Data Retention isn't enough

[ken]

Richard Clayton wrote:
[...]
> Then James Brokenshire (Con) [...]
>        I say to the Minister that, if my party is elected,
>        we will legislate to put in place the necessary protections and
>        to undo anything that the Government have put in place that
>        conflicts with those protections.
> 
> which looks exactly like a promise to me!

You obviously never watched enough "Yes Minister"!

Of course they will "legislate to put in place the necessary 
protections". Who could object to necessary protections?  They 
will (if elected)  decide what those necessary protections are 
at the time. So the statement says nothing.

A *promise* would say what the "neccessary protections" are.

Old-style weasel words that never go out of fashion. They 
probably said the same sort of thing in ancient Sumer.

Unlike the new-style weasel words favoured by "new Labour" & the 
recent and unmourned Bush administration in the USA. Such as 
"Interception Modernisation Programme", an obvious cheap 
rhetorical trick to imply that any objectors are against 
"modernisation" and so are totally irrelevant. That has gone out 
of fashion. No-one is taken in by it any more. The word "modern" 
is so dated these day.

If we could get all the parties to agree that any front-bencher 
who makes a speech or writes an article using the words "modern" 
or "modernisation" or "target" or "performance" about about any 
aspect of government policy should be forced to stand naked in 
Parliament Square and read the entire Human Rights Act out loud 
to the assembled tourists, we'd be getting somewhere.  And 
something even worse should happen to any of them who mentions 
both "rights" and "responsibilities" in the same sentence, or 
repeats the old lie about liberty and equality being opposed to 
each other.