The Talking Clock is an opinion based, independently authored, small 'c' conservative, libertarian blog.

"The laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof; and all the kings and queens, who shall ascend the throne of this realm, ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws; and all their officers and ministers ought to serve them respectively, according to the same."
Act of Settlement, 1700/01

"And I do declare that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state or potentate hath or ought to have any
jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within this realm."

Bill of Rights, 1689
- an important and still exisiting part of OUR both written and unwritten English constitution

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

Who will protect us from Labour's reign of terror? Why, the House of Lords, old chap...

Lord Steyn, a crossbench peer and former Law Lord, will tonight set out why he thinks Jackboot Jacqui and ZaNuLiebour's proposed compulsory biometric identity card scheme is a breach of civil liberties and useless in the supposed counter terror movement.

According to an interesting report in The Telegraph, he will be joined in his endeavour by Baroness Neville-Jones, the Conservative shadow security minister who - at a separate event - will call for a roll-back of 'Big Brother Britain'.

They follow hot on the heals of Conservative peer Michael, 7th Earl of Onslow who put in an impressive display in defence of the public's civil liberties at a JCHR select committee hearing on political protest.

Last year, former spook boss and crossbench peer Baroness Manningham-Buller spoke out to criticise the proposal to lock people up for 42 days without any charge.

Lots of positives seem to come from the House of Lords when it comes to the defence of our civil liberties. On this one, thank goodness they exist. Goodness only knows what ZaNuLiebour might have done to the British public by now if the House of Lords wasn't there to tell them to naff orf...

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From British traditional values of freedom to traditional British values in architecture...

Another Lord, the acclaimed architect Lord Rogers, accuses Prince Charles of abusing his power in a row over dropped plans for the Chelsea Barracks.

Now, this blog doesn't particularly like Prince Charles much. This blog worships at the temple of Diana, Princess of Wales. We won't reopen that can of worms, but that colours our position on Prince Charles.

But in this architecture row, we're on Prince Charles' side. Have a walk around London. Look at the buildings. Beautiful Edwardian and Victorian architecture aplenty. And in and amongst it, there are no end of 'modern' grotesque twisted contortions of glass and metal - particularly as you head into the City.

Even before this row, we were thinking: "why don't they build beautiful stone buildings any more?".

So we do not mind at all if Prince Charles stepped in and put the stops on another 'glass and steel' architecture project.

Modernity is wonderful in moderation, but traditionalism and classicism have their place, too.

At the end of the day, Prince Charles saying 'yuck' and people changing their mind about design plans is hardly a huge constitutional crisis.

And if Prince Charles wants to go on TV and condemn Labour's erosion of civil liberties and call for political parties to honour their manifesto promises of a referendum on the European Union, we will support him on those things, too.

He won't, of course. More is the pity.

Let's just hope his mother, Her Majesty The Queen, decides to exercise her one constitutional power that hasn't been stolen from her and dissolves Parliament soon instead...

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