But equally guilty are the hundreds of MPs who didn’t turn up to make sure it was defeated, as of course is Gordon “humble” Brown.

I’ve updated my roundup on this subject – sorry for missing your article.

Something to do with “Future Post”-ing to avoid getting up on a Saturday. Lesson learnt.

Matt
http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2007/05/19/rss-roundup-david-maclean-freedom-of-information-bill-roundup/

Wicket to Plunkett as I type!

Get in

it’s a bit too one-sided to be interesting.

I was having such fun watching the cricket too.

but i can see why Brown hasn’t done anything.

with regards to your point that MPs should be more open. yes, they should.
there’s important information in what they do. you can find out a lot about what they are up to and who they are dealing with and talking to through that information.
but, there’s a problem.
so people don’t want to be open and therefore you have to make them. they should be, but they’re not.
there are some things they want to keep secret.
for obvious reasons. we’d like to know a hell of a lot more than they want to let on. that’s never changed.

there are genuine concerns about constituency correspondence. there have been breaches. not in the sense that people have reported what has exactly been said. but in the sense that journalists have said “..and so and so has had conversations with consitutents about this and they have spoken about how important such and such is…”
there are better ways of dealing with it though.
they didn’t need the legislation. but its to their advantage to have it.

those that voted for it probably come from two camps.
those that genuinely believe that they should be open but want some protection for contstituents.
and those that don’t want people to know what’s going on.
some people are using the first reason as a cover-up.
and some people believe both.

i think they should be more open.
it’s a way of gaining trust.
and this is a way of losing it.

there are other problems with the FOI system.
i think it’s still the case that they can accept a request to release information, but don’t have to say when, just that they will do so. so it can easily be used as a diversionary tactic, releasing information when the medi spotlight has moved on.
and i think i’m right in saying that they wanted to change the gudielines on FOI. currently they can reject a request because it is too expensive. that in itself maybe be appropriate in some situations. however, they wanted to change it so that they took into account the cost in terms of hours spent on finding the information. therefore, all costs would automatically rise and lots of requests would be rejected. i don’t know if the plan was dropped or if it went through..either way it’d be a major setback.

i think once you create a situation of increased openess, people who aren’t comfortable with it will always want to change it.
and that’s why you have to stop them.

i have hand cramp too.

Unity spells it out better than I can, you have to scroll down the page a bit:

http://www.ministryoftruth.org.uk/

That is a quite Pollyannaish attitude. It should be a given that politicians are open. It should be a given that they do not exempt themselves from legislation that they apply to others. Not something we should have to force on them. I’ve already written to the twit that proposed it. What have you done?

I am struggling to understand quite where you think you are coming from. I wish I lived in your ‘best of all possible worlds’.

“Y’know something, I don’t give a monkeys for the so-called sovereignty of parliament. It is you and I who are sovereign. These chumps, chimps, chancers are there because we voted them in. They are acting as though they are not accountable.”

The soveriegnty of parliament is important.
People always go on about how you have to protect parliament from an over-bearing executive. You have to ensure that what MPs debate and vote for is paramount.

You answered your own point.
They are accountable because you voted them in.
So, that’s how you hold them to account, vote them out.
You could take the conversation into the realms of representation and on what basis someone is chosen as a representative and how they are expected or entrusted to make a decision, but if you don’t agree with what your representatives have done, change it.
Protest.
Write.
Talk.
Petition.

Vote.

“Dear David,

This is the most ridiculously anti democratic measure imaginable. What you are advocating, in effect, is that elected representatives should be given carte blanche. Please consider how this looks from the point of view of a citizen. Presumeably you are a democrat first and foremost. And not a Roman Senator.

If this is not withdrawn, I shall investigate the possibilities of getting a horse to stand against you at your next election.”

Oh! I mean it.

Where are you mate? You and I have some tall buildings to climb!

“Either he intervenes, and rides out the ‘we will be more open’ wave. But if he does this he will be over-riding the sovereignty of Parliament, something he has also spoken about recently.”

Gordon Brown as a Beach Boy is an amusing image. Either he means it when he talks about openness or he doesn’t. This is not auspicious of anything other than another step away from accountability.

Y’know something, I don’t give a monkeys for the so-called sovereignty of parliament. It is you and I who are sovereign. These chumps, chimps, chancers are there because we voted them in. They are acting as though they are not accountable.

They fucking well are!

We should be asking each individual MP what, exactly, they have to hide. Did I mention that I’m disgusted with these loathsome little careerists?

Riz – only because we let them! We elect these self serving little autocrats!

This is not a trivial issue. This is our elected representatives preferring secrecy to openness. This says, in effect, we are not accountable to you, the electorate, for our actions.

And then they wonder why fewer and fewer folk vote….

A broken democracy is no democracy at all.