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My MP voted in favour... He's getting an email tomorrow then... :rolleyes:
How long until everyone just jumps onto their local MPs connection, spoofs their MAC address and then just downloads shed loads of stuff?
Afterall, it's on their connection, their wireless was 'secured' (most average Joe's are still using WEP, i'm sure they still will be...), that way the MAC address also ties up to their machine...
Guess my MP has something in common with gordon brown.... neither bothered to voteQuote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
neither did mine
Yes the O2 router my aunt got was setup with wep and locked down so you could not change things including the web key! I take the attitude she has done everything she can, its her ISP that supplied badly setup stuff. Telling my Aunt to many details will only scare her and also mean she knows of the problem and therefore has to solve it, and she cannot deny knowledge.Quote:
Originally Posted by TAKTAK
Just to correct that, it actually had more like four or five hours of debate in the Commons, not 20 minutes. It's still woefully inadequate for such a huge and wide-ranging bill (n it's implications), but it's far from 20 minutes.Quote:
Originally Posted by stytagm
To put it in context, aside from ministers speeches, back-bencher speeches were initially limited to 12 minutes each, and even that was raised, shortly after the start, to 15 minute speeches. and a lot of them did indeed make speeches approaching that.
The point has also been made that only a dozen or so MPs were in attendance. At any given time, that's true, though it varied between about a dozen and about 40, but it's at a given time. MPs were coming and going all the time .... though a few more seemed to go than came.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not happy about the way this was rushed through, and if there was any common theme from all sides of the house (including minor parties like the SNP Pete Wishart) it was that the way it introduced in the Lords, and then rail-roaded through the Commons with wholly inadequate scrutiny was an absolute disgrace and must "never, ever happen again". It was also referred to as a "stitch-up" between the three front-benches, depriving elected members of a proper say, whereas unelected appointees, cronies and donors in the Lords got a full say.
On that, I fully agree. It was indeed a stitch-up.
But for all that the Bill has some major issues, it also covers important matters that did need to be dealt with. There are concerns over some aspects, but many aspects were also regarded by both sides of the argument as common ground.
So MPs were faced with a choice - do they regard the good that it will do as outweighing their concerns over the major issues?
While many, or I suspect nearly all, of them would have liked much greater debate and scrutiny, and the chance for amendment in committee and them re-examination, the sheer fact was that the way it was introduced, and the electoral timetable, meant that just wasn't going to happen. They didn't get much say in what was amended or removed, or much time to deal with it. They merely had to decide whether, on balance, it deserved to pass. But, believe me, many many of them weren't happy about being given that choice and only that choice.
Sorry about the 20 minute comment - that was off the cuff and for effect (a bit like another famous 45 minute comment, but that's another story).
The thing is, that in a situation where a bill has cross party support (like this one), and like you say the majority of the bill is not controversial, then there seems to be little risk in postponing it until the next session? It's not like the Tory's would throw it out unless it's passed now. In theory that's only 7 or 8 weeks delay (in practice, I guess the bill would go through at the normal speed, so you can add a month or two onto that, but that is time well spent in my opinion).
I guess from my point of view, I feel that on balance the two or three bad parts of this bill (the bit's we've all been hearing about) are so bad that it shouldn't become law. I wouldn't be prepared to accept the bad parts just to get the good parts. I think the threshold has been crossed. Like you say, the MPs disagreed, all we can do is lobby them to try and persuade them of our way of thinking. (just as the other pressure groups are entitled to lobby MPs round to their way of thinking, and so far have proved more effective at it).
I guess now we can start the process again, keep the debate alive, lobby our MPs and parliamentary candidates during the election process, and start all over again to get the bad parts fixed in the next parliament. It's our right to try.
I think it was John Redwood (among others) that expressed my major concerns with the Bill as it stands. Much of the impact of the Bill comes from the fact that key clauses are merely enabling legislation, that pass the onus for the actual implementation either to Ofcom or, for the most part, the Secretary of State to implement by Order. In other words, it authorises the Secretary of state to write the bits that determine how much of it actually works, and it then is implemented more or less on the nod, by executive "Order" without debate or scrutiny.
John Redwood described that as the Commons being asked to buy a pig in a poke, or to write a rush cheque without having seen the actual invoice. And, after having removed some obnoxious provisions (like orphaned works changes) that, of course, is exactly what MPS did - they wrote the Secretary of state (whoever it may be) a large blank cheque.
That is a disgrace. Many of the actual provisions, though, including dealing with illegal file-sharers, are ones I;d broadly support and that had majority support in the Commons.