The proposals, which will compel telecoms companies to retain data about customer calls and internet usage for one year, comes after Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to crack down on encrypted communications over the internet. But encryption is a normal part of internet security. This is dangerous nonsense. Besides, it doesn't make us any safer. In fact, the recent shocking murder of Lee Rigby was facilitated by the fact that our security agencies have too much useless information to wade through, much of which returns false positives during keyword searches because people talk about what happened in the films or programmes they've seen, or mention that something they bought cost a bomb. They are too busy sifting through all that trying to find any useful data to go about the business of catching criminals and stopping terrorists. Indeed, most of the high profile arrests made lately were for making abusive or foolish comments online. They're not catching terrorists or criminals, they're catching people who make fools of themselves online. We are no safer. "In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?" he asked rhetorically in justification. "In our country, do we want to force people to leave their doors and windows open to let the law enforcement and security agencies in as and when required? Do we want to grant them instant access to all our private business without question?" FIFY, Dave. Further reading - http://www.computing.co.uk/ctg/news/2391667/-snoopers-charter-sneaked-in-to-counter-terrorism-bill Please sign this petition. We stopped the Snooper's Charter for a reason. They should NOT be allowed to sneak unwanted legislation back in under the guise of amendments to existing laws. It's anti-democratic. UPDATE: A last-minute attempt to revive a "snoopers' charter" before the general election has been dropped... The BBC understands they will try again next week unless the Home Office publishes a government redraft of the bill, of which the Lords has been told... In response, the peers withdrew the proposed amendments, which threatened to enshrine the controversial measures in law, and called on the government to produce its draft... A source told the BBC that if the Home Office was to refuse that request, the "snoopers' charter" proposals would be revived once again and added to the draft counter-terrorism legislation. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31001575 Can you BELIEVE these people? Lord King is a former Conservative defense secretary, Lord Blair is a former Metropolitan Police commissioner, Lord West is a former Labour defense minister and Lord Carlile is a former Liberal Democrat reviewer of counter-terror laws. Each of them was around during the Troubles when attacks were taking place in mainland Britain and they weren't calling for mass surveillance then. Like The Terminator, they'll be back. We need to show them that we know this and that every time they try to put this in, we will be right there to yank it back out. Please keep signing this and please use https://www.writetothem.com/lords to write to each of the lords involved in this atrocious attempt to undermine our right to privacy.

Surely, when so many people throughout Britain are in poverty regardless of how hard they try to work their way out of it, we can agree that to put massive amounts of public funding in to an obsolete defence system is unjustifiable, and to do so without the consent of the public is indefensible. Read more here: http://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/scottish-politics/labour-mps-to-snub-commons-trident-debate.116412304 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/17/trident-future-election-agenda-costs-spiral-nuclear-submarines

Because I feel it is taking money unfairly from single parents to provide for their one or more children.

This is especially important to the NHS. The NHS gets a LOT of funding, plenty of funding to provide an excellent 24h 365 day service to millions. BUT: A HUGE amount of this funding is syphoned off to "Private Finance Initiative" deals whereby a hospital that costs 1.34Bn to build is actually costing 10.32Bn via PFI repayments. This is the reason the NHS is so stretched,- the amount given by the treasury to the NHS is plenty for the service, but it its being massively wasted by epically badly planned government devised PFI deals whereby middle men and hedge funds make an absolutely (offshore) fortune from the fact they can charge anything (and do) and the government can't (legally or morally) give in and let hospitals go to waste. ===== Why has this occurred? The PFI deals came around from Gordon Brown as Treasury Cabinet Minister to allow the government to make massive expenses and to not declare them because they're actually "Private business" expenses, so the government says "Over the course of 10/25 years we will pay you an amount you want if you build this [hospital/airbase/whatever] for us right now. The Businesses said "oooh yes!" and built what was asked and had a legal contract in place that the government would pay them back a net sum approximately (as illustrated above) of approximately ten times the build cost. Failure to pay back the costs (for example if voters forced government to renegotiate or void the contract) would also be covered by legally binding charges for ~8Bn, in the example above and rather than paid for over years that would be IMMEDIATELY REQUIRED. So the government and the NHS is saddled with massive charges that are extortionate, just for build now, pay later hospital buildings. ===== What we Can do: We can not (as detailed above) void the current contracts, but we can push and force the government to remove PFI as an option for any future contracts for any public service, and also make government only take contracts where the costs are reasonable, and provable - as often PFI contracts where awarded by only being a few hundred pounds under the nearest competition offer - and then once awarded the contract costs "escalated". Certain politicians (David Cameron, I believe) did promise to end PFI before taking office, but has now changed his tune - force him to keep his word. Force his successor to keep his word. PFI is now widespread across the NHS and is the principle cause of shortage of funding, it is also getting a larger and larger hold in the UK Armed forces as well as other departments of government. We Must Stop It. ===== Background reading: This issue is well outlined in Private Eye 1383 page 10. this issue is also very well explained in the Private Finance Initiative Special Report by Paul Foot in 2004.

This will go a great way to re-engaging the general public with politics and increasing trust in politicians. There would be obvious problems when coalition governments occur, but this would have to be written into the manifesto promises, i.e. If we are given a majority we would do this.. If we are in coalition we would do this.. Therefore whomever they enter into a coalition with would understand what bargains they are entering into from the start. This would limit rash promises and give much greater weight to any promises that are made.

I believe that the government has totally misled the electorate regarding the introduction of the new state pension in 2016.Mr Cameron's pitch at the launch in 2013 promised that "the idea here is that for new pensioners in 2017 instead of the £100 or so basic state pension it'll be over £140" This promise has been repeated and reinforced by other government members such as Steve Webb and Ian Duncan Smith. Consequently, most people retiring after 2016 believe they will receive a state pension in excess of £150 a week. This is completely untrue and misleading. Firstly, anyone of the millions of people in an occupational pension were automatically opted out of paying additional state pension contributions .All of these people, providing they have paid 35 years NI, will only receive the old state pension of £113/week. Those who paid into "the additional state pension" will receive, quite correctly, what they would have been due under the old system The question to ask, therefore, is who actually is better off under the new system. The truthful answer is very few people. For the majority nothing changes. There will be only gradual increases to the state pension as people pay the increased NI contributions .Only in 30+ years will David Cameron's promise of equality for all be true. Unsurprisingly, the government has been" economical with the truth" It is all "smoke and mirrors"- a cheap headline and vote winner. My intention is to highlight the situation so that millions of people are not misled into expecting far more than they will actually receive. I want the government to admit their inaccurate rhetoric and publish a true and accurate guide of future state pensions.

Across the country, self-employed people who are low earners and therefore claim working tax credits have received letters from an organisation called Concentrix [a private, unelected and unaccountable body working on behalf of HMRC].These letters state that the recipients' self-employed status is to be investigated, and demand proof of hours worked. A person working alone from home will normally have no way to prove the hours spent on preparation, planning, strategising, thinking, social media, networking, paperwork, website management or any of the other daily responsibilities of a small business person. In the absence of this "proof", tax credits will be stopped. This will force many hardworking people to cease their business and become unemployed. Small businesses are the foundation stones of a strong economy. This policy will cause untold hardship and damage, not only human but also economic.

TTIP will have a major impact on the lives of the people of Haringey. * It represents a dangerous new step in the process of opening public services - including health and social welfare, housing, education and the environment - to unaccountable, private, corporations. * It undermines the ability of local authorities to impose minimum standards of employment, training, quality, environmental protection, energy conservation, or health and safety. * It ‘locks-in’ the current privatization programme and makes it extremely difficult for future local authorities to take back, ‘in house’, contracted out services.

The UK Government have assured us that any other transfer of sovereignty away from the Westminster Parliament should be put to a referendum. This treaty is a back door method of getting around this pledge to the detriment of our democracy and sovereignty.

There is a public school educated parliamentary candidate who uses the persona of a xenophobic ale swilling buffoon to emulate an affinity with the "working man". Opposing this candidate in South Thanet, is Al Murray, pub landlord. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jan/14/al-murray-the-pub-landlord-to-stand-against-nigel-farage-in-south-thanet Yet Al Murray, and a number of other National party leaders who spend a lot less time in pubs, and a lot more time on politics, will not have the chance to prove himself against the three major parties, and, for some reason, Nigel Farage (also running in South Thanet). Sign Now to grant Al Murray and other national party leaders their say in the leaders' debates. The recently formed Free United Kingdom Party (FUKP) seeks to oppose Nigel Farage's UKIP party in their leader's intended constituency. It would seem that someone informed the beer swilling funny-man that there's no point running against the Speaker, which is a seat traditionally uncontested. Despite polling below flipper and other joke candidates, see: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/07/nigel-farage-ukip-john-bercow Nigel Farage and his party have been given far too much attention by the mainstream media in the UK. We think this should stop, and that the national media must ensure that national parties gain fair representation in national news.

This will focus everyone on the national democratic importance of elections and encourage participation. It would also raise children's awareness of the importance of elections so they can be more informed and interested by the time they are adults and have voting responsibility.

Scotland is part of the UK. Many policies affecting Scotland are decided by the Westminster government, and even some of the devolved policies are affected by Westminster, and SNP MP's vote on these matters. The SNP currently have 6 MP's and 2 MEP's. They hold 64 seats out of 129 in the Scottish Parliament. They have over 92,000 members. Polling suggest that in May the SNP could win up to 32 Westminster seats and could be the third largest party in Westminster. UKIP are being included in the debates. They have 2 very recent MP's and 24 MEP's. They have 42,000 members. The same polling suggests that they could win 3 seats at the election. The Liberal Democrats, by the same polling forecast could win 27 seats. The SNP could therefore have more seats than the LibDems and UKIP combined and have a greater impact on decisions on policy. I think people across the UK should be able to hear how the SNP could affect policies after 2015.