When did Labour become the nasty party?

Asks Vicki Woods in the Daily Telegraph. She starts by describing the
ContactPoint children's database and how she would have opposed it
were she still bringing up three-year-olds. Several points she makes
relate to the complete lack of "audience participation" in all this
grandiose New Labour law-making since 1997. Since when was the general
public consulted, e.g. via election manifesto, that something like
ContactPoint would be set up and then have extra purposes thrust upon
it beyond merely looking after children?

After castigating the ID card scheme she wonders, "When did Labour
turn into the nasty party?"

Well, I would say, the minute John Smith took his last breath. Tony
Blair fetched up as the best rent-a-gob available, took charge, and
the rest is, as they say, history. But we only know that in hindsight.
As we learn more about our erstwhile Leader we can better understand
why Britain is as it is today. Remember those knee-jerk pronouncements
like marching yobs to cash machines in order to pay instant fines?
Remember all the other empty rhetoric that washed from Blair's mouth
like effluent from a sewer pipe? The sewage contaminates the beaches
and those nice EU people come and take our blue flags away. Blair's
rhetoric has contaminated thought in this country. We have got used to
hearing joined-up sentences being delivered by an accomplished actor
and our brains have turned to mush. That brilliant smile, the
self-effacing looks, the confident gait all contributed to this
massive mind-control over the British people. Naturally enough,
there'd be toadies galore who would suck up to Blair and echo the same
rhetoric, though mostly with little of his aplomb. I'm thinking of
people like David Blunket, Charles Clarke, and John Reid. These are
the people who have helped turn the Labour party into the nasty party.

But what is this party doing that's so nasty? Well, Vicki Woods goes
on to tell us about some of the things. She says: "I am beyond sick of
the corrosion of my freedoms and the extent of invasion into my
privacy by this Government."

"Some of the freedoms I prized were very ancient: I knew I could tell
bailiffs to get off my property and not come back until they had their
documentation sorted (I've only had bailiffs once: long story, not my
fault, I blame the ex-wife). Now the Courts and Tribunals Enforcement
Act (2007) means an Englishwoman's home is no longer her castle, and
if I don't let them in, they can batter down my door."

Now, she says, she has no idea what the law is because there is so
much of it. And she's right. We have been inundated with laws since
New Labour came to power. Which law, she wonders, would stop her
shouting "Bollocks to Brown" in Trafalgar Square? "Erm, dunno -
possibly SOCPA? That's the one (Section 132) that was used to arrest,
charge and try Maya Evans for reading out at the Cenotaph the names of
British soldiers killed in Iraq. She was conducting an unauthorised
demonstration within the 'designated area' of one kilometre of the
Houses of Parliament."

She concludes with the latest addition to Jacqui Smith's Stasi - the
"Accredited Persons" now with sub-police powers. These are common or
garden Tom, *** and Harriet council jobsworths who assume they can
offer Strength Through Conformity by stopping people and demanding to
know their details.

Finally she says this:

"How weird this country seems now. Since, ooh, 1997 or so? I'm fed up
to the teeth with it. I don't like seeing 80-year-old socialists
(Walter Wolfgang) being thrown out of Labour Party conferences. I
don't like watching the British Transport Police Counter-Terrorism
Protection Unit stopping and searching 'random' members of the public
at Waterloo Station.

"I don't like knowing that the Government, since the summer of 1997,
has had access to all my landline and mobile-phone records. I say the
Government; I mean 'the Government and 700 designated agencies'. There
was no primary legislation for this one - and no debate in Parliament.
These people are not our friends. They're a nasty bunch. Pray heaven I
live long enough to vote them out."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/30/do3007.xml

And I say, bravo to all that. I hope the final solution to New Labour
will become available to us voters sooner rather than later.

MM
.

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