Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill

Heard about this last night on, of all things, Radio 4's the News Quiz. Sandi Toksvig seemed to make an unscripted announcement that the Bill had gone through the Commons on the nod, and would effectively exempt MPs (and Lords) from the Freedom of Information Act.

This was done on the day that everyone was busy reporting the arrest of TCB's aide, and the ONLY news report on this I can find was the Grauniad.

A good day to bury bad news? Another erosion of the right of the great unwashed to find out what their elected representatives are up to?

And will Toksvig get slapped by the BBC hierarchy? - certainly the other panellists seemed a bit uncertain about what was going on.

 

Fcuking disgusting!

Now the MP's can lie, cheat, steal and fcuk little children, but we'll never get to know about it.

Utter cnuts!

 

This it? here

 

This government never fail to amaze me.

Another problem with this bill is that most MP's would want it to pass regardless of whether they are labour or not. Well if they have stuff they want kept hidden they will.

All parties as a whole will probably have been very happy for this to pass quietly. Hopefully it will get reported widely now so that the general public can watch it and see how their MP votes be able to apply a lottle pressure.

If they work for us why do they feel the need to keep things like this quiet so we don't know what they are doing.

This is another area we would benefit in having a constitutional right to access information and another area where the Scottish MP's are doing better than our own.

 

why are we suprised that this bunch of hypocritical, thieving, workshy, scamming, useless, power crazy, me me me, spineless, bunch off cnuts are fcuking us over again? do as I say not do as I do.

 

I find it hard to see any justification for this amendment. The FoI Act already includes exemptions for such things as Parliamentary privilege and prejudice to the effective function of public affairs... what is it about their business - business conducted in our names, that is - that needs protecting but isn't already covered by an exemption?
I suppose this pisses me off as much as anything because local government, at least the bit of it I work in, takes the FoI Act quite seriously. What's next? Exemption for county councillors?