Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
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See I pretty much agree with Maggie (I do on most things to be honest). But lets take an example and see where we may differ. Currently there are people going mad about, of all things, electric scooters. Now because some people cant stand to see others harming none and having a bit of fun they decided they should be banned and only allowed to operate in peoples gardens. The police are allowed to "cease" these scooters too as under the "road traffic act".
You see the above example is actually THEFT by the police. This is just one area where the police are becoming thugs of government.
To see this example more clearly we can go to extreems and look at the nazi government, they passed "acts" stating all belongings of Jews were the property of the state. This allegedly justifed taking all possesions, later of course it became the jews themselves that were the property of the state to justify the holocaust.
You see how in these cases, regardless of the "acts" that are passed this was still THEFT and was still MURDER. Does not matter how many acts are passed to justify it.
And there we have it, a democracy passing "acts" is not enough, it cant turn wrong into right. we must have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of LAW (being common law, not acts of parliament)
But I would argue that respect for the law in the sense of following due process and the rules laid down, including acts of parliament, in all but the most extreme circumstances, is another necessary condition.
Going by mutually understood rules - common laws in the sense of a common understanding to obey the laws - is crucial to making any state work fairly.
You've quoted a few examples - which I agree with - where following the law was not enough to preserve freedom or prevent tyranny, and I would argue that this was because the people running things - e.g. the NSDAP, the actual Nazis rather than just people who were being called that as an insult, had no love of liberty (or justice, or human beings.
But if you want some examples of people who held elections and loved liberty, but managed to commit vile acts of arbitrary tyranny because they had no adequate concept of the rule of law, you can find plenty of examples of that in history too, perhaps some of the best examples being in the classics - the history of Ancient Greece and of the Roman Republic.
If you've ever read Thucydides "History of the Peloponnesian war" you will already know exactly what I'm talking about. If you have not I strongly recommend it. I suspect you would find it a very interesting read.
You see acts of parliament had their place, but like anything people just cant control themselves. That is why we have a lack of respect for the "rule of law".
Another classic that is often disregarded by people is the TV licence, see there is no "law" requiring people to buy a tv licence if they happen to watch TV, there is only an Act, which requires consent, and as so many people dont consent then its pointless.
We really are in dangerous times now, I would not say we have a lack of respect for the rule of LAW, but we absolutely are seeing people withdraw their concent to be governed under the current system, and the police are being seen more and more as thugs of government.
People know we wont see reform from the inside, the system is broken. We knew from the start that "reform from within" was impossible when it came to the EU, same applies to home government.
People do tend to have a great respect for the rule of law, common law. We have left the EU and now need the reform at home, after all its pointless to take back power from the EU then to hand it to the system that permitted giving it away in the first place.
Theft is wrong, no matter how many acts of parlament are passed to say its ok in certain circumstances.
I don't have any idea what this is supposed to be about so I asked if the author of the post could provide more specific information about what the problem is that he or she thinks the council should be doing something about.
I indicated that I would give 48 hours for this to happen (and I actually gave more than 72 hours.)
There have been no further posts explaining things from this individual and I can't find any indication that the person behind the post has made any other attempt to contact me via email or any other means to explain what his or her concern is.
I am therefore deleting the post and my initial response.
If you have a concern, and you want people to do something about it, then it's really not rocket science to ask that you explain what that concern is and what you think should be done about it in terms which people who are not mind-readers or omniscient can reasonably be expected to understand.
If all you can do is abuse and insult people without even explaining what you are worried about, then you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.