UKC

"the Bill must provide tougher safeguards to ensure that the Government cannot abuse its powers to undermine Parliament’s ability to hold the Government to account."

I just don't understand it. Can someone please explain what it means please.

Its from this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Investigatory_Powers_Act_2016

Thankyou

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
Parliament can hold governments to account, and with governments having certain powers, if they abuse them they can/may undermine the ability of parliament to hold them to account, so the Bill needs to provide tougher/better safeguards to stop this from happening.

Not in the same order as the sentence, but HTH

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

Government needs to be publically accountable via the parliamentary system and process. The government realises this and forestalls any criticism by using its paliamentary majority to pass a law that seemingly regulates its own operation, where in fact Minister, it's using that majority to subvert parliament and pull the wool over the eyes of the public and so do what it wants.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


Either...

This is a law that'll try and make sure the government can't use its powers to stop it's self being accountable to parliament.


Or...

We're doing something useful, honest we are! Now where are those expenses forms? Just add a zero here and another one here, perfect. Now what times PMQs? Remember nudge me once when you want me to jeer and twice when you want me to stop that way I don't have to keep track of who's speaking.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:
There was a really good article on the BBC website yesterday about how Cameron was cornered into calling the referendum. It really showed how various parliamentary processes could be high-jacked by a small group to influence government policy. I have searched the site but can't find it. Am I wrong to think it might have been archived?

In reply to The Ice Doctor:


The problem is that it's so badly written that on first reading it seems that the second infinitive (to undermine) refers to safeguards in the same way that the first one (to ensure) does. Then when you read it again you realise that 'to undermine ... account' is one big phrase relating to 'its powers'. Not only is this double infinitive confusing, but the sentence is not helped by the strange double-negative effect of 'abuse' and 'undermine' in the weird phrase 'abuse the powers to undermine'. It means something like 'to ensure that the Government doesn't overreach itself with its powers to undermine Parliament's role in holding the Govt to account'. It's still a hell of a mouthful, but I can't be arsed to have a go at re-writing it.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

"The bill must make sure that the Government cannot change the Rules so that it stops Parliament from being able to say "No" to the Government if the Government wants to do something stupid".

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
It's an awful sentence, 'arse about face' was my way of putting it in my thoughts, I'm glad somebody can put it more grammatically than that. It's left me thinking I should look into grammar structures, so that I can say why a sentence isn't well written more clearly.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

It seems perfectly clear to me! What's the problem?

In reply to jcw:
Sometimes there's things in Private Eye which I can have to read several times when they're about financial chicanery .

There's no such thing as a silly question.

In reply to Timmd:


I think things like this are written in this way so they can be "interpreted" so as to suit whomever wants to use it in a particular way.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

here it is... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-parliaments-38402140

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

As I see it the phrase seems to say that the government should not be able to undermine the democracy it stands for. For instance by halting all general elections.

In reply to The Ice Doctor:

NB Parliament is not the same as Government. It is a clumsy sentence. It doesn't always work but the best way to make sense of unwieldy sentences is to chop out all words that don't contribute to the nub.

In reply to Pete Pozman:

Very similar to how I was going to write it:

"The Bill must provide tougher safeguards so the government cannot undermine Parliament's ability to hold them to account."

In reply to paulcarey:
That's the one thanks - I searched the BBC website with several appropriate tags but found nothing.