Letters: What about our civil liberties?

These letters appear in the 4 May edition of The Independent

With only three campaigning days to go, it seems pertinent to remind readers about the last Labour government’s record on human rights.

From 1997 to 2010 Messrs Blair and Brown presided over the most authoritarian non-wartime government Britain has had. State interference and erosion of individual rights knew no bounds.

New criminal offences increased to an average of 27 a month under Tony Blair, and then to 33 a month under Gordon Brown. Sixty new powers were introduced. There were proposals for compulsory National Identity Cards and 90-day detention without charge. There was stop-and-search at airports without reason, control orders and the “snoopers’ charter”.It seemed an almost daily onslaught on our hard-won freedoms.

These draconian measures were opposed not only by the Liberal Democrats and by many Conservatives (led by David Davis), but also by a group of Labour MPs dubbed “the usual suspects”. While the Coalition Government has a by no means perfect record on civil liberties, we have at least been spared the nagging feeling that a police state was gradually being created in this country.

What guarantee have we had that Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper, all involved in those governments, would be more respectful of our rights if they come to power?

Patrick and Teri Walsh

Eastbourne

Congratulations, it’s a princess

Once again we have the unedifying sight of the media drooling over the new member of the Royal Family.

The baby girl will now join the long list of spongers on the civil list. I expect Cameron has already approved the extra spending on bodyguards and all the usual gold plated royal goodies for the baby.

Please excuse me, I must go and genuflect towards the new princess as required by the royalists.

JK Apps

Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk

While I congratulate the royal couple on the birth of their new baby, I have to confess that when someone told me that it was a girl, my first thought was sympathy – that this little girl, irrespective of her gifts and achievements, is going to spend the rest of her life being judged by many in the media and public solely on her appearance and clothing, in a way that her brother George will never be.

Despite the march of feminism, it seems that, to a large section of people, the worth of a woman is measured not by her character or her successes, but by what she wears, how she looks, and how well she conforms to some artificially decided body shape.

Jo Selwood

Oxford

For six hours today I have been trying to get news of what is happening in this country and the rest of the world via the BBC news channel. Apparently the world has shut down because of a baby being born.

I am quite happy that the couple have a healthy child, but just how long is it possible to go on about a new-born baby? Some of us would really like to know what is happening in this last week prior to the election, and the serious events going on around the world.

John Campbell

Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

The first item on the news on Saturday morning was that the Duchess of Cambridge had been admitted to hospital in the first stages of labour. Let’s hope for the sake of fairness in our country that the new baby will start her life in the first stages of Labour.

Stuart Russell

Cirencester

Who fights for Europe?

Why is an EU referendum not one of Liberal Democrat red lines? Can we risk isolating ourselves even more from Europe than David Cameron already has?

Apparently the Americans feel they cannot rely on us any more, as we have hollowed out our capacity and will, diplomatically as we have militarily. This makes our influence in the world much weaker, and is quite as important as the shower of good and bad ideas that the parties are offering voters.

Katerina Porter

London SW10

If as a result of the Tories losing votes to Ukip, they do not form a government, then the likelihood of a European exit referendum will disappear. As Nigel Farage presumably realises this, the fact that he is not encouraging Ukip voters to vote Tory must imply that he has no desire for a referendum and no desire for a British exit.

Does this mean that Farage is a closet Europhile working to maintain Britain’s presence in the community? Or does it mean that if Britain were to exit, he realises he would lose both his jobs? He could no longer be an MEP and what would the point of Ukip be if Britain was no longer part of the European Union and European immigration had therefore ceased?

I think somebody should ask Mr Farage why he is splitting the Tory vote and where his true loyalties lie.

Michael Serginson

Milton Keynes

Greens open to radical ideas

I read with interest your report that the Green leader Natalie Bennett is “open to consultation” about the legalisation of polygamy and civil partnerships involving three or more people. Does this represent a last-minute appeal to swing voters? I suspect that two-party coalitions are more stable.

The Rev Paul Hunt

St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

Voters in deadlock and the UK in peril

If Ed Miliband is likely to need support, post-election, from another party to form a stable government, and rules out the SNP, the only bloc which could be large enough to provide such support, what is the point in voting Labour?

The insensitivity of the main parties at Westminster to the feelings of people living north of Watford, and the demonising of Scotland’s natural leaders, has the potential to create a situation similar to the 19th-century Irish Problem, with all the civil disorder and bloodshed that followed.

Meanwhile, Ukip is fanning the flames of anti-immigrant sentiment. Combine these factors with a post-referendum decision to leave the European Union, with those who wanted to stay in coming mainly from the Celtic fringes and north of the Border, and what hope then for a United Kingdom?

Mike Timms

Iver, Buckinghamshire

While all eyes are focused on the relationship between Labour and the SNP, the Conservatives seem to have no problem cosying up to the DUP, whose founder stoked the fires of a dirty sectarian conflict. Its present leader also has history, having led an illegal incursion into the Republic of Ireland, while only recently its former health minister linked same sex-marriages to child abuse. Do we really want this kind of poisonous politics underwriting a UK government?

David Clarke

Edinburgh

It is remarkable how politicians of the unionist parties have proclaimed the virtues of independence, based on democracy, for countries in all parts of the world, to the point of waging war.

Yet when it comes to the democratic claims for further independence in the countries in the UK, these politicians belittle democracy, choosing non co-operation. Their Putin-like stance will be a lasting legacy of the 2015 election.

G Gruffudd

Swansea

Amid all the hyperbolic speculation of the media into who will go into coalition with whom, no one seems to be commenting on the fact that we are not being given a chance to assess the relative merits of all those likely to be leading their parties in the House of Commons.

Nicola Sturgeon is charismatic and of undoubted ability, but she will not be an MP. Surely it is time that the electorate should be able to scrutinise the candidacy of the person seeking to lead the SNP in Westminster?

Neil Kobish

Barnet, Hertfordshire

Never mind the fuss about Scot Nats and Plaid Cymru messing up the next government. What if Sinn Fein decide to end their nearly 100-year boycott of Westminster and take their seats at Westminster, just as they now sit in Dail Eireann?

This might give the tripartite nationalist coterie a solid block of about 65 seats (10 per cent) in our national assembly. What if their “red-line issue” was immediate Irish reunification? Imagine the effect on the Tories and DUP. Just like a rerun of August 1914.

John MacBryde

London N6

So Nicola Sturgeon says the Scottish people will not forgive Ed Miliband if he would rather not see Labour in power if it means a deal with SNP. Well I for one will never forgive the Scottish people, if voting not for what’s best for the UK but what’s best for Scottish independence leads to a Tory government.

The only way to remove Cameron is to vote Labour.

John Mitchell

Middlesbrough