Archive for category Civil Liberty
MP wants to hobble a useful counter-measure to Identity theft
Posted by Nick Cowen in Civil Liberty, Crime on 23/07/2010
Geraint Davies MP wants to end the use of anonymous pre-paid credit cards on the grounds that they can be used to purchase child pornography. The problem with his suggestion is that it doesn’t take into account all the manifold legitimate uses of pre-paid credit cards. In fact, they might well be much more of a force for good, allowing vulnerable people, especially children, to protect their identity on the Internet.
Have Christians Now No Other Lawful Option But to Turn the Other Cheek?
Posted by David Conway in Civil Liberty, Religion on 13/04/2010
Something must have gone very seriously wrong with our judicial system, if it lacks resources to be able to accommodate the equally legitimate, but opposing, claims of homosexuals and religious believers who consider homosexual acts so sinful as to be unable in good conscience to carry out professional tasks requiring them to condone such acts.
PM Calls for Dissolution… Not a Moment Too Soon
Posted by David Conway in Civil Liberty, Health, Politics on 06/04/2010
It has been a very long time since my school-days, but today has something of that same end-of-year feeling that I recall always sensing at the imminent prospect of temporary respite from the tedium of homework and the daily commute to and from school.
Without overmuch hope for any bright new dawn come a new tenancy at Number 10, sufficient clear water still separates the two main parties to give voters with any healthy mistrust of overblown government reason to cast their vote one way rather than another.
The lasting guarantee of a decent education
Posted by James Gubb in Civil Liberty, Education on 07/01/2010
In the Daily Telegraph this week, David Conway writes on the subject of his new book, Liberal Education and the National Curriculum, published by Civitas.
‘Critics of the national curriculum – and they are legion in our classrooms and teacher training colleges – seem curiously unaware that the first person to propose such a curriculum for England was Matthew Arnold.
Continued here.
Why the European Equal Treatment Directive is Creating an Offensive Environment
Posted by David Conway in Civil Liberty, European Union, Political Correctness on 27/10/2009
In last week’s positively surreal broadcast of BBC tv’s Question Time, deputy prime minister Jack Straw blathered on about how Parliament had boldly preserved freedom of expression in Britain by deliberately refraining from making Holocaust denial a crime. In yesterday’s Times, Straw was joined by his cabinet colleague, Foreign Secretary David Miliband, blathering on about how wonderful for Britain is its membership of the EU and how Euro-sceptics should stop whinging and learn to love the wonderful new international power bloc that it will finally become after ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
Meanwhile, the fundamental right of freedom of expression in this country is about to be severely curbed by a brand new directive from Brussels which has crept up on us all with all the customary stealth its edicts typically do.