Surprise Surprise.

So, aye, New Labour in 1997 had all these ambitions to "make the machinery of Government more transparent and open". This goal rings just about as true as Blair's boasting about pursuing an "ethical" foreign policy. So, in order to make the machinery of government more transparent New Labour introduced "the Freedom of Information Act" in 2000 (mind you, it wasn't operative until 2005).

"Oh, it'll foster a flourishing civil society and make us more open to scrutiny" was the official line about the reform. Here's the long title of the Act:

"An Act to make provision for the disclosure of information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for them and to amend the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Public Records Act 1958; and for connected purposes."

Yet the Act has a list the length of my arm (and it's very long) of "exemption situations" wherein the Govt. doesn't have to disclose information should the request for information relate to any of these "exempted areas". Needless to say, these areas touch upon conventional issues such as national security and policing etc etc. but the Act also provides for any Minister to effectively step in and refuse to disclose information on any topic they choose. Furthermore, today, the Govt. has succeeded in getting David Maclean's private member bill advocating the amending of the Act to effectively exclude Ministerial/MP's correspondence and financial details back onto the Parliamentry agenda.

This gets on my tits immensely. Back tracking and watering down of legislation originally enacted to reform the governmental system by New Labour isn't a new thing. Just look at the 2000 "Parties, Elections and Referenda" Act and how New Labour dodged the fucking bullet over that by getting not "donations" from those seeking peerages, but "loans". Sneaky cunts - because that Act only allows for "Donations" over £5,000 to be declared.

Ugh. Today goes from bad to fucking worse with every passing hour.