David Edgar asks the question.
And much of the remaining civil liberties agenda – on DNA and criminal record retention, fingerprinting children and CCTV – still awaits the publication of a freedom bill, which Nick Clegg promised would be out last November.
Indeed. It is now late January and we are still waiting. It was good to see the back of ID cards, Contactpoint and stop and search powers under section 44. However, we are waiting for the rest of the nasty apparatus of totalitarian authoritarianism put in place by Labour to be swept aside.
The Lib Dems can justifiably claim to have made a difference on civil liberties, but that only goes to show they needed to. The resistance of the Conservatives to reform suggests that their much-vaunted commitment to social liberalism is skin deep.
I’m inclined to agree. And there’s plenty to choose from when wiping garbage off the stature book. Actually, better by far simply to have a great repeal bill that gets rid of everything Labour did and start afresh – preferably with little or nothing in its place.
Anyway, Edgar lets himself down.
The danger is that Labour can’t – or won’t – exploit this opportunity. The party has moved on since the days when Diane Abbott was a lone advocate for its traditional commitment to civil liberties.
Of course it won’t, and no it hasn’t. It is still the same control freak party of central state control and always will be. Any sops to civil liberties now are far too little far too late and nothing more than a cynical attempt to oppose rather than as a consequence of ideology. if they were back in power tomorrow, they would be the same nasty control freaks they were this time last year.