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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corporeal on constitutional reform
If there’s a consistent tradition in British constitutional reform, it’s a philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (and usually to make the fix a patch up of the specific problem, or what Toby Fenwick dubbed an ‘inelegant fudge’). If you wanted to squeeze it into a metaphor (always fun) then it is a long-standing mansion.
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''With significant issues devolved an English parliament would rise to be a competitor to the UK parliament, and have a potentially destabilising dominance over what remains of the Union.''
I think its a red herring. What it betrays, for me, is a concern. It's a concern that, free of soft left control, England might be dangerously - and extremely annoyingly - successful .
We are already seeing it with Wales. The tories can claim to be running state health and education better than labour. Much better.
Indeed, labour were noticeably almost silent on educashun at their conference. A far, far cry from the blair days.
Queen's horse Estimate stripped of Ascot Gold Cup second place.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/horse-racing/29362179
"The five-year-old was one of eight of horses to return a positive test for morphine in July, which has since been traced to a batch of contaminated feed."
Interesting spin on cause.
Mr. Caporeal has put forward the same line in the threads over the past week or so but has never, in my view, managed to justify it. I had hoped he would have had a go in this article.
Nonetheless, Mr. Caporeal, an interesting piece, thank you.
Earlier this week, it was reported that Choudary said he has no sympathy for Alan Henning, a volunteer aid worker who was captured in Syria.
Choudary is reported to have said: “In the Qaran it is not allowed for you to feel sorry for non Muslims. I don't feel sorry for him.”
Pure filth.
The Mail has some heartwarming pictures of a meeting at a mosque in Bolton where the locals are campaigning for Henning's release.
The pigs holding Henning hostage, would likely butcher his many supporters given the opportunity.
If you cash out every time you back the outsider and they take the lead you are almost certainly costing yourself in the long run
I was an in running football trader for ten years and the value is to back the outsider when they take the lead, as everyone wants to back the comeback
That said, it is obviously up to you how you trade your bets. But if you are going to cash out, you would be far better off laying the side you backed originally on betfair rather than using b365s cash out. You're paying the over round twice at the moment. I'd be astonished if 365 offered a better deal than betfair more than 2 out if 10. The only reason to ever bet with a bookie is if they're offering better than betfair
Personally I'd either hang on to the bet or lay the side back so they are a scratch/break even
His profile begins with the words 'I am a Muslim' but that's the very thing he isn't.
So if we are to maintain unity this Parliament needs to be multi purpose with the Scots, the Welsh and the NI having their say when it is UK matters but not otherwise. This doesn't strike me as very difficult but it does need some thought about excluding Barnett consequentials etc.
It also means that Scottish MPs will be bit part players and have far fewer prospects of ministerial promotion. It also has to recognise that the leadership of the UK Parliament is not necessarily going to be the same as the English Parliament. That might be awkward but the size of England is such that it is not likely to happen often.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/weird-news/restaurant-laces-customers-noodles-with-opium-9754739.html
Say only English MPs could vote on English schools policy. But, who votes for how much money is to be spent on investments or expenditure?
If it is only English MPs, then who sets the funding for devolved English policy (eg Education, Health, Home, Justice?)? Is that an allocation from the federal budget split up between nations on some sort of formula (Barnett or otherwise)? Is there specific hypothecated taxes for England (eg an element of Income Tax?). Are some taxes Federal and others Nationalised?
A clear federal solution would appear sensible, but is this less of a fudge and more of a complete meal?
Could be Chris Kelly or Brian Binley. Possibly tomorrow to neuter the recall of parliament knocking the UKIP conference off the news?
10.20
CAMPAIGN 2015
Dr Bob Spink
The Way to
Westminster
I guess there is a good chance UKIP will select him for his old constituency of Castle Point, one of the constituencies that I'm mentioning for ages as a probable UKIP gain.
Current odds on Ladbrokes CON 2/11, UKIP 7/2.
Only thing I'm really anti is regional assemblies.
And we all know how educationx3 ended. Hopefully this means the end of the politics by soundbite. But I doubt it.
"On a grander scale an English parliament to sit alongside the other national bodies has some apparent symmetry to it. But the sheer size and dominance of England within the UK creates the potential for other conflicts. With significant issues devolved an English parliament would rise to be a competitor to the UK parliament, and have a potentially destabilising dominance over what remains of the Union."
Better to destroy the UK than England. This was always going to be a problem, but the cretinous short-sighted clowns that came to power in 1997 couldn't see beyond their little fantasy of a pair of perpetual Celtic fiefdoms.
And it isn't identity politics. Identity politics leads to things like women-only shortlists and treating voters as some sort of mindless mass blocks, with all the left-handed white lesbians voting (and thinking) in a single way, rather than as individuals.
This is about equality, and democratic accountability.
If one parliament is good enough for Scotland, it's good enough for England.
You have to laugh
It's a bit like saying the Crusaders were Christians. I'm sure they thought they were but, really, they had little in common with their founder's message. Same goes with the lunatics in ISIL.
But this thread was more about what will happen than what should, and the dominance of an English parliament has been raised by opponents of it, so I was trying to reflect that.
How many other countries have a uniform health, education policy etc. imposed on c.50 million people?
Come to think of it, how many countries have a national health service?
Someone in Apple forgot that the iphones are mobiles phones too.
Once again, the criticism of the English parliament idea is restricted to abstract terms that don't address any practical failure. How would an English executive dealing with health, education and transport "compete" with the UK government setting up financial service regulation, or deciding whether to bomb Syria? How would that be destabilising to the UK over time? Especially compared with a UK government collapsing because of defeats on English-only issues... it's a criticism that makes no sense.
However there appears to be no public appetite for English devolution, whether to an English Parliament or to smaller regions.
So the situation we are faced appears to be that:
1. There is growing dissatisfaction with the status quo.
2. There is opposition to the most obvious solution to this problem - English devolution in whatever form - because it involves creating more politicians.
3. The only other proposed solution - English votes for English laws - will create more problems than it solves.
In the absence of a clear way ahead we are likely to end up with some fudge somewhere between the status quo and evfel, and then when that precipitates another constitutional crisis some years down the line there will be another opportunity to create a more durable repair to the constitutional structure.
Seems that it's replies rather than new posts.
@speedy Jamie Huntman has already been selected for castle point.
I know Carswell trod on lords toes, but I think only defections would usurp the hustings choice
@LadPolitics: Peter Bone shoots straight in as Evens favourite to be next Tory-UKIP defector. http://t.co/tVCldKu462 http://t.co/4cbV2TG845
Usually two possible reasons, you are either hitting the wrong keystroke instead of post.....or you have been a very naughty boy!
(chaos theory has possibilities as well)
That is because it is borne more out of fear than logic. Fear that the tories might be successful.
Scotland will either get meaningful powers or token ones. If the latter, there'll be probably another referendum. If the former, the English will have policy after policy that doesn't affect Scottish MPs being decided by Scottish MPs. It is possible Labour will be sensible and its MPs from north of the border would follow the SNP model of not voting on such things, but I'll believe that when I see it.
Even Uri Geller is trolling them:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/uri-geller-identifies-the-real-reason-the-iphone-6-bends-2014-09-24
"Why is iPhone 6 prone to bending?
“There are two possible explanations,” Uri Geller, the psychic illusionist famous for bending spoons with his mind, told MarketWatch. “Either the phone is so seriously thin and flimsy that it is bendable with mere physical force, which I cannot believe given the extensive tests Apple would have done. Or — and this is far more plausible — somehow the energy and excitement of the 10 million people who purchased iPhones has awakened their mind powers and caused the phones to bend.”
Tom Holland, the historian who has written a biography of Mohammed, has written recently that much of what ISIL is now doing is similar to what happened when Islam first spread in the 7th century. ISIL may well be bad Muslims but that is a very different thing.
And the Crusaders were Christians. They may not be the type of Christians we are or prefer now but it's dangerous to delude ourselves by trying to rewrite the past to avoid uncomfortable questions about our own history or the present
We will better understand the violent side of a strand of Islam and some Muslims and what appears to animate some of them if we understood the violent aspects of parts of Christianity in our own history.
Being religious does not automatically make you good.
Think of it this way: the Tories win a Westminster election; two years later they are deeply unpopular and the English parliamentary elections are held and Labour wins on a mandate that it will speak for England against Westminster. When a body representing 50 million people does that, it is going to be pretty powerful and potentially destabilising.
Perhaps this is yet another reason why PR might be the best solution for an English parliament? Alternatively, a federal UK might need to develop a completely new UK-wide legislative body to replace our current Westminster parliament.
Currently we have a House of Commons which creates laws and a House of Lords that sanity checks them. The plan is to reform the Commons without any thought on anything else when we can use the logic already in Parliament to resolve a lot more.
What I would suggest is to create 4 "country" governments (NI Assembly, Welsh Assembly, Scottish Parliament, (House of Commons/ English Parliament) all of whom have similar powers. All laws created there go to the (House of Lords / National Parliament) to be sanity checked in the same way that the House of Lords sanity checks laws started in the House of Commons.
Then we do the same in reverse and reform the House of Lords to be a national parliament populated by means unspecified. This is would be where whole United Kingdom Law would be initiated and created before going to the "country" parliaments to be sanity checked. It would also be where the whole Government departments report to (Defence, Foreign…).
By doing the above we will end up with an English Parliament doing its tasks correctly and a national parliament that would actually have to listen to all 4 countries as laws were passed.
That's a strong point, Mr Observer, but isn;t that exactly what the Americans do every two years anyway? Elect a blue president and a red legislature, or the other way around?
Mr. Dadge, Bogdanor is wrong. He does correctly highlight some problems, and is right to see regionalisation is the infernal proposal of Satan-worshippers (I paraphrase), but his proposal of 'localities' (presumably local councils and the like) is inherently flawed.
How could such small areas have powers commensurate with the Scottish Parliament? Would we have health and education and tax-raising powers devolved to so small a scale?
If yes, we would have a deranged patchwork, a mosaic of intricate madness and bureaucratic bondage. It'd be completely bloody bonkers.
If no, then what he's arguing is that England's size means we should be given half a Twix whilst Scotland enjoys a five course feast.
He also claims the constitution is not a political possession (fair enough) but then argues England alone should be deprived of real devolution.
Arguments like:
'David Cameron proposes English votes for English laws. This has been Conservative policy since Scotland voted for devolution. It was not Conservative policy when Northern Ireland enjoyed devolution, between 1922 and 1972, and Northern Ireland MPs – predominantly unionist – deprived Labour of working majorities in 1950-1 and 1964-6. Indeed, in 1965 the Conservative shadow home secretary, Peter Thorneycroft, insisted on the principle that “every member of the House of Commons is equal to every other member of the House of Commons”.'
Make no sense whatsoever. Firstly, no party is controlled by it's past. Policies can change over time, indeed they have to. Are labour controlled by clause 4, or the tories by section 28? Of course not. Indeed as (Keynes? ) someone said, 'when the facts change, I change my position'. This is the age of Scottish devolution, and the NI settlement.
And indeed, yes, parties might become deadlocked...that's the point! They have to learn to compromise and work with the new system. But it has to be the will of the English people.
Off topic.Legal challenge delays gambling changes.
http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-racing/government-delays-introduction-of-new-gambling-regime/1724772/#newsArchiveTabs=last7DaysNews
But then who would have thought that Cameron would have been meeting an Iranian President face to face.
Where did I say that I thought the status quo was just fine and dandy?
How much longer do you think Miliband can ignore the issues of the Deficit and Immigration for?
Something less than perfect (EVEL) is better than something ridiculous (WLQ)
Or ISIS might run practically the whole country. It'd be either a great victory or terrible mistake by Cameron.
Mr. Me, if I saw my dog running towards a barbed wire fence I'd call him back instead of thinking "Gosh, that'll hurt. I shall have to call the vet." Better to foresee and avert a crisis than await it. Problems are most easily solved when earliest diagnosed (cf the eurozone and Scottish devolution).
Chris Kelly not quoted?
ABS - would Jack Dromey still get in ?
"Ed Miliband is facing demands to impose "all black" shortlists for the selection of Labour candidates in certain constituencies."
Unfortunately people are not always sensible, and dogs do not always listen to calls. Whatever the desirability of English devolution from a theoretical point of view in fixing the UK constitution, I do not think that English voters are that keen on creating new politicians.
In the absence of a politician willing to court the public unpopularity that would follow from creating more professional politicians, this leaves us with the status quo or EvfEl - neither of which will prove to be a stable outcome.
I'm not happy about it, but it's how I see things.
Surely if an EU referendum was looking like YES (to exit) - then similar concessions could be won - and only in that scenario.
Time to copy the Nats and call the EU's bluff ?
Discrimination against the majority is still discrimination. The idea of 'good' racism is intellectually indefensible. Does Miliband have the intellectual self-confidence to judge people by the content of their character and not the colour of their skin?
1. Wales
2. Mid-Staffs
There, that was easy.
Not that I dispute the ridiculousness of the WLQ. An English Parliament would be far better than both, if not quite reaching the heights of perfection represented by re-establishing the Heptarchy...
Mr. Me, I believe you're wrong. An English Parliament is, I believe, the most desirable (and desired) solution to the West Lothian Question.
Anyway, we shall see how events unfold.
25/09/2014 15:48
People expect UKIP's conference to be the most fun, and the Lib Dems' the most sleep-inducing y-g.co/1yspD0a pic.twitter.com/xQWQlyBv33
So how can the Wahhabi sect continue to cause such problems for all in the 21st century? Simples - money from Saudi Arabia. Turn that off and Wahhabism (and thus a great deal of terrorism) will go away, quite quickly. However that would mean upsetting the Saudi Royal Family and we are not allowed to do that.
Also we have the Scots in the fast lane, the Welsh wanting a fast lane but not including tax raising and the Irish something else.
The UK is physically too small to have large differences in tax raising rates (e.g. VAT, NI & IT, Corp Tax, IPT, Fuel Tax, etc etc) between the four countries. It will take some time to reach harmony here, before looking at other issues. Also the 2017 EU referendum could change matters.
We have too many politicians anyway. I see no reason why a MP should not serve say the UK two days a week and return to their own Parliament/Assembly for the remaining three days. This could be accomplished with shorter holidays. That way the MP would have longer time in their constituency and would represent their electorate more closely.
If however Scots, Welsh and Irish MPs voluntarily agree not to vote at Westminster on matters that are clearly defined as devolved, then perhaps such matters can be done more informally but tidily.
1) The UK isn't an essential part of the EU in the way that Scotland is an essential part of the UK.
2) The EU has at least 28 veto players, maybe 100 depending how you count it, so it can't turn on a sixpence the way three panicking party leaders can.
3) Scotland hasn't actually got anything yet, beyond some vague promises. And the Tory WLQ thing was probably an attempt to wriggle out of those...
O/T – are we at war yet…?
"If he wins power, it will be down to the rise of the UK Independence Party, which has split the right. Weak, accidental, unprepared for the austerity measures it would be forced to undertake and with no popular mandate for Mr Miliband’s bold ideas, his government would have its disadvantages."