CIVIL LIBERTY: UR DOIN IT RONG

[owl]

Just when I thought my opinion of the DUP couldn't sink any lower, they go and vote for the 42 day detention, helping it scrape in.

Does nobody remember how wonderfully internment worked last time?? Obviously the DUP were on the side that wasn't getting locked up without trial, but you'd think they might possibly have caught a clue looking at the results.

Of course, I doubt very much the vote was from conviction. Whatever they were bought for, I hope it was something good. I'll just be off to rearrange my proportional representation order for the next election.

For crying out loud, even the BNP are against 42 days! You know there's got to be something wrong whenever your MPs are less in favour of civil liberties than the neo-Nazis.

Comments

[icudoc.livejournal.com]

Well I suppose the promise of a few seats in the Lords will buy any old vote nowdays...
On a similar note , down here we had the Lisbon Referendum. The only big(ish) party against it was the Shinners.
God, now that is depressing.
Severe lack of debate there...

[owl]

I don't think we're even getting a referendum on Lisbon here. Bah.

[icudoc.livejournal.com]

Nope - Gordon Brown knows whats in your hearts!
But I find it depressing to be on the side of the Shinners.
Mind you, after the Nice Referendum was rejected the Government down here just imposed another vote so we would get it right.
Democracy in action!
*g*

[(Anonymous)]

So it looks like Munster, Leinster, Connaught and bit of Ulster SEZ NO, then.

[icudoc.livejournal.com]

But The Man From Del Monte - he say YES!
*g*

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

Sinn Fein must be having an absolute field day with this as far as recruitment goes. Everyone I've heard from is furious about it, and I don't blame you guys (not that my side of the pond has any kind of moral authority about internment and due process (thank you, Guantanamo Bay), but wrong is wrong).

I hope the UUP manages to take a bunch of their seats in your next election. I was impressed with the people from the UUP we got to meet with while I was there. They were smart, they were compassionate, they cared about the whole population of Northern Ireland, and they were not batguanoloco, which is more than I can say about a lot of what I've seen from the DUP.

[owl]

The DUP spent years and years being batguanoloco, had a period for a few years where they were relatively sane, at least at the local government level, and are now going batguanoloco in a slightly different direction. It depends a lot on who your MP/MLA/council people are.

The UUP lost massive amounts of ground when people started seeing them as having sold out. Sadly the tendency of the Unionist electorate is to move to the right, and they really can't get much farther in that direction.

The electorate as a whole has moved to the extremes. This is a pretty effective illustration of it. I doubt this vote is going to swing it back to the centre.

[leeflower.livejournal.com]

We learned a bit about the extremes in our politics class--how it was the SDLP and UUP who held the power around the time of the Belfast Agreement, but since then people have been running right and left-- to the DUP and Sinn Fein.

I understand there are people now who think the DUP sold out, too, and are trying to run further to the right than that. I don't know what it would take to cause a sudden shift back to the middle, but a slow, incremental shift could probably happen with a lot of hard campaigning.