Digital
And we all know how important the Digital agenda is, how new and sexy it is.
The government wants to introduce a Digital Bill, sources familiar with its plans have revealed to The Register. The timescale would most likely see legislation announced in the Queen’s Speech in May 2017. The Ministry of Fun, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, is co-ordinating the exploratory work. Nothing has been …
When in doubt, draw up a parliamentary bill so vague, that it might be interpreted in any way that you choose. Add in amendments to allow it to be expanded to cover situations outside of the immediate descriptions in the original preamble.
If possible, prevent MPs from discussing the bill by forcing it through under a 10 minute rule; ignore calls for it to be scrutinised in committee. Use the Parliamentary Act to prevent any hold ups by the Lords. Then apply the legislation for purposes or in ways that were clearly never considered.
What could possibly go wrong?
When in doubt, draw up a parliamentary bill so vague, that it might be interpreted in any way that you choose. Add in amendments to allow it to be expanded to cover situations outside of the immediate descriptions in the original preamble.
Ah, the Blair Protocol (although he didn't seem to suffer much from self-doubt). Nice* to see it's being faithfully copied by our current lords and masters.
* For no values of 'nice'.
At least all legislation is fully announced in parties' manifestos, with the exact diffs to existing legislation presented BEFORE the election. So the people affected by changes in legislation can make an informed choice between the red or blue Oxbridge blazer-eunuchs.
Or just get elected and do what you want for 5 years.
... well, anything we like, basically, because it will probably all be done through Statutory Instruments which let us change the laws as we see fit without needing to tell anyone about the changes until they're done...
FTFY
Surely the the Honourable Mr Vaizey is a "He" unless the Register is now adopting a gender neutral stance?
Surely the correct opinion is "We should have one".
Surely the correct approach is to forget about manufacturing and concentrate on the Intellectual Property models like ARM and implementing protectionist policies. Ok. the US patent office is overwhelmed and full of prior art, but we should be implementing a wider definition of patents to include business models and software, and legal aid and support for intellectual property cases.
"One can only hope it will start with wrestling the national telecommunications infrastructure from the hands of BT."
Why would they do that? It was privatised because generations of govts failed to find the cash to invest in it. To wrestle it back, as you put it, they'd have to find the cash to buy it back. Then they'd have to find more cash to invest in it. Are you saying investment should cease or do you want to pay more taxes? Or do you know of a magic money tree that'll finance all this?