at 09:03 -
Defense(sic) Procurement Bill is rubbish.
All invitations to tender are openly published and above a certain value must, under EU law, be published EU wide.
The real tragedy is how extended the procurement process is. And then once a contract is placed the MPs in the constituencies of the losing bidders spend ages bleating, which delays everything even more.
Real reform would require the MOD to employ people that actually know what is needed rather than paying a contractor to tell them.
If Tesco had to jump through the same legal hoops that the MOD has to your tin of beans would cost £5 and you would still be waiting for it, “because a new GM strain is expected in 2020.”
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3
June 1, 2012 at 09:45 -
Bit of a misnomer calling it crowd sourcing IMO. A political wiki (say allowing users to create bills and get involved in the drafting and editing process) is nearer the mark. I’m not saying it would work or even that it would be desirable.
But presenting us with five ready-made options looks to me like an ordinary referendum. Or is what’s happening in Ireland right now “crowd-sourcing”?
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June 1, 2012 at 10:23 -
5
June 1, 2012 at 17:28 -
I would have thought it has to be the Great Repeal Bill for the simple reason that covers most of the others. It could also get the UK out of the EU if it was properly drafted.
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6
June 1, 2012 at 20:53
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