Manifest

What interesting times we're in. Here are some of the excellent transport-y things in the new Con-Lib government's all-important joint working agreement:

• The establishment of a high-speed rail network;
• The cancellation of the third runway at Heathrow;
• The refusal of additional runways at Gatwick and Stansted;
• The replacement of the air passenger duty with a per-flight duty.


No great surprises there other than the shift in air duty from individual passengers to aircraft -- something that will piss off the airlines immensely, but will also force them to use smaller aircraft rather than flying around vast but empty planes.


While it's the tax stuff that is generating most of the headlines, some of the most fundamental proposals are in constitutional affairs and civil liberties, including:

• the establishment of five-year fixed-term parliaments (only dissoluble with a 55% vote in the Commons, rather than current the 50% +1 vote);
• a bill proposing a referendum on electoral reform including the alternative vote system, and fewer and more equal sized constituencies;
• a power of recall, where voters can force a byelection with a petition signed by 10% of constituents;


• proposals for a "wholly or mainly elected" upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation, likely to advocate single long terms of office (this is a huge change, and at last signals the death of hereditary legislators);
• in the interim, lords appointments will be made to make the second chamber reflective of the share of the votes in the last general election;
• implementing in full the proposals of the Wright committee for reform to the House of Commons (this is an extremely technical measure covering the way business is managed in the House -- but it is absolutely fundamental to rebalancing the power between the executive and the legislature);


• establishment of a commission to consider the "West Lothian question" (for my overseas readers, this is an issue relating to devolution of powers from the UK government to the constituent nations -- England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. At the moment, MPs from all countries can vote on things that only affect England, whereas those issues in Scotland, etc, are decided in their own national parliaments -- so under the last government the English constantly had policies imposed on them as a result of Scottish and Welsh Labour MPs voting for them safe in the knowledge their own constituents wouldn't be affected).


Civil liberties:
• scrapping of ID cards and the national identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the Contact Point database;
• extension of the Freedom of Information Act to provide greater transparency;
• protection of historic freedoms through the defence of trial by jury;
• restoration of rights to non-violent protest;
• review of libel laws to protect freedom of speech;
• safeguards against the misuse of anti-terrorism legislation (the devil in that one is very much in the detail);
• further regulation of CCTV;
• ending of storage of internet and email records without good reason; and
• a new mechanism to prevent the proliferation of unnecessary new criminal offences.


So much for the stated policies, we've also been promised an emergency budget within 50 days (= very significant cuts), plus a comprehensive spending review starting now and reporting in the Autumn (= even more significant cuts).

And there are some disappointments.

Like, for instance, this evil harpie being created Secretary of State for the Home Department:


Theresa May (she of the "fuck-me" shoe fetish) has consistently voted against lesbian & gay equality. I guess she must think we're sub-human: how else to explain such vicious prejudice? Which makes her other appointment -- as Minister for Equalities -- all the more perplexing.