Best Of

Fascinating read, thank you Sean F.

A couple of points:

Yes, civilised democracies are not necessarily losers; but they can be. The civilised democracy experiment is new. What, I think, it needs to maintain is not a Sparta culture but a substantial 'warrior class' and also a 'warrior ethos' throughout the majority of the population. Through most of my life this has been marginalised and treated by most of the middle class as if it is a matter mostly to be delegated to other groups and other nations, especially the USA, and other means, especially the nuclear deterrent. The evidence that the UK population is really willing for massive sacrifice in place of surrender is not strong and I only have to look into myself to see that.

Second, and changing the subject, the article ends with the ringing words:

“In crises, the most daring course is often safest.”

By the end of the week we will perhaps know if the current government has heeded the message. If the budget does a 1981 and cuts spending, raises taxes and explains the fiscal plan and how delusional we have been since 2008 then Labour may have a chance of regaining credibility.

There is still, I think, in this country, a willingness among part of the elite to take part in military service, which does not apply everywhere.

The battlefield must be a terrifying place. But as ever, if you want peace, you must prepare for war.

Though the mithering in the west is a step back from that.

We're mostly not being asked to throw ourselves onto the battlefield, just to stump up the cash to produce the machines for the Ukrainians to use.

We've been reluctant to do that for a while. Alan Clark's Diaries note how his Defence Review was the only way John Major was going to be able to afford tax cuts.

Today’s Rawnsley is on the under-commented efforts by a handful of Lords to filibuster the nationally popular AD legislation, and the wider challenges the HoL is giving the government:

The passage of time has turned the peers, especially those of the Tory variety, bolshie. As the government has become increasingly unpopular, the Lords have waxed more aggressive about attacking Labour’s programme. They are much more powerful from a constitutional point of view than is generally appreciated because they can eat up huge amounts of parliamentary time and ministerial energy.

Almost entirely unreported in the media, anti-government peers have been dragging out proceedings and bogging down legislation for months. Labour might have a massive majority in the Commons, but in the bloated Lords it has just a quarter of the members eligible to attend proceedings.

Law and precedent are supposed to curb the unelected house’s capacity to make mischief. The Salisbury Convention holds that peers should not thwart a government when it is fulfilling a manifesto commitment, as Labour is with both the employment rights bill and the removal of the hereditaries.

Members of the Lords have put forward more than 1,000 proposed changes to the law to facilitate assisted dying. Hundreds of these amendments are apparently the work of just seven opponents of the legislation. Assisted dying is a complex and contentious issue that merits detailed scrutiny. It is a different matter if procedural sabotage is the intent. The Lib Dem peer Lord Goddard warned his fellow peers that they had “a duty” to treat the bill “with respect, not disdain, not threatening to derail it or run it out of time”.

More than one minister I’ve spoken to is bewildered that Number 10 seems reluctant to call out the delaying antics and wrecking tactics of vandals in ermine. I am similarly baffled that the government isn’t making more noise about it.

Trump sees everything as a real estate deal, hence Witkoff as his negotiator.
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Today’s Rawnsley is on the under-commented efforts by a handful of Lords to filibuster the nationally popular AD legislation, and the wider challenges the HoL is giving the government:

The passage of time has turned the peers, especially those of the Tory variety, bolshie. As the government has become increasingly unpopular, the Lords have waxed more aggressive about attacking Labour’s programme. They are much more powerful from a constitutional point of view than is generally appreciated because they can eat up huge amounts of parliamentary time and ministerial energy.

Almost entirely unreported in the media, anti-government peers have been dragging out proceedings and bogging down legislation for months. Labour might have a massive majority in the Commons, but in the bloated Lords it has just a quarter of the members eligible to attend proceedings.

Law and precedent are supposed to curb the unelected house’s capacity to make mischief. The Salisbury Convention holds that peers should not thwart a government when it is fulfilling a manifesto commitment, as Labour is with both the employment rights bill and the removal of the hereditaries.

Members of the Lords have put forward more than 1,000 proposed changes to the law to facilitate assisted dying. Hundreds of these amendments are apparently the work of just seven opponents of the legislation. Assisted dying is a complex and contentious issue that merits detailed scrutiny. It is a different matter if procedural sabotage is the intent. The Lib Dem peer Lord Goddard warned his fellow peers that they had “a duty” to treat the bill “with respect, not disdain, not threatening to derail it or run it out of time”.

More than one minister I’ve spoken to is bewildered that Number 10 seems reluctant to call out the delaying antics and wrecking tactics of vandals in ermine. I am similarly baffled that the government isn’t making more noise about it.

Kite flying for Lords reform then to get a supine second chamber.

I’d dispute the Lords are doing anything wrong on the AD bill. They are doing their job.

The AD bill was not a manifesto commitment. It looks a complete mess to me.

The hundreds of amendments from a tiny number of peers is very clearly disruptive, which isn’t their job

Today’s Rawnsley is on the under-commented efforts by a handful of Lords to filibuster the nationally popular AD legislation, and the wider challenges the HoL is giving the government:

The passage of time has turned the peers, especially those of the Tory variety, bolshie. As the government has become increasingly unpopular, the Lords have waxed more aggressive about attacking Labour’s programme. They are much more powerful from a constitutional point of view than is generally appreciated because they can eat up huge amounts of parliamentary time and ministerial energy.

Almost entirely unreported in the media, anti-government peers have been dragging out proceedings and bogging down legislation for months. Labour might have a massive majority in the Commons, but in the bloated Lords it has just a quarter of the members eligible to attend proceedings.

Law and precedent are supposed to curb the unelected house’s capacity to make mischief. The Salisbury Convention holds that peers should not thwart a government when it is fulfilling a manifesto commitment, as Labour is with both the employment rights bill and the removal of the hereditaries.

Members of the Lords have put forward more than 1,000 proposed changes to the law to facilitate assisted dying. Hundreds of these amendments are apparently the work of just seven opponents of the legislation. Assisted dying is a complex and contentious issue that merits detailed scrutiny. It is a different matter if procedural sabotage is the intent. The Lib Dem peer Lord Goddard warned his fellow peers that they had “a duty” to treat the bill “with respect, not disdain, not threatening to derail it or run it out of time”.

More than one minister I’ve spoken to is bewildered that Number 10 seems reluctant to call out the delaying antics and wrecking tactics of vandals in ermine. I am similarly baffled that the government isn’t making more noise about it.