Ok you are rattled as you lose an argument but unfounded Insult won't help your position any. and as far as I can tell by what you post, you are doing little else but displaying a self-opinionated religious predjudice and some slightly wacky notions of a political nature. Quite plainly it is not.. Rotheram council made clear it is not Rubbish. It an example of you pleading the old worn out christian perseqution card . QED. It is not a ban on their belief system any more than it is a ban on any belief system a Commercial enterprise or political group may hold. You are crying wolf. They have decided not to allow political religious or commercial advertising. Perfectly reasonable and is not a restriction on free speech of politics Commerce or religion or christians. Were it so, it would be a ban on free politics and Commerce speech too. Where are the Christians complainng about this ??... " We go to other countries to promote democracy and free-thinking yet on our own doorstep we cannot even put up a poster about our Commercial events and our politicians Political messages" ....eh?. No they don't. It's just them who are beinng victimized .No one else is winging or complaining about a quite reasonable rule.. Certain forms of f adverting have been banned in a libray - not the feckin' Bible
That Clause 4 is Blair's New Labour Clause 4, which superceded the old Clause 4 dating from 1918 which called for 'socialising the means of production'. New Labour could at most be called mildly Social Democratic. The current clause 4 is little more than waffle. The word 'socialist' is only there to appease the Labour Party membership. When was the last time Blair made a speech about socialism ? The honorable member for Texas North spends more time attacking socialists such as Chavez in the house than advocating socialism. It is quite ridiculous to catagorise New Labour as far left. Even a bit left is stretching it. Christopher Hitchens might have been on the left once apon a time, but he surely isn't any more.
dcraig, you are simply wrong. socialism (and democratic socialism) =/= foreign policy, or iraq policy a leftist and/or socialist can be, and some are, for the war in iraq and rightwinger can be, and some are, against it. you fail to understand the distinction between ECONOMIC systems and foreign policy. some socialist regimes can be, and have been, exceptionally "warmnongering" for lack of a better term. others have been very isolationist. some have been nearly pacifist if you cannot understand the distinction between and economic system and a foreign policy, then that is why you can't grasp that blair is a democratic socialist yes, believe it or not - a leftist CAN be for the war in iraq. hitchens, weisel, ed koch, blair, etc. and rightwinger can be against it deal witht the distinction
"QED. It is not a ban on their belief system any more than it is a ban on any belief system a Commercial enterprise or political group may hold." it would be unconstitutional in the usa, it is not in england, because they don't have free speech theater can be, and often is - political. that's irrelevant a tenet of free speech (vs. england) is that if a public forum (this would not apply to a private forum) allows advertising by SOME groups of a certain kind of event (theatrical productions, for example), it cannot prohibit others merely because of their viewpoint, and certainly not because it might "offend other religions groups". again, to paraphrase many a supreme court case, there IS a constitutional right to express opinion, there is not a constitutional right not to be offended. certainly, tolimit advertisements to non-political, or non-religious theatre would be unconstitutional - but england doesn't HAVE a constitution... many theatrical productions can be offensive (to some), that is not the point many find the vagina monologues offensive. i find it a silly play, but not offensive, but that's me. others find Lolita offensive. it's irrelevant i support freedom of speech for ALL groups - nazis, christians, jews, atheists, muslims, etc. because that's what freedom is about - the rights of the minority, no matter how unpopular, must be protected.
==================== Another key is do NOT rubber stamp someone's policy just because he may or may not go to a good church or synagog. Its humbling but looks like president Bush was wrong to try to let the UAE run our ports; and dont want an American or English national ID card either , we already have plenty of state drivers license. Hope this helps