Masochist's Dictionary: That's Not What I Asked

Conflate: v. Join two or more separate ideas together, often deliberately in order to mislead or divert.

More by chance than design I'm just managing to sneak in under my self-imposed two month barrier. Mr Battle has responded, and much more quickly, to be fair, than this post might suggest, although his actual letter - reproduced below - is much more incoherent than his previous efforts.

10 March 2006

Thank you for your latest letter about the Government's programme.

In view of your concerns perhaps I should emphasise that as someone who campaigned and voted against the first Gulf War - and indeed the more recent involvement in Iraq I did not believe it to be the right decision.

However, we still do face issues of violence and terrorism including in our own communities - as last summer in London and Leeds graphically and traumatically demonstrated. Of course we must protect individual rights but they are never existent in a vacuum but in the context of a society. Hence individuals are not free to say or do just as they like. Getting the balance right between personal 'freedom' and a real sense of personal and community safety is not easy in the current contemporary context. Those who believe personal liberty should override all (including some newspaper commentators) are campaigning (and misreading) the legislative and regulatory reform bill.

I actually believe from my experience as a Minister that a greater clarity between the powers of the executive and political authority will be helpful at this stage.

Thank you for your interest in these matters.

A few points:

1] I'm aware of and applaud his stance on the conflicts in Iraq, but that don't mean the same applies to everything else he does or says.

2a]Yes, I have been in correspondence with him over ID cards, and the grave threats that they pose to our personal liberty (not to mention all the other objections you can raise). Incidentally, why not follow the advice of Charles Clarke (and there's a phrase I never expected to write - who'd have thought David Blunkett's successor could conceivably be more odious? *Update* I gather it's not just me) and renew your passport now rather than get co-opted onto the National Identity Register:

anyone who feels strongly enough about the linkage not to want to be issued with an ID card in the initial phase will be free to surrender their existing passport and apply for a new passport before the designation order takes effect. (source, approx seven paragraphs in).

The 'opt-out' negotiated by the Lords is no such thing - yes, you can choose not to have the actual card, but you still have to provide all the same details for the database, and it will still cost you the same amount of money.

2b]Still, I digress: I was hoping my constituency MP might respond to my point about the increasing dominance of the executive over the legislature, rather than whatever some newspaper commentators might or might not have said about the legislative and regulatory reform bill and personal liberty.

3]And what does that fourth paragraph mean? In my eyes - and not just mine - the bill would greatly clarify the relationship, giving the executive significantly more scope to significantly change legislation without parliamentary oversight. Have you seen the list of acts which would be affected by this bill? I'm not convinced that clarity per se is such a desirable quality. If anyone still doubts this government's propensity for knee-jerk authoritarianism, just listen to the mood music being played recently.

4]Still, no such mystery over the final paragraph, although Mr Battle seems to have forgotten the second half of the sentence, which, given that he has been known to discourage me from hesitating to contact him, is clearly "now piss off and don't trouble me again".

Given everything else which is going on in my life at the moment, it's difficult to summon up the energy to do reply, especially if he cannot be arsed to even pretend to counter my points. So farewell*, then, representative democracy, it was nice while it lasted.

*Terms and conditions apply.