Lembit Öpik has an article in the Western Mail responding to David Babbs of the campaign group 38 Degrees, who believes that the public have a right to know what MPs were doing on their summer break.
Lembit rehearses the usual arguments that MPs use recess to work in their constituencies and then concludes that politicians need protection from people like Mr. Babbs. In particular he advocates a privacy law for MPs:
Despite the dangers of censorship which accompany such a measure, this may be the only way we preserve enough private space in the parliamentary – and public – world to enable the preservation of some semblance of a hinterland, away from the lurid gaze of websites masquerading as organisations.
His justification for this stance is that there is a need to protect the families and loved ones of MPs from unnecessary intrusion into their private space.
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