In the Hugo Young lecture tonight, Nick Clegg all but said that control orders were to go when – in pre-prepared comments in the middle of the speech – he said:
Old progressives pose a trade-off between individual liberty and national security. But, for liberals, liberty is the guarantor of our security. It is a false trade-off. For old progressives, national priorities will automatically trump individual freedoms. By contrast, the Coalition Government has already halted ID cards, and set out plans to regulate CCTV and end the indefinite storage of innocent people’s DNA. We will also shortly be published the results of our counter-terrorism review.
Voluntarily raising the issue of civil liberties, disdaining the false trade-off between liberty and security – and then leaving hanging at the end of the section the reference to the forthcoming review – combined would not be what someone knowing that control orders may continue would choose to do.
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8 Comments
I have just come back from Nick’s lecture. I’ll wait and see regarding control orders. It may seem to you Mark that Nick threw the dog a bone, but he promised nothing. I did learn that I may be a ‘new progressive’ though. Whatever that means…
where does he say that control orders are to go? He says a review will be published shortly but nothing more. What about detention of children……still waiting.
Mark, I wish I had your optimism, but I don’t see that as you do. I wish I did, and still had faith in Nick, but at this moment in time I don’t. We’ll see when the review is published, but there’s nothing in that paragraph that says, with any certainty, that control orders are to go.
A quick reminder about our moderation policy, which is up at https://www.libdemvoice.org/comment-policy – and in particular the reference to off-topic comments, especially where there are other threads on that topic.
I really hope this is true as control orders are simply retention without trail and are unacceptable in my view
“What about detention of children……still waiting.”
There is a fairly extensive pilot scheme underway for a system which only involves detention as an extreme last resort (and then not overnight). That last figure I saw for the number of children in detention for immigration purposes was 0.
I see nothing here that even hints at a decision to abolish control orders. The home secretary, in thrall as usual to the intelligence and security services, has come out for retaining them and the right-wing tabloids are already baying for the bood of anyone who releases thousands of bloodthirsty terrorists to roam the streets unchecked if control orders are abolished. The result will be likelier to be the usual fudged compromise which will be presented as liberalisation but which in fact will leave all the unacceptable features of control orders untouched. But what better can we expect from a “Liberal” Democrat Deputy Prime Minister who apparently thinks that improving “social mobility” is more progressive than reducing income and wealth inequality? Time he read ‘The Rise of the Meritocracy’ and its author’s dismay at the misinterpretation of meritocracy as if it was a good thing — see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2001/jun/29/comment.
@Brian Barder
Thank you for that link. An interesting article, and I agreed with a lot of it.
What I found most interesting, is that the policies I most applaud in the coalition are aimed at improving the prospects of those who have been failed by our meritocratic culture.
When Nick Clegg talks about social mobility, people often attack him as advocating a return to grammar schools, where the brightest can thrive, and those who do less well sink into a life of failure.
In my opinion, Nick Clegg is advocating the opposite. The raising of tax thresholds and the introduction of a Universal Credit will greatly reduce the marginal tax rate for those on welfare. This isn’t a meritocratic policy, to celebrate high-achievers, and leave the rest languishing on welfare. It’s a policy to encourage those who have been failed by the system, who want to work, but whose self-confidence has been shattered. So that they start the process of taking up work, and thereby take the first steps to achieving their potential.
Aside from the ever-present malign effect of deficit reduction measures, much of coalition policy is controversial. But there are arguments both ways on whether it is progressive or not. For example, though others will disagree, I think the pupil premium is progressive. Previously, there was increased revenue for schools who attracted large numbers of pupils from low-income families. But there was no incentive for high-achieving schools to draw in such pupils. The pupil premium may help to break down this educational apartheid. Again, I think this is a policy which will undermine the malign meritocracy that Michael Young describes.