The Internet Association for Tree Hugging, Badger Loving, NHS Saving, Petition Signing and Other Worthy Causes Too Numerous To Mention, more generally known as 38 Degrees, has, at great expense, assisted a clutch of learned friends with their mortgage payments. In return, the learned friends have produced an opinion.
A few months back, Dr Death opened his coffin, exhaled a similar set of legal opinions, and retired, the silk-lined lid closing silently behind him. He has since remained as silent as a stiff on the matter.
In both cases, Dr No believes the seekers of the legal opinions have committed an error, perhaps even grave enough to put in some jeopardy the ultimate aim, that of bringing about the withdrawal of the Health and Social Care Bill. He believes 38 Degrees’ error to be especially unfortunate, occurring as it does only days before the Bill’s third reading.
Why, you may well ask, is Dr No against the active deployment of a legal opinion which, after all, endorses what Dr No has been saying all along? Has he taken leave of his senses? Surely he should welcome rather than decry such a development?
And yet he does not, for these two reasons. The first is that, at a time when all effort should be directed towards persuading as many people as possible to write to their MP, saying: ‘do not, as you value your parliamentary seat, vote in favour of this Bill’, the elaboration of clear statement – this Bill will dismantle the NHS – into the complexities of legal argument will for many, act not so much as a spur to action, as a turn-off: yet another endless legal wrangle, mired in endless (51 to be precise) pages of legal opinion, and so a diversion from the essential: the landing of letters and emails in front of MPs who will, in a week’s time, determine the fate of the Bill.
The second reason is that, not only is it unnecessary to seek a legal opinion to establish the obvious, the act of so doing curiously and on the face of it paradoxically weakens the argument. By reframing a statement of the blooming obvious as a worthy opinion, we are invited to contemplate the possibility of alternative opinions. What, we might ask, would have been the outcome had the government sought an opinion? What if it has sought an opinion from the very same advisers? As many who have called in the lawyers know to their pain, all too often the only certainties, once learned friends are called in, are rising costs, longer delays and decreasing clarity.
Which are the last things we need at this stage, with only days to go before the Bill’s third reading. Instead we need action: a torrent of emails and letters landing on MPs’ desks, that will still be painfully fresh in their minds when the time comes next week to vote on the Bill.
Googling your MP’s surname and ‘parliament.uk’ will almost invariably lead you to your MP’s email address. Alternatively, you can search here.
Dr No has written to his MP – have you?
I have written to my MP on numerous occasions re the Bill and must admit that the last time was motivated by a 38 Degrees newsletter.
Forwarding the newsletter – which I have done to all and sundry – is more effective in motivating others to write to their MPs than the spoken word. I have had an approx. 60% ‘Done it!’ response at the time of writing. (If I had spoken to them re the Bill on the phone or in person – I am certain that the request would be well hidden in some distant (forgotten) file in their memory banks).
Unfortunately, words appear more easy to forget than an email missive, and unfortunately – there is so much apathy out there in the big wide world – it scares me!
Legal opinion perhaps not neccesary – but maybe, just maybe appears to add more weight and urgency to this particular 38 Degrees campaign. So, if it lights a firecracker in someones rear end and motives them to put pen to email paper – all well and good.
We shall cross our fingers and see.
Anna :o]
wrote to mine, he replied he was in favour of the bill. He also has one of the safest tory seats in the country and is chair of the 1922 committee.
I have ‘adopted a Peer’, Lord Haskins & written to him about the health bill. I googled Lord ‘Haskins NHS’ to find out his position and adapted my letter to acknowledge his expertise and to highlight our shared values and hopes for the NHS, even though I doubt we oculd more opposed. You can adopt your own peer & write to them too: http://bit.ly/pfuvUW
It is interesting that the HSCB might never have got off the ground if a certain influential doctor from Scotland had not written to every MP in an attempt to support his friend, Alan Milburn. His action may well have swung the votes ultimately leading to where we are now.
http://witchdoctor.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/the-modus-operandi-of-the-demi-pied-pipers-little-helper/
If the common man or woman were to write to every MP in the Commons, the letter would be bounced back saying that parliamentary protocol dictates that they can only deal with issues from their own constituents. However, a precedent seems to have been set by “The “Demi-Pied Piper’s Little Helper.” But then, he might have been considered more important than the common man or woman, and as a result his communication may have served it’s purpose by resulting in a narrow majority in favour of Milburn’s proposals.
The wonder of the House of Lords, (and this is one of the reasons why The Witch Doctor supports a diverse Upper House that is not completely infiltrated by political animals whether elected or not), is that any of us can write to any of them, in fact any of us can write to every single one of them if we have the time and patience and as far as I know there will be no protocol resulting in the letter (or eMail) being bounced back.
So, I agree. We should be preparing ourselves to inform the Lords right now. One of them or all of them. And we should be grateful that at least some of them are not political puppets placed there by the lower house.
Dr No is right. The legal detail of all this matters not a jot. What matters is the government’s intent which, despite attempts to obfuscate, are becoming clear even to those who used to refer to me as alarmist.
My MP, a cabinet minister, is also secure in his seat. He does not quite send me dismissive letters but I can read between the lines. I have a patient (NHS!) who is a member of the House of Lords. Brief chats with him tell me that there are lords with entrenched views too. After all many of them are essentially retired politicians. There’s no point in pushing on locked doors. But I agree with WD and Mellojonny that approach the nobles would now appear to be the way forward. Writing to them all is an option. Can we be more selective by finding out which of them is most sympathetic and which have open minds?