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: Spy Blog

Power 2010 Pledge campaign - vote to "Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state" and "Expand the Freedom of Information Act"

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Power 2010

POWER2010 is funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust and supported by a wide range of individuals and organisations.

This cross party political campaign is actually gathering feedback from the public, as to what needs to be changed in the smug, complacent, incompetent, borderline corrupt and cruel British political system.

The current unpopular and inept Labour government is still trying to pretend that they are somehow "great reformers", with the weedy Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill, which has been hijacked by the MP's expenses scandal, thereby missing the opportunity for some real reforms.

The five most popular ideas following the vote will become the POWER2010 Pledge and the focus for our nation-wide campaign at the next election.

Election campaign

The aim is for as many people as possible to sign the Pledge and then take it to the candidates in their constituency, by writing to them, calling them, and attending local hustings, public meetings and MPs' surgeries.

Hopefully the issues which make it onto the Power 2010 Pledge list will be used to influence the mainstream media agenda and to pin down the detailed policies and promises of individual prospective candidates and political parties in the forthcoming General Election, and to punish them at the ballot box, if they are evasive or fail to come up with sensible arguments against these ideas.

There is still time (voting closes in a couple of days on 22nd February) to register your online vote for:

Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state - Drop the National ID scheme and limit or scrap other databases that infringe civil rights

and also for

Expand the Freedom of Information Act - Extend the right of access members of the public have to official information

The current leading topics in their online poll are:

Introduce a proportional voting system: 10326 votes
Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state - 8815 votes
A fully elected second chamber - 5270 votes
English votes on English laws - 5126 votes
A Written Constitution - 4980 votes
Fixed term parliaments - 4882 votes
"None of the Above" on ballot papers - 3790 votes
Right to recall - 3744 votes
Expand the Freedom of Information Act - 3632 votes
Stronger local government - 3427 votes

There are also some slightly less popular but still important ideas which we support e.g.:

Reduce the use of statutory instruments Prevent the government creating new laws in a way which bypasses Parliament - 1928 votes

The top five topics will be included in the Power 2010 Pledge.

Will the Power 2010 campaign, armed with the results of their online voting and the opinion poll research which they have commissioned, actually make some real impact on the current political creatures in the Westminster village and the corridors of Whitehall, and the way in which the mainstream media influence them ?

Do the politicians, propagandists and control freaks really understand the depth of contempt and hatred which they are creating, out of mere apathy and indifference, amongst the sections of the public who can actually be bothered to "engage" in the political process ?

Is it any wonder that political party membership is in decline, but that there are plenty of "single issue" political campaigns , and an increase in extremist fringe groups of various kinds, some of which may give passive or active support to terrorists ?

We are unsure about the answers, but this online vote and pledge seems to be worth trying, if only to remind the politicians that unless they listen to and act on, informed, peaceful, democratic feedback like this, they will be personally blamed for the subsequent, predictable failures and disasters.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on February 20, 2010 (boomark / email).