Inspiration in any creative spectrum can sometimes be fleeting and not something you can always just turn on and off like a tap. Getting involved in any polical field was never my intention as I much prefer commenting from a far, but being unemployed and with the U.K. having an austerity led government, you just have to come out of the woodwork from time to time. There’s just so much wrong doing in government circles and so much misspent money, which these people just seem to spend with not a thought of the real important issues.
The real impending issue in the UK is whether or not the people of this community of nations are really free of governmental interference. There has been a lot of discussion recently and panic over the Conservative party’s controversial plans to scrap the Human Rights Act. These are plans which the conservatives are setting into motion after securing a parliamentary majority in the general election recently. The Human Rights Act was introduced by the Labour government in 1998 – however it received widespread cross-party support. The Act protects fifteen fundamental freedoms: The Right to Life, The Prohibition of Torture, The Prohibition of Slaver and Forced Labour, The Right to Liberty and Security, The Right to a Fair Trial, No Punishment Without Law, The Right to Respect for Private and Family Life, Freedom of thought, conscience and religion, Freedom of expression, Freedom of assembly and association, Right to Marry and The Prohibition of discrimination
Scraping the Human Rights Act is part of Conservative scepticism toward Europe. Scrapping the Act means that the formal link between British courts, and the European Court of Human Rights will be broken. The argument by the Conservatives is that foreign nationals, who have committed serious crimes, use the freedoms enshrined in the act to remain in the UK. How do the Conservatives plan to protect our rights ? They have made plans to introduce a “British Bill of Rights” that will enshrine “British values”. The government do not plan to introduce a new set of basic rights but will: “restore common sense and tackle the misuse of the rights contained in the Convention”.
What will this mean for rights in the UK in practice ? The government plan to replace the Human Rights Act with a UK Bill of Rights will mean that the European Court of Human Rights will no longer be able to overrule judgements made in British courts to secure proper interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights. The UK Supreme Court will become supreme. However, this could cause great upheaval for the UK and even cause a constitutional crisis as it would mean the UK is in breach of the Good Friday agreement with Northern Ireland as it affects freedoms and human rights protections.
Although the new Bill of Rights may contain some of the same rights and freedoms, it is anticipated that certain rights will be limited and could be overturned in particular the right to privacy or family life. This could mean upheavals all round and reinterpretations over time which could have major effects on all freedoms of people in general.
While walking to the job centre on Tuesday it came into my mind just how free are we really in this country ? We take great pride speaking of our freedom, many people point out that laws free us from the tyranny of our fellow man. Protections against murder, rape and theft, for instance, provide us the freedom to walk down the street unharmed. The truth is that unconstitutional and excessive laws have increasingly become a staple of government for many decades. They are a product of a statist mentality which, is becoming more prevalent. The real picture is beginning to form ? Doesn’t it look an awful lot like Big Brother ?
I was walking on the walkers side of a cycle path and came to the conclusion that we are even told where to walk and where to cycle. If I walked on the wrong side and got hit by a cyclist could I get prosecuted ? I noticed that most of the markings on the path were worn away so I could I sue the cyclist for reckless driving and could they sue the council for negligent path markings ?
As one thinks on how councils scrimp and don’t spend on essentials and then decide on building a new leisure centre the obvious thoughts over blatant misspending come to mind. How we pay road tax but the roads are full of potholes. How the National Health Service created to look after the people’s health, charges for prescriptions, no longer provides free eye and teeth checks and is now so underfunded and partly privatised.
How the welfare state was created to help those less fortunate people and how they are now the ones suffering as the government bales out the country’s finances, after a decade long war and a bail out of the banks. The banking crisis caused by the actions of overzealous bankers, who now are taking home big bonuses once again and poor, poor governmental banking regulations.
All in all the answer to the question is that we are not as free as we like to think we are, we are not as free as we’d like to be and financially we are living beyond our means, spending on things for show not on things that help aid the people.
Cracked Days 