Pakistan Flooding Continues

17 million people already affected… 

  

Floodwaters are still rising in Pakistan; the area covered to date is larger than the UK. These are the worst floods in many decades, they began a month ago with the rain hammering the country’s northwest region, over 1,600 people have died and the floods are affecting over 17 million people with 1.2 million houses being destroyed, leaving an estimated 8 million people homeless. The waters are now spreading through the rice-growing belt in Sindh province, 4.25 million acres of land and crops have been destroyed or extensively damaged. The scale of the disaster is overtaking the relief efforts and more aid is needed urgently to help the millions of people affected.Please donate to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Pakistan Floods Appeal by clicking here or by phone on 0370 60 60 900.

Lib Dems Deliver on Clamping

 

The Lib Dems will be delivering on another manifesto commitment when car clamping on private land is banned.
Liberal Democrat ministers Lynne Featherstone and Norman Baker have announced that car clamping on private land is to be banned as part of the Freedom Bill this Autumn.

Home Office minister Lynne Featherstone MP when making the announcment said:

“The Government is committed to ending the menace of rogue private sector wheel clampers once and for all.

“For too long motorists have fallen victim to unscrupulous tactics by many clamping firms. Reports of motorists being marched to cash points or left stranded after their car has been towed are simply unacceptable.

“A ban on clamping and towing on private land will end this abuse and companies who decide to flout new laws will face severe penalties.”

This is a link to the BBC website article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10993473

Now Labour wants to snoop on your Facebook activities

servers

Liberal Democrats have uncovered the Governments latest installment of ‘Big Brother’ society with plans to monitor activity on social
networking sites. Home Office minister Vernon Coaker revealed the shocking proposals in a series of exchanges with Liberal Democrat Home
Affairs spokesman Tom Brake.

In the admission, Vernon Coaker disclosed that social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace may be forced to retain private
information about users’ web-browsing habits including the name of every person they correspond with on the site. This mass-surveillance strategy
will be executed under a terror strategy guise, even though almost half the British population – some 25 million people – are members of social
networking sites and are unlikely to have any links with terrorism.

The illiberal move has been attacked by Liberal Democrat MPs, security experts and civil liberty groups alike with Tom Brake describing the
proposals as, “the most expensive snooper’s charter in history”. “It is deeply worrying that they now intend to monitor social networking sites
which contain very sensitive data like sexual orientation, religious beliefs and political views. ”

Tom Brake added that, “Given the Government’s disastrous record with large IT projects and data security, it is likely that data will leak
out of every memory stick, port and disk drive when they start monitoring Facebook, Bebo and MySpace.”

You can back the Liberal Democrat campaign to restore people’s privacy and freedom at http://freedom.libdems.org.uk

Give Us Back Our Rights!

The Liberal Democrats have published their Freedom Bill, detailing how the party plans to roll back the authoritarian laws passed by both Labour and Conservative governments which have undermined civil liberties.

Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords protest the restrictions on demonstrating outside Parliament during the passage of the Serious and Organised Crime Act.

The legislation is the first time a major political party has collated all of the laws which have undermined civil liberties into one Bill, so that they can be easily repealed. By axing expensive and ineffective measures that hinder and keep tabs on innocent people, the Bill will help switch efforts to catching the guilty instead.

The 20 measures contained in the draft legislation will:
– Abolish the veto in the Freedom of Information Act that allows ministers to keep information secret
– Scrap the expensive mandatory ID card scheme
– Remove all innocent people from the DNA database, except for those tried for a violent or sexual offence
– Stop councils and others snooping by restricting the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) to serious and terrorist offences
– Regulate CCTV to protect privacy following a Royal Commission on the use of cameras

You can view the bill in detail, comment on the draft and sign up to back the campaign at http://freedom.libdems.org.uk

The scandal of our wasted taxes

A shocking dossier from the Liberal Democrats has revealed just some of the ways our taxes are being wasted on extravagant and incompetent projects.

luxury party

Despite the hardship many local families and residents face, Labour found £130 million to refurbish the Ministry of Justice’s office, £29 million to build accommodation for asylum seekers which was never built, £7 million for chauffeur-driven cars for ministers in just one year – and £50,000 for a party to which only 20 guests were invited!

A massive £13 billion has also been spent on an NHS records system which doesn’t work.

How our money is wasted

* £13 billion on an NHS record system that is a complete failure
* £130 million on refurbishing Ministry of Justice offices
* £81 million on a Department of Transport economy drive that was supposed to save £57 million
* £29 million on accommodation for asylum seekers that was never built
* £265.8 million the amount the government spent on advertising, marketing and public relations in 2007/8, an increase of £197.2 million since 1997-98
* £200 million wasted over the past five years on IT projects that were never completed
* £7 million on chauffeur driven cars for ministers in one year
* £28.78 million in rent for unoccupied houses for soldiers and their families
* £330 million overspent by government departments on their premises
* £4.2 million by the Government’s Qualifications & Curriculum Authority on hotel rooms in an 18 month period
* £50,000 on a party to which only 20 guests were invited
* £2,000 each on image and public speaking training for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and Culture Secretary Andy Burnham