[Free-sklyarov-uk] An Open Letter On Software Patents and EU Election (fwd)

[Edward Welbourne]

> However, this being politics and all, you do have to consider these
> issues in context.

a valid point.  One part of the context that's routinely forgotten is
that party manifestos are all too often drafted as if for a national
election, then used in local or euro elections without removing the
irrelevancies.  For example, the Green's position on unilateral nuclear
disarmament gets some folk excited (both ways); but note that defence
policy is a Westminster decision, so a Green MEP isn't really in much of
a position to do much on that one !  Likewise, LibDem MPs being
anti-swpat is all very well, but it's the MEPs who're in a position to
do something about it (and, by all accounts, they've been voting with
their euro-bloc rather than following the LibDem party line).

So please, dear peers, bear in mind more of their manifestos than just
the swpat / IP / digital rights issues; but don't be put off by policies
that MEPs have no say in !

	Eddy.
-- 
... who has been too disorganised to organise to have a postal vote from
Norway, which isn't in the EU.