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Dodgy Fax Only Source of Media Regulation Laws Voted on by MPs
There was a massive failure of transparency in the way the House of Commons operated on Monday the 18th of March 2013 in relation to the debates on proposed new press regulation laws. Two key documents which were debated were not publicly available online from an official source prior to the debate. They are: The […]
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Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner – Commissioners’ National Role
Police and Crime Commissioners will have an important role ensuring that national bodies, particularly the new National Crime Agency provide the services the need to help them achieve their local objectives. Commissioners will have a leadership and scrutiny role nationally as well as locally. Police and Crime Commissioners will also I suspect find themselves lobbying […]
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Huppert’s Law
Exciting news – I have chance to present a 10-minute rule Bill to Parliament on the 10th. I need to decide topic by tuesday. Any ideas? #fb — Julian Huppert (@julianhuppert) June 28, 2012 On the morning of Thursday the 28th of June 2012 Cambridge MP Julian Huppert tweeted to say: Exciting news – I […]
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The Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012
The Police and Crime Commissioner Elections Order 2012 (Draft) Twitter rumours suggested earlier this week that a draft of the rules for Police and Crime Commissioner elections had been “laid before parliament”. “Laid before parliament” is a counter-intuative and often misleading term which does not mean the document in question has necessarily been, or will […]
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Julian Huppert PMQ on Workers’ Rights
Cambridge MP Julian Huppert got the first question at Prime Minister’s questions on the 9th of November 2011. After having asked the always topical question of: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 November. which prompted the predictable response of: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others and, in […]
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Parliament Blown Open by Hackers
1st edition of Thomas Erskine May’s book “A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament”. (Copyright on the 1st edition has expired). An electronic copy of the text of Erskine May, the book which contains the rules under which which Parliament functions, has today been released by pro-democracy and pro-transparancy hackers. The […]
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Julian Huppert at the Maypole
Julian Huppert MP at the Maypole Pub On Friday evening Cambridge’s MP Julian Huppert spent a couple of hours in the upstairs room of the Maypole pub fielding questions and talking to people. I think this was absolutely brilliant and it was great to see our MP openly engaging with people at a free, informal, […]
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Libel Reform
The government is currently considering proposals for a reform of the UK’s libel laws. A draft bill has been published which would introduce new provisions for defences of “Responsible publication on matter of public interest” and “Honest opinion” on a matter of public interest which could be used by those responding to charges of defamation. […]
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Reforming UK Extradition Arrangements
Members of the public can have their say on a review into the UK’s extradition arrangements. The Home Office is currently inviting members of the public to have their say on a review into the UK’s extradition arrangements. The closing date was 31st December 2010, but it has now, almost silently, been extended to the […]
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Prodding the Home Office to Resume Publishing Statistics on TASER use by the Police
Statistics on the use of TASER weapons by the UK police used to be published quarterly by the Home Office. This routine pro-active publication has stopped and the latest published data available at the time of writing is from September 2009*; it is well over a year old. I have been chasing the Home Office […]