Informing politicians...

Alex Hudson home at alexhudson.com
Fri Dec 1 08:02:40 UTC 2000


> Sorry, but I think it gets too specifical here. I don't understand ONE of
> these abbreviations below, so I think it's just known by UK citizens.
Maybe
> it's interesting for everyone, then please explain it. Maybe it's not
> interesting for everyone, then forget about it ;)

Apologies, Michael!! RIP - Regulation of Investigatory Powers. Basically,
allowing the UK government to spy on it's citizens. The "whips" are Party
officers in parliament, and basically, whenever the government needs to get
something passed it runs a lined whip - meaning, each MP has to cast their
vote according to the wishes of the Party, rather than their own wishes, on
pain of having the whip withdrawn (i.e., being kicked out of the Party).

The point is, (in the UK at least), it can be the case that Government uses
it's majority to force legislation through, rather than convincing MPs and
winning the argument. In this case, there's very little lobbying can do.

Cheers,

Alex.

> > >It's www.stand.org.uk, and we lost against the RIP bill in spite of
> > >it.
> >
> > I think we lost against RIP more because of lined whips - most people
were
> > agreed that RIP should have been case law, rather than parliamentary
act.
> > I'd still rather have STAND than not have it.





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