Over at The Guardian’s Comment Is Free website, Lib Dem blogger James Graham argues that it was the UK’s broken Parliament – an antiquated Lords, a whipped Commons – which got us into the legislative mess of Labour’s Digital Economy Bill. The only way to fix it, says James, is to vote for a new politics. Here’s an excerpt:
The real lesson from this experience is that we need a more representative and responsive political system. Digital rights will always be one of those Cinderella issues while the voting system focuses politicians’ attention solely on a handful of swing voters in a small number of marginal constituencies. … Don’t let anyone fool you that the problem is one bad law or some debilitating nonsense about all politicians being the same. The system stinks and only a vote for the Liberal Democrats in this election will help to do anything about it.
You can read James’s article in full here.
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One Comment
I would certainly like to vote for a new politics after following the Digital Economy Bill very closely, but how exactly. I was disappointed to find that my MP was just part of the problem. I am still waiting for a reply from him having only received a fobbing off with the Lib Dem’s unsatisfactory early position on the bill, and he did not vote on the bill either way. I assume that he would have voted had he been present at any of the stages of the bill, and I do wonder whether he even read it. I will be writing to him again to ask for an explanation, and I will also be writing to the other candidates in my constuency to ask what they would do to fix the problems and reform our discredited political system. (http://jtlog.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/digital-house-arrest/)
So, yes, I want to fix it, but from what I’ve seen so far, the Lib Dems are not the solution. If you want my vote, please explaoin to me, and your MPs, how you plan to remedy the situation.