Oh dear, they just don't get it, do they?
The bill should give greater protection to groups such as children, the elderly and those with learning difficulties ... Labour and the Conservatives agree on the need for a new Bill of Rights ... The committee said the bill should include rights to housing, education and a healthy environment.
That sounds like a list of suggestions for more state interference and control to me. The whole thrust of the Bill of Rights 1689* is to restrict the powers of the State rather than to painfully list various individual 'rights' or causes du jour.
* The Bill is still in force. My favourite bit - as a tax simplification campaigner - is " ... levying money for or to the use of the Crown by pretence of prerogative, without grant of Parliament, for longer time, or in other manner than the same is or shall be granted, is illegal", which, if honoured, would render three-quarters of our tax laws illegal at a stroke.
Sunday, 10 August 2008
"Call to adopt UK Bill of Rights"
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
As the potential list of things we are allowed to do is almost infinite, I think each voter should be allowed to nominate one "right" each, and then the government could enact the top few thousand or so.
I'll go for the right to stand in a corner on one leg with pencils up my nose.
Anything that is dependent on the availability of financial resources cannot be a right, it can only be a desire.
This is an absurd proposal which turns the concept of rights on its head.
Post a Comment