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Brussels leads assault on our privacy and liberties
• APPLAUSE for Councillor Greg Foxsmith’s assertion that Lib Dem-controlled Islington Council is staunchly against prying into the private business of residents must be muted, for the staunch support of the Lib Dems for edicts from Brussels is notorious (We are not rubbish snoopers, August 15).
Doesn’t he know that it is an EU directive that requires every email, internet session and telephone call made over the internet to be stored by the service providers for a minimum of a year, with councils being able to access the details?
Is it the case that the council, which proudly hoisted the EU emblem on its flagstaff even before it was lawful to do so, has told Brussels that it will ignore the directive?
His former council colleague, Bridget Fox (she of the bumps in the road), who is constantly complaining about the closure of post offices, also seems unable to understand European legislation. The closure of post offices is a result of EU directive 97/67/EC, issued on December 15, 1997. This reduced the Royal Mail’s natural monopoly on postal deliveries, thus permitting foreign companies to cherry-pick profitable areas of mail while leaving the unprofitable bits in faraway places in our island to the Royal Mail.
It also permits foreign firms to compel Royal Mail to accept mail that the foreign firms do not want to deliver and charge them only ninepence a packet less than our second-class post. As a result Royal Mail profits have plummeted, causing the closure of thousands of post offices.
The Liberal Democrats are the party who are most in favour of handing over our liberty to rule ourselves to Brussels, yet they constantly put the blame for the erosion of our traditional liberties on others. Are they political hypocrites or ignoramuses?
ROY ROEBUCK
Brooksby Street, N1
• IF Councillor Greg Foxsmith sticks to the approach of his predecessor and near-namesake, ex-councillor Bridget Fox, then Islington’s recycling will end up on a rubbish tip outside Jakarta, and Su Pollard and others need only worry about their privacy if Indonesian TV is showing re-runs of Hi-de-hi.
CLLR BARRY EDWARDS
Labour, Holloway ward
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