General Chat

there are many knowns....and there are many UN knowns....etc.....

Is our new PM a man of integrity, or just the chancer he seems so far ?

Recent TV interviews prove once again, if proof were needed, that experienced politicians, like the PM, are good at answering questions without actually answering them - if that makes sense & can even proceed further by answering other questions not yet raised.

Unlike David Starkey Justin Greening knows B Johnson very well.
Here is her take on where we are now / dog ate the homework.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/29/boris-johnson-brexit-plan

Sorry about mixing up David and Richard Starkey.
My mother had a big stack of DS books, I tried to give them to a charity shop but they were not interested. My dentist took them in the end.

I am not a fan of David Starkey.

I wonder when he became known as a constitutional historian as I have always thought him to be 'just' a historian - albeit with some strange ideas.

Richard Starkey, the cricket fan, I do like.

If you google ‘Starkey’ perhaps looking for info you can plagiarise poor old Ringo pops up first and he IS Richard Starkey of course :-D :-D :-D

His name is DAVID Rollo , not Richard!!: You must have heard of him?!!

Not so 'easy to do unless you live in public housing projects'

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2018/11/14/private-school-pupils-recruited-county-lines-drug-gangs-official/

Cressida Dick has been extremely critical of both the Bodyguard and Line of Duty especially the former. My late father was a senior officer in the met and so are some of my rellies today in the Met and Essex constab.. Real life is far more boring and would never cut it for entertainment! Just so long as people don't start thinking that these dramas have much basis in reality.

fwiw my father thought that Z-Cars (mono) Softly Softly and the Sweeney were not too wide of the mark though he never met anybody like Jack Reagan except on the telly.

So long as you keep out of the ken of the drug gangs, postcoders and whatnot (easy to do unless you live in public housing projects ) London is as safe as any other large European city.

Just a private thought, you can see where TV story lines such as

Bodyguard and Line of Duty get part of their inspiration.

No doubt then that David [ ed ] Starkey will have read the Bill of Rights 1689.

Among its provisions:

"the pretended power of suspending the laws and dispensing with laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;"

"for redress of all grievances, and for the amending, strengthening and preserving of the laws, Parliaments ought to be held frequently"

R.S. is not considered a serious historian and is banned from several leading European universities. Among a litany of daft things he has said describing the SNP as a bunch of fascists during the indie referendum must rank top.

I posted about 10 days before the Supreme Court decision that the govt would lose the case comprehensively. I expected the majority to be 8-3. Thus three crusty judges who could normally be expected to follow the High Court preferred the arguments of the Scottish Inner House.

The case was not about brexit at all. It was about where sovereignty lies in the UK and in particular the balance between parliament and the executive. The governance of the country is a function of the executive. The S.C. did not demur from that. It did reaffirm the bedrock of the Bill of Rights that Parliament, not the monarch, was sovereign. Accession to the throne depends on the assent of parliament. It can and does change this eg there is no longer male primacy. The executive ( aka "the government" ) is not sovereign either. Its claim to power rests on a majority in the Commons usually achieved through regular elections as mandated in the Bill of Rights. During sittings of parliament it is the function of the parliament to scrutinise government actions and legislation, to approve.disapprove, amend reject or pass.
The Supreme Court found that the prorog. for five weeks was not justified by preparations for a Queens Speech. It ruled that at a critical juncture parliament was prevented in carrying out its constitutional role and hence the order was unlawful and was quashed.

Johnson, Starkey and others may disagree with the ruling but given the 11-0 majority and the uncompromising language of Lady Hale challenging it will be impossible. It could of course be changed by primary legislation by parliament but such action is unlikely. Unlike in Weimar Germany the English and Scottish Supreme Courts have made judgements which will stand as mighty bulwarks against arbitrary rule.

The difficulties of May & Johnson in doing brexit have nothing to do with needing a "strong pm" , a vexatious parliament or obstinate foreigners.

The primary reason for the difficulties is that the English constitution is designed for a government with a majority which May did not have and Johnson has not in spades. Parliament was quite prepared to pass the Withdrawal Act which was blocked thanks to Rees Mogg, Johnson and the the ERG. The Labour Party voted against due to May's refusal to include such matters as workers rights within the WA.

British governments and especially Tory governments have never understood the EU. It is - as many Brits have complained - primarily a political union from which spring the Customs Union and Single Market, not the other way around. The British approach based on "the Deal" never had a hope in hell which is why Rogers resigned at an early stage.

I would be astonished if Johnson managed any sort of withdrawal deal at this stage. Certainly there is absolutely no such expectation on the other side of the Channel.

That leaves "the Letter" , ditches and fates worse than death.

Alarmed by Johnson's antics so far the Opposition ( not all remainers, just all opposed to NoDeal) is considering beefing up the terms of the letter and expanding the list of those qualified to sign it. It is even possible that the Opposition might pass a Vote of No Confidence. To make this work it would not only have to have the numbers but it would also have to be able to run a caretaker government which could be a bridge too far especially with Corbyn as the caretaker.

My guess is that brexit will not happen on Oct 31 and could be extended a year or more if the French and their allies have their way. Either way there will be a general election in November. Tory chances of winning rest completely on "getting brexit done". Choosing an uber optimist as PM was a good move from that point of view. More likely is a Labour minority government buying off the SNP and rowing with the expanded LibDems. Stability? No chance.

If was Cummings I'd let brexit now go and be prepared to go into opposition. From there the Tories could maul the Labour minority government and work out a much better brexit than T May. A starting point would be to rebuild burnt bridges. There is a perfectly good case for a UK outside of the EU but never the total rupture proposed by the zealots. Unfortunately nearly all the senior MPs who could make such a policy work have been thrown out of the party.

Significant fact: Remain is polling a a steady 58%, Leave at 42%.

Play nice.

David - yes he does just make it up.
It transpires it's not 40 NEW hospitals, but the reconfiguring of 6 - with caveats:
"The first six projects include extensions to existing hospitals, as well as new buildings on separate sites, and will not require the demolition of facilities to provide land for construction".

Funding will come for other hospitals if the Tories win the next 2 elections.

As for the few thousand police - he'll just be putting back (in the form of untrained officers) the number of trained officers the Tories took off the streets.
However, in the time since these trained officers were removed, many others have retired or left through dissatisfaction - so there will actually be fewer police than before the Tory purge.

David Starkey explains it all perfectly. He is a constitutional historian so he should know what he's talking about!

If my ears weren't playing tricks on me 10 - 15 minutes into Boris Johnson's with

Andrew Marr he said he was going to announce the building of 40 new Hospitals !!

With what funding ? Where's the trained staff ? And he's putting a few thousand

extra Policemen on the streets !? Does he just make it all up ?

You have got the situation bang on there Maddie I agree with both you and Jemima

sadly there is no pm strong enough to fight off the pack of remainers in parliament who will go to any lengths to stop brexit and i am still trying to work out what law the pm broke when suspending parliament,
i am sure someone will enlighten me

Before anybody has a go at me .. Yes I live in Spain and voted no to Brexit as I always hoped that a PM would come along strong enough to keep the Uk safe. Sadly not..
Now I wonder for the future of the country I was born in.
A strong PM would have worked this out sadly not the case.

If Boris is the best of leading Brexit then I feel sorry for the UK.

Have to agree with the majority of what Jemima posted :-D

You should understand the context J.

After the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 relations between the King and parliament remained rocky to say the least of it culminating in the deposition of James II in 1688. Frequent prorogation of Parliament was one of the issues. At that time the King's ministers were never MPs from the Commons.
Parliament invited William of Orange & his wife Mary Stuart to the throne in 1689 the "Glorious Revolution". No blood was shed but an armada of Dutch ships and troops arrived in Brixham just in case.

This established that sovereignty resided in Parliament not the Monarch and accession to the throne was be decision of Parliament not solely by birth.
The Bill of Rights became an Act in 1689 signed by William and Mary.

In a nutshell it swept away the abuse of prerogative power exercised by the Tudor and Stewart monarchs replacing it with an elected three year parliament and constitutional monarchy. The exercise of the prerogative for suspending and opening Parliamentary sessions became a ceremonial act carried out by Black Rod. Prerog. prior to the Queens Speech has never been longer than a week. For other purposes there has always been good reason eg the burning down of parliament in 1834 and the hiatus which brought Stanley Baldwin to no.10.

Due to European law the old British system of the ultimate appeal court sitting as a House of Lords court and the Lord Chief Justice a govt minister had to change. Whoever was PM the change would have been made. The Supreme Court is the successor to the House of Lords not some kind of evil plot dreamed up by Tony Blair.

In the centuries following 1688 the Executive gradually eroded the power of Parliament in all manner of ways. Since the 1960s the House of Lords (Lord Bingham, Lord Denning ) and now the Supreme Court have made several leading judgements which have greatly strengthened the power of the House of Commons.

It is Parliament which represents the people in a representative democracy not referenda and especially not the tabloid press which is not a good place to get your legal knowledge from. It is somewhat jejune to exercise such opinion as superior to the accumulated knowledge and experience of the Lady Hale and the Supreme Court.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00084tb/rise-of-the-nazis-series-1-1-politics


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