By not issuing a condemnation of the action of their own blogger in today's disgraceful actions the Guardian has given their tacit support to such activities.
HUH...I think he has wrote 2-3 pieces years ago for Comment is Free. Not sure that is quite "their own blogger", not exactly the same as when SeanT was employed by the Telegraph to pump out regular columns for their online offering.
Amazing scenes in Leicester as hordes of Jacobites line the streets to honour the White Rose of York.
Is that the White Cockade lining up with the White Rose?
Personally I'm all for Henry Tewdur, although his treatment of the "undeserving poor' was far worse than IDS'. The Jacobites after all wanted to bring back Popery!
Your name vill also go on zee list .... Vot is it ?
Don't tell him Pike
Is his Majesty King Francis II from the Yorkist line?
Oh that his funeral could have been in Westminster Cathedral with Cardinal Nichols presiding and King Francis II there with sword raised during the gospel as befitting the Defender of the Faith.
Francis, Duke of Bavaria, is accepted by some Jacobites though not me as the legitimate claimant to the throne.
He is a descendant of the Yorkist line through King Charles I daughter Henrietta Anne and through her daughter to the House of Savoy and eventually to Duke Francis.
JackW There was some talk of Duke Francis being invited to be King of Scotland had the independence vote been Yes
Only by some tartan turnips.
I thought she is Elizabeth I up there and I didn't think she had any Jacobite connection. Or is this a different Elizabeth?
You take the higher number. So Elizabeth II, but if you had another James say then he'd be the 8th (I think?)
No, it's where you are that counts. James VI and I is known as I down south but Jamie the Saxt up here, likewise Prince of Wales/Duke of Rothesay. The example of James VII shows that the higher number doesn't count.
It doesn't work either if you use the United Kingdom as EIIR wouldn't apply - our current sovereign would be Elizabet 1 of the UK.
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
Amazing scenes in Leicester as hordes of Jacobites line the streets to honour the White Rose of York.
Is that the White Cockade lining up with the White Rose?
Personally I'm all for Henry Tewdur, although his treatment of the "undeserving poor' was far worse than IDS'. The Jacobites after all wanted to bring back Popery!
Your name vill also go on zee list .... Vot is it ?
Don't tell him Pike
Is his Majesty King Francis II from the Yorkist line?
JackW There was some talk of Duke Francis being invited to be King of Scotland had the independence vote been Yes
Only by some tartan turnips.
I thought she is Elizabeth I up there and I didn't think she had any Jacobite connection. Or is this a different Elizabeth?
JackW wrote -
No. The regnal number of the monarch is determined by the higher number of the name chosen from the English and Scottish sovereigns. Accordingly :
The next James will be James VIII following Scotland whereas the next Richard will be Richard IV following England.
The Queen is descended through the Stuart line Sophia Electress of Hanover mother of George I. She was the daughter of Elizabeth of Scotland a daughter of James VI & I.
3 March 2014 - Entek International Ltd - £10 million
3 Feb 2014 - RDM Group - £400,000 for a new facility
28 Jan 2014 - Nissan Coventry - £6 million
16 Jan 2014 - Automative Insulations - Invested in 65,000 sq ft premises
9 Jan 2014 - Rolls Royce announced creation of 100 new jobs
20 Nov 2013 - Sertec - New midlands plant creating 150 jobs
4 Nov 13 - Gestamp - £150,000 for expanding its facility
25 Oct 13 - Faurecia - 60 news jobs
14 Oct 13 - Cosworth - £30 million for new facility
25 Sep 13 - ElringKlinger - £7 million expansions of existing site
11 Sep 13 - LTC - £150 million 5 year investment plan
10 Sep 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £1.5 billion at Solihull creating 1,700 jobs
23 Jul 13 - Bentley - £800 million into existing plant and 1000 more jobs
17 Jul 13 - Rolls Royce - 100 new jobs
6 Jun 13 - Stadco - £15 million investment in existing facility.
22 Apr 13 - Ford - £24 million in existing plant.
6 Mar 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £150 million to facility in Wolverhampton
1 March - Toyota - 70 new jobs
5 Feb 13 - Brose - £15 million investment
Total investments since Dave's bloomberg speach = £2.7 billion
Nevertheless, in this parliament we've seen the closure of Ford's Southampton and Dagenham plants (alone) which lost perhaps 4,000 jobs, and we've seen the elimination of their supply chains.
In 2014, Germany increased its car and commercial vehicle prouction by 3.3%, France managed 4.4%, Italy was up 6.0%, the Czech Republic managed 10.4% and Spain was up 11.1%.
Someone pointing to the UK car industry as an area where we are gaining ground relative to our neighbours is smoking crack.
No you are. Check the data. Since 1990 only Germany and Spain have increased production among the major nations. France and Italy have fallen off a cliff in terms of production. The Uk is likely to overtake France by the end of this decade.
UK production has more or less been flat over the period but the big shift is in value. Rover produced circa 500,000 cars in the 1990s todat BMW and JLR produce the same amount of cars but sell them at around two to three times the price.
Dagenham and Bridgend produce nealy all of Ford's powertrain in Europe.
Thanks for the longer-term data - although that doesn't capture the changes in 2014, of course.
I tend to agree that France and (to a lesser extent) Italy are long-term losers in terms of car production. Nevertheless, the last five years have seen a loss of jobs in the UK car industry, and the recent trends have been somewhat worrying.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
3 March 2014 - Entek International Ltd - £10 million
3 Feb 2014 - RDM Group - £400,000 for a new facility
28 Jan 2014 - Nissan Coventry - £6 million
16 Jan 2014 - Automative Insulations - Invested in 65,000 sq ft premises
9 Jan 2014 - Rolls Royce announced creation of 100 new jobs
20 Nov 2013 - Sertec - New midlands plant creating 150 jobs
4 Nov 13 - Gestamp - £150,000 for expanding its facility
25 Oct 13 - Faurecia - 60 news jobs
14 Oct 13 - Cosworth - £30 million for new facility
25 Sep 13 - ElringKlinger - £7 million expansions of existing site
11 Sep 13 - LTC - £150 million 5 year investment plan
10 Sep 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £1.5 billion at Solihull creating 1,700 jobs
23 Jul 13 - Bentley - £800 million into existing plant and 1000 more jobs
17 Jul 13 - Rolls Royce - 100 new jobs
6 Jun 13 - Stadco - £15 million investment in existing facility.
22 Apr 13 - Ford - £24 million in existing plant.
6 Mar 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £150 million to facility in Wolverhampton
1 March - Toyota - 70 new jobs
5 Feb 13 - Brose - £15 million investment
Total investments since Dave's bloomberg speach = £2.7 billion
Nevertheless, in this parliament we've seen the closure of Ford's Southampton and Dagenham plants (alone) which lost perhaps 4,000 jobs, and we've seen the elimination of their supply chains.
In 2014, Germany increased its car and commercial vehicle prouction by 3.3%, France managed 4.4%, Italy was up 6.0%, the Czech Republic managed 10.4% and Spain was up 11.1%.
Someone pointing to the UK car industry as an area where we are gaining ground relative to our neighbours is smoking crack.
Ford managed to move production to Turkey thanks to a loan from the EU...
My point still stands, that these companies would not have invested a substantial sum of money into UK manufacturing if they truly believed leaving the EU would damage their business. The EU is not the sole reason why businesses operate here. It is one of many reasons.
I'm not defending the EU, I am pointing out that we have had NEGATIVE investment (with a net loss of jobs) in the UK car industy in the last five years, while some of our continental neighbours have had seen substantial investments.
The only substantial investment has been in Eastern Europe CZ, Slovakia and Romania.
Belgium has been wiped out as a car manufacturing centre, and plants and closing in France.
On the EU we can debate what the costs might be of leaving. However so far no-one seems to be concerned about the costs of six years of uncertainty over our future. Could it already be harming us?
Car manufacturers have made substantial investments in the UK whilst talk of a referendum has been ongoing. If they thought there was a risk they would not have invested. The access to the EU market is one of many many reasons as to why the UK is seen as an attractive place to set up a business.
If we stay in the EEA then the level of uncertainty can be minimised and the level of inward investment continued. If this were to be a state of affairs that was seen as settled then it might well overcome any claimed downside to either leaving all together or staying in an EU of ever closer union.
Its worth pointing out that Cameron has plainly said he does not want us part of an ever closer union. As far as I am aware Miliband has not commented.
And Merkel has made it clear that she (and Germany) expects the UK to toe the line and join in. Dave will vacillate about it long and hard but ultimately if he's still in power at that point he will do as he is told.
Like the debates you mean?
No, I don't think he will. We are not in the euro and have no incentive to take part in ever closer union. Its in our interest for Europe to do well, if they want this ever closer union good luck to them, but it won't help us or them if they make a mess of it. Our challenge it to try to get the best of both worlds. I think it will be bad news all round if the Tories do not win the election since with labour the tough choice will be fudged away. With the tories we will at least get a referendum and then take the consequences.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
Just because it is done elsewhere does not mean it would be a good idea of course. Given the uncodified nature of our constitution, it would seem extremely difficult to arrive a clear, fair and reasonable definition of when such a restriction should or should not apply. Just to prevent a policy in future which a future party may have a mandate from the public to implement, would seem unreasonable.
Here in Mid Beds the only political posters I've seen so far are UKIP ones and in the Flitwick Leisure Centre car park this morning was a purple and yellow car with "£UKIP The Return of Common Sense painted on the sides in big letters."
Seems like UKIP are going to try and give Nadine a run for her money. Perhaps his lordship might care do to a constituency poll in Mid Beds?
Right-to-buy practically killed off the building of Social Housing in Local Government - no Council could afford to build properties that they would be forced to sell later without compensation. It has led directly to the ridiculous cost of Housing Benefit with the taxpayer held to ransom by the market (maybe it would be different if Housing Benefit was localised giving local authorities an incentive but that's not likely to happen).
Extend right-to-buy to Housing associations on the same model and social housing disappears within a generation at incalculable cost to the country.
It was the banning of local council's from using the main ney from the sales to build more houses that was the killer. As ever the Thatcherite policy of spending money from capital sales on current account spending messed things up long term.
Councils were entirely free to use the proceeds to build as many houses as they wanted. The only proviso was that any residual debt from council housing was paid for first.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
Just because it is done elsewhere does not mean it would be a good idea of course. Given the uncodified nature of our constitution, it would seem extremely difficult to arrive a clear, fair and reasonable definition of when such a restriction should or should not apply. Just to prevent a policy in future which a future party may have a mandate from the public to implement, would seem unreasonable.
Indeed is it not part of our unwritten constitution that "no parliament may bind its successors"?
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
Someone pointing to the UK car industry as an area where we are gaining ground relative to our neighbours is smoking crack.
No you are. Check the data. Since 1990 only Germany and Spain have increased production among the major nations. France and Italy have fallen off a cliff in terms of production. The Uk is likely to overtake France by the end of this decade.
UK production has more or less been flat over the period but the big shift is in value. Rover
Dagenham and Bridgend produce nealy all of Ford's powertrain in Europe.
Thanks for the longer-term data - although that doesn't capture the changes in 2014, of course.
I tend to agree that France and (to a lesser extent) Italy are long-term losers in terms of car production. Nevertheless, the last five years have seen a loss of jobs in the UK car industry, and the recent trends have been somewhat worrying.
Really it hasn't. Losses in one manufacturer have been offset by gains in another and the supply chain. The only UK based manufacturer suffering atm is Honda and that's because it has a poor model line up. havinf worked most of my life in the Uk automotive sector, it;s in the best shape I can remember it and most of the management and workers are fairly optimistic about the future.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
Just because it is done elsewhere does not mean it would be a good idea of course. Given the uncodified nature of our constitution, it would seem extremely difficult to arrive a clear, fair and reasonable definition of when such a restriction should or should not apply. Just to prevent a policy in future which a future party may have a mandate from the public to implement, would seem unreasonable.
Indeed is it not part of our unwritten constitution that "no parliament may bind its successors"?
I would defer to any constitutional scholars, but I had always believed that to be a fundamental principle of our system. Benefits and negatives to different types of system of course, but if Parliament is indeed sovereign, binding the next iteration seems unwise.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
Just because it is done elsewhere does not mean it would be a good idea of course. Given the uncodified nature of our constitution, it would seem extremely difficult to arrive a clear, fair and reasonable definition of when such a restriction should or should not apply. Just to prevent a policy in future which a future party may have a mandate from the public to implement, would seem unreasonable.
Indeed is it not part of our unwritten constitution that "no parliament may bind its successors"?
I would defer to any constitutional scholars, but I had always believed that to be a fundamental principle of our system. Benefits and negatives to different types of system of course, but if Parliament is indeed sovereign, binding the next iteration seems unwise.
The two main qualifications on that are the Human Rights Act and the European Communities Act 1972.
In both cases there is a presumption that Parliament intends all subsequent legislation to be compliant with either the Convention or EU law. It is still open to Parliament to expressly disapply these provisions but unless they do so any new Act will be interpreted in a way that is compliant unless that is absolutely impossible.
The FTPA does not have any special protection and can (and probably should) be binned if the next Parliament is so minded.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
No it wouldn't. The Lords have no veto on financial bills.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
We had the Green Party candidate round last week here in Norwich South but no sign of anything else going on yet.
3 March 2014 - Entek International Ltd - £10 million
3 Feb 2014 - RDM Group - £400,000 for a new facility
28 Jan 2014 - Nissan Coventry - £6 million
16 Jan 2014 - Automative Insulations - Invested in 65,000 sq ft premises
9 Jan 2014 - Rolls Royce announced creation of 100 new jobs
20 Nov 2013 - Sertec - New midlands plant creating 150 jobs
4 Nov 13 - Gestamp - £150,000 for expanding its facility
25 Oct 13 - Faurecia - 60 news jobs
14 Oct 13 - Cosworth - £30 million for new facility
25 Sep 13 - ElringKlinger - £7 million expansions of existing site
11 Sep 13 - LTC - £150 million 5 year investment plan
10 Sep 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £1.5 billion at Solihull creating 1,700 jobs
23 Jul 13 - Bentley - £800 million into existing plant and 1000 more jobs
17 Jul 13 - Rolls Royce - 100 new jobs
6 Jun 13 - Stadco - £15 million investment in existing facility.
22 Apr 13 - Ford - £24 million in existing plant.
6 Mar 13 - Jaguar Land Rover - £150 million to facility in Wolverhampton
1 March - Toyota - 70 new jobs
5 Feb 13 - Brose - £15 million investment
Total investments since Dave's bloomberg speach = £2.7 billion
Nevertheless, in this parliament we've seen the closure of Ford's Southampton and Dagenham plants (alone) which lost perhaps 4,000 jobs, and we've seen the elimination of their supply chains.
In 2014, Germany increased its car and commercial vehicle prouction by 3.3%, France managed 4.4%, Italy was up 6.0%, the Czech Republic managed 10.4% and Spain was up 11.1%.
Someone pointing to the UK car industry as an area where we are gaining ground relative to our neighbours is smoking crack.
Classic cherry picking. The investment in the UK car industry and the jobs created recently has been massive. Massive for Sunderland Swindon Coventry Merseyside Oxford Derby. The investment in Oxford alone is pushing 1 billion in the last 5 years. JLR are in the middle of a 1.5 billion investment programme. In that time PSA in France have been cutting 8000 jobs. They are in good company in Europe because of years of subsidy and over capacity.
Right-to-buy practically killed off the building of Social Housing in Local Government - no Council could afford to build properties that they would be forced to sell later without compensation. It has led directly to the ridiculous cost of Housing Benefit with the taxpayer held to ransom by the market (maybe it would be different if Housing Benefit was localised giving local authorities an incentive but that's not likely to happen).
Extend right-to-buy to Housing associations on the same model and social housing disappears within a generation at incalculable cost to the country.
It was the banning of local council's from using the main ney from the sales to build more houses that was the killer. As ever the Thatcherite policy of spending money from capital sales on current account spending messed things up long term.
Councils were entirely free to use the proceeds to build as many houses as they wanted. The only proviso was that any residual debt from council housing was paid for first.
In large parts of the country it is not financially viable to develop new homes for social rent. So once they're sold they don't get rebuilt. This is why everything is done on the (un)"affordable" housing model these days. This is the argument for localising Housing Benefit - if there was a financial incentive on Councils to reduce/minimise the Housing Benefit bill then the financial case for building Social Housing would shift dramatically.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
We had the Green Party candidate round last week here in Norwich South but no sign of anything else going on yet.
My medical friends will be voting Green, as will Fox jr in Norwich South.
Fox jr does seem to save on soap, and certainly does not overuse water!
On the EU we can debate what the costs might be of leaving. However so far no-one seems to be concerned about the costs of six years of uncertainty over our future. Could it already be harming us?
Car manufacturers have made substantial investments in the UK whilst talk of a referendum has been ongoing. If they thought there was a risk they would not have invested. The access to the EU market is one of many many reasons as to why the UK is seen as an attractive place to set up a business.
I don't think that's true.
The UK has historically been the number two country in Europe for inward investment (as a percentage of GDP), behind only Ireland. Here is the data comparing 2005 and 2013:
2005 2013 Ireland 23.2 22.9 Portugal 2.3 3.6 Spain 2.7 3.3 UK 10.9 1.4 Greece 0.3 1.1 Germany 1.5 0.9 Italy 1.1 0.6 France 4.2 0.1
As far as the car industry, Nissan chose to build its new "Golf-killer" in Spain rather than in the UK, which was a big blow to Sunderland. And Ford has closed down its transit plant in Southampton, among other things.
In fact, Spain has just moved into second place (behind Germany) as the number two car maker in Europe.
Odd http://www.cityam.com/1405852602/uk-foreign-investment-highest-europe-and-second-highest-world ''The UK's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock was greater than that any of its European neighbours last year ... FDI stock is a stable measure of foreign investment, demonstrating the long-term interest of foreign investors and their confidence in an economy. The UK reached a total of $1,606bn (£975bn) last year in FDI stock, which is almost $500bn more than any other European country. It marks an 8.3 per cent increase in its FDI stock from the previous year ...Only the USA had a higher value than the UK, reaching the considerable sum of $4,935bn in FDI stock: over twice as much as any other country in the world.''
UK production has more or less been flat over the period but the big shift is in value. Rover
Dagenham and Bridgend produce nealy all of Ford's powertrain in Europe.
Thanks for the longer-term data - although that doesn't capture the changes in 2014, of course.
I tend to agree that France and (to a lesser extent) Italy are long-term losers in terms of car production. Nevertheless, the last five years have seen a loss of jobs in the UK car industry, and the recent trends have been somewhat worrying.
Really it hasn't. Losses in one manufacturer have been offset by gains in another and the supply chain. The only UK based manufacturer suffering atm is Honda and that's because it has a poor model line up. havinf worked most of my life in the Uk automotive sector, it;s in the best shape I can remember it and most of the management and workers are fairly optimistic about the future.
You're stuck in 1978
David Smith highlighted the car industry as having seen gains in both productivity and employment in recent years in today's ST.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
To an extent, I agree.
But while posh lefties are influential they are not present in great numbers. The big issue is how the core working class vote feels.
In a low turnout election (which I expect outside Scotland) the most committed will vote. These will be Tories, Kippers and Greens. Labourites and LDs will not be very enthusiastic.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
This anti-UKIP stuff is bullshit now. You can just about defend egging a politician at hustings, or even harrassing a pol trying to make a Glasgow speech or open a party office in Rotherham.
Impossible to justify invading his private life, scaring his kids, pushing him out of a pub, jumping up and down on his car, etc.
The police have to arrest these people before they get Farage elected as prime minister.
It's Fascistic. Did any of them get arrested?
Too busy investigating someone for making mildly offensive comments on Twitter.
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
I think the fact that *she* could intervene is enough to make a government think twice. Its something a monarch could only get away with once, and i doubt it would happen. What would happen is that in their weekly chats, she would express her displeasure. By all accounts she is extremely intelligent and astute. No PM would be crazy enough to go to the wire with her, there would be compromise, all done entirely in private.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
Technically, parliament could probably legislate itself out of existence (and are limited precedents in the history of the Lords voting itself reductions in power). That would probably be unrepealable!
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
As Spain is a completely proportional system (with no first party boost)....
Spain has a strange system. Conscious malapportionment of districts, almost identical to the US Electoral Vote system. Favours the smaller rural districts, and consequently rightist and regional parties. D'Hondt tends to re-inforce this.
Probably the closest "PR" system to FPTP in Europe...
I think its a bad policy but knock down house purchase will buy votes IMO
So long as they are sold above replacement cost it doesn't matter if they are sold below free market value. In any event, if there are restrictions on resale (w/o clawback) like there usually are, then the free market value should be significantly reduced to account for the restrictions on free title
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
Technically, parliament could probably legislate itself out of existence (and are limited precedents in the history of the Lords voting itself reductions in power). That would probably be unrepealable!
In a low turnout election (which I expect outside Scotland) the most committed will vote. These will be Tories, Kippers and Greens. Labourites and LDs will not be very enthusiastic.
Somewhat off at a tangent, but I expect this will be a low turnout election, masquerading as a high turnout election. The overall numbers on the register will be lower, but the percentage of the register voting will be higher. Turnout has always been a misleading statistic, in the absence of a single national register (my turnout when I was at University was 50% for example, because I was registered in two different places - there will be much less of this under individual registration).
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
I think the fact that *she* could intervene is enough to make a government think twice. Its something a monarch could only get away with once, and i doubt it would happen. What would happen is that in their weekly chats, she would express her displeasure. By all accounts she is extremely intelligent and astute. No PM would be crazy enough to go to the wire with her, there would be compromise, all done entirely in private.
Deeply true, and deeply reassuring - until you look at her age and the, ahem, succession. I hope to God she makes it through both this year's General Elections.
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
66% 'to change the constitution'. This in a country with a written constitution but just 33 amendments. (There have been over 11,000 attempts to change it) This is the point of the 66% - for constitutional change. In our country it only needs a bare majority in Parliament by a party with less than 50% of the vote to change the law on gun ownership. In America its part of the constitution. For constitutional change I think a high barrier for change is wise.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
Er, I was right about Cameron resigning if he lost Scotland (despite the idea being pooh-poohed on here); it has since been tacitly or overtly admitted by all.
Not sure what the rest of your post is about.
Indeed, I bet you that if he lost Scotland he'd stay. Happily I didn't technically lose (bet void) but it seems appropriate to concede the moral victory to you.
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
I think the fact that *she* could intervene is enough to make a government think twice. Its something a monarch could only get away with once, and i doubt it would happen. What would happen is that in their weekly chats, she would express her displeasure. By all accounts she is extremely intelligent and astute. No PM would be crazy enough to go to the wire with her, there would be compromise, all done entirely in private.
In addition the Supreme Court's obiter dicta in Jackson vs AG (2005) very strongly indicates that in similar circumstances the courts would consider that Parliament had acted contrary to the English notion of the Rule of Law and that they would therefore decline to enforce the such a law.
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
But James II/VII was entirely after the union (i.e. after Charles II passed on) - and that is the accepted usage depending on whether you are in England or Scotland.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it?
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Im not sure I agree. Provided the matter is importat enough. Effectively you would be creating a constitution one bill at a time.
All a constitution is really is such an act that needs a two thirds majority to amend or repeal.
Louis XVIII and Napoleon III showed that regnal numbers could vary from standard numerical sequences without even arguing about which country they referred to.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
Your father sounds similar to mine.
My mother will be voting Conservative. And telling my father to cut out all this silliness and do the same.
She's completely come to terms with me being gay, but if she ever found out that I'd voted Green in the past, I would probably be disowned.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
snip for length.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Im not sure I agree. Provided the matter is importat enough. Effectively you would be creating a constitution one bill at a time.
All a constitution is really is such an act that needs a two thirds majority to amend or repeal.
Yebbut you can't do it in a bill, because an Act which says "this Act requires a two thirds majority to amend or repeal it" can be repealed by a simple majority, like any other Act, and the repeal would nullify all aspects of it, including the two-thirds requirement. You'd need something above and beyond a simple Act of Parliament to get the ball rolling in the first place.
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
I think the fact that *she* could intervene is enough to make a government think twice. Its something a monarch could only get away with once, and i doubt it would happen. What would happen is that in their weekly chats, she would express her displeasure. By all accounts she is extremely intelligent and astute. No PM would be crazy enough to go to the wire with her, there would be compromise, all done entirely in private.
Thirty years ago when I was at Croydon college we had a general studies lecturer who was a liberal councillor in Kingston. We had an interesting discussion one day as to whether she could dissolve parliament to stop a perfidious government in its tracks.
He was of the opinion that she could de jure but only de facto if it was a matter of critical importance that the people - and armed forces who are hers not parliaments - would support. The example he gave was if a government attempted to repeal the representation of the people act to avoid submitting themselves for re election.
Would certainly be interesting if she went all Charles II.
The mob which attacked UKIP leader Nigel Farage in a Kent pub was lead by Green Party member and 'Stand up to UKIP' activist Dan Glass and PCS Union NEC member and Hope not Hate activist Zita Holbourne, it can be revealed.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
Its the notion of 2 things. 1 - the Regional bias of the SNP which would mitigate against the rest of the country 2 - the movement ever leftward of the SNP and its effect on Labour
On another older topic I'm beginning to wonder if I can independently persuade 10 different people from 10 different constituencies to postal vote for the party of my choice in return for me showing them a picture of my own postal ballot which would match their preference.
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
But James II/VII was entirely after the union (i.e. after Charles II passed on) - and that is the accepted usage depending on whether you are in England or Scotland.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it?
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
After the Union of the Crowns there were still two separate countries of England and Scotland, it was only after the Act of Union that the single Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
snip
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
no, because whatever created the revised rules would itself be repealable.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
Its the notion of 2 things. 1 - the Regional bias of the SNP which would mitigate against the rest of the country 2 - the movement ever leftward of the SNP and its effect on Labour
On another older topic I'm beginning to wonder if I can independently persuade 10 different people from 10 different constituencies to postal vote for the party of my choice in return for me showing them a picture of my own postal ballot which would match their preference.
I think there is a third. That lot get more than their fare share of our taxes already. Get Salmond and Milipede in power and as sure as night follows day more bags of gold than ever will be headed up the M6
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
Er, I was right about Cameron resigning if he lost Scotland (despite the idea being pooh-poohed on here); it has since been tacitly or overtly admitted by all.
"admitted by all".
Hmmm, I think you're using a bit of artistic licence there.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
snip
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
no, because whatever created the revised rules would itself be repealable.
Not if you included in the enabling act a clause that a 75% majority was needed to repeal the enabling act.
What would be interesting would be if a subsequent government passed primary legislation that any act of Parliament could be repealed with a simple majority.
The mob which attacked UKIP leader Nigel Farage in a Kent pub was lead by Green Party member and 'Stand up to UKIP' activist Dan Glass and PCS Union NEC member and Hope not Hate activist Zita Holbourne, it can be revealed.
quelle surprise, not.
A sad lack of humour in the protests. Hippies dressed in fancy dress as hippies hardly works. Another lesson for Farage, after Janice Atkinson, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. He should have listened to Reggie Perrin.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
snip
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
snip.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
no, because whatever created the revised rules would itself be repealable.
Not if you included in the enabling act a clause that a 75% majority was needed to repeal the enabling act.
What would be interesting would be if a subsequent government passed primary legislation that any act of Parliament could be repealed with a simple majority.
NO, because you can repeal the enabling Act in toto, including the 75% majority clause. If I say all Acts are repealable by a simple majority and you say "except this 75% clause" and I say why? and you say "because of this 75% clause", your argument is circular.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
Miliband has already lost Scotland.
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
Er, I was right about Cameron resigning if he lost Scotland (despite the idea being pooh-poohed on here); it has since been tacitly or overtly admitted by all.
"admitted by all".
Hmmm, I think you're using a bit of artistic licence there.
As Spain is a completely proportional system (with no first party boost)....
Spain has a strange system. Conscious malapportionment of districts, almost identical to the US Electoral Vote system. Favours the smaller rural districts, and consequently rightist and regional parties. D'Hondt tends to re-inforce this.
Probably the closest "PR" system to FPTP in Europe...
Worse than Portugal?
They're very similar, with Least Squares indices of disproportionality in the 5%-10% range. ["Proportional" as opposed to "Very Proportional", using accepted metrics]
Portugal perhaps slightly more proportional than Spain.
Both use D'Hondt, but the smaller house size in Portugal [230 versus 350] is offset by a larger average district size [11 versus 7], and I don't think Portugal has the same deliberate malapportionment as in Spain. No threshold in Portugal either, although that's a very minor point.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
snip
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
no, because whatever created the revised rules would itself be repealable.
It would be repealable but only on the rules that it itself had created.
The precedents are the Parliament Acts, where the 1911 Act was amended in 1949 using its own provisions. The 1911 bill needed the consent of the Lords; the 1949 one didn't.
Likewise, a bill protecting its measures by including a percentage threshold for repeal would have to meet that threshold in order to repeal it, even though the original one didn't when it was passed.
It's that time of the week again! ELBOW (Electoral LeaderBoard Of the Week) for w/e 22nd March:
Labour have a mini-revival, their lead up 0.5% from their record low of 0.0% last week. Massive fall in UKIP = below 14% for the first time since August LibDems on 8% for the first time in 4 weeks Greens on their lowest score since November
Lab 33.8 (+0.6) Con 33.3 (+0.1) UKIP 13.9 (-0.9) LD 8.0 (+0.6) Green 5.5 (-0.2)
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
But James II/VII was entirely after the union (i.e. after Charles II passed on) - and that is the accepted usage depending on whether you are in England or Scotland.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it?
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
After the Union of the Crowns there were still two separate countries of England and Scotland, it was only after the Act of Union that the single Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
That still does not explain why - and despite what DavidL perhaps implies - the title of QE north of the border was not at all contentious, in the sense that officialdom and the establishment accepted the different regnal number as shown by the launch of the liner and the pillarboxes. I was taught about those when a child without a trace of a hint that it might be in any way contentious. Hence my puzzlement at some of the suggestions. One of those constitional anomalies I expect ...
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
We had the Green Party candidate round last week here in Norwich South but no sign of anything else going on yet.
My medical friends will be voting Green, as will Fox jr in Norwich South.
Fox jr does seem to save on soap, and certainly does not overuse water!
Three big posters along the A120, one for James Cleveley in Braintree and two for Priti Patel in Witham
It's that time of the week again! ELBOW (Electoral LeaderBoard Of the Week) for w/e 22nd March:
Labour have a mini-revival, their lead up 0.5% from their record low of 0.0% last week. Massive fall in UKIP = below 14% for the first time since August LibDems on 8% for the first time in 4 weeks Greens on their lowest score since November
Lab 33.8 (+0.6) Con 33.3 (+0.1) UKIP 13.9 (-0.9) LD 8.0 (+0.6) Green 5.5 (-0.2)
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
I think the fact that *she* could intervene is enough to make a government think twice. Its something a monarch could only get away with once, and i doubt it would happen. What would happen is that in their weekly chats, she would express her displeasure. By all accounts she is extremely intelligent and astute. No PM would be crazy enough to go to the wire with her, there would be compromise, all done entirely in private.
Thirty years ago when I was at Croydon college we had a general studies lecturer who was a liberal councillor in Kingston. We had an interesting discussion one day as to whether she could dissolve parliament to stop a perfidious government in its tracks.
He was of the opinion that she could de jure but only de facto if it was a matter of critical importance that the people - and armed forces who are hers not parliaments - would support. The example he gave was if a government attempted to repeal the representation of the people act to avoid submitting themselves for re election.
Would certainly be interesting if she went all Charles II.
I would agree with that.
Well, almost. Thirty years ago, the better reserve power to use would be to dissolve parliament on her own initiative in that situation. One would assume that the other main parties would oppose the controversial measure and that it was a critical issue in the public's mind. If either wasn't the case, it'd be near-enough impossible to justify an extraordinary use of a reserve power but assuming both were, then it would be better put to the electorate than vetoing outright.
However, now that she doesn't have that power any more, the veto would be the only option.
It's that time of the week again! ELBOW (Electoral LeaderBoard Of the Week) for w/e 22nd March:
Labour have a mini-revival, their lead up 0.5% from their record low of 0.0% last week. Massive fall in UKIP = below 14% for the first time since August LibDems on 8% for the first time in 4 weeks Greens on their lowest score since November
Lab 33.8 (+0.6) Con 33.3 (+0.1) UKIP 13.9 (-0.9) LD 8.0 (+0.6) Green 5.5 (-0.2)
I wonder if Farage setting out the terms for supporting a Conservative government last Sunday put off some more Labour inclined UKIP voters.
Wouldn't be at all surprised if Farage was physically assaulted before the election
Would be great if the UKIP activists did what the traders at the LIFFE floor did when the soap dodgers started whining about capitalism one May Day.. give em a good hiding
Note the length of the sections on ending FGM (one paragraph, where they decide to 'consider the issue'), and compare it to the 2+ pages of anti-Israel dribble that follows.
Of all the countries in the world that commit human rights abuses, the UN Commission on the Status of Women's annual meeting chooses to excoriate... Israel.
Not Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive. Not Syria, not Iraw, not Afghanistan.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
Its the notion of 2 things. 1 - the Regional bias of the SNP which would mitigate against the rest of the country 2 - the movement ever leftward of the SNP and its effect on Labour
On another older topic I'm beginning to wonder if I can independently persuade 10 different people from 10 different constituencies to postal vote for the party of my choice in return for me showing them a picture of my own postal ballot which would match their preference.
I think there is a third. That lot get more than their fare share of our taxes already. Get Salmond and Milipede in power and as sure as night follows day more bags of gold than ever will be headed up the M6
You may be right about that. I think I was suggesting that in point 1. However I am not opposed in principle to regions being in receipt of disproportionately more spending if that decision is made by a parliament which has uniform authority. Regional policy may require it. The SNP do not stand anywhere else in the country. Even if as is/was the Labour party had a clear majority of seats in Scotland then if it had a Labour majority in the UK then it could put money where it wanted. But as we are constituted the SNP in Westminster would have disproportionate power - voting on say the English NHS whilst not being able to vote on the Scottish NHS.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
There is no case for preventing the passage of legislation if it has a plurality of support in both Houses, or a consistent plurality of support in the Commons.
I had concerns at the passage of the FTPA introducing the principle that a vote carried by an insufficiently large margin doesn't count but at least that related to an internal parliamentary procedure.
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
Don't see why not. Its common enough elsewhere, such as the USA, where you need a two thirds majority in both houses to overturn bits of or add bits to the constitution.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Im not sure I agree. Provided the matter is importat enough. Effectively you would be creating a constitution one bill at a time.
All a constitution is really is such an act that needs a two thirds majority to amend or repeal.
But constitutions have different mechanisms for coming into place in the first instance. That's what gives them their legitimacy. You can't reasonably use one system to set up a more restrictive one unless there's widespread consent for it - and that certainly wouldn't be the case were the measure used just to protect pet projects.
It's that time of the week again! ELBOW (Electoral LeaderBoard Of the Week) for w/e 22nd March:
Labour have a mini-revival, their lead up 0.5% from their record low of 0.0% last week. Massive fall in UKIP = below 14% for the first time since August LibDems on 8% for the first time in 4 weeks Greens on their lowest score since November
Lab 33.8 (+0.6) Con 33.3 (+0.1) UKIP 13.9 (-0.9) LD 8.0 (+0.6) Green 5.5 (-0.2)
Completely off-topic, but for those following it, I've written the latest chapter in my alternative history. A quick summary of which is that WWI ends in 1916.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
Here's my anecdote:
drinks last night with lefty friends. Solid Labour supporters, despise Thatcher, etc.
They still hate the Tories, however, one implied he was unsure about voting for anyone, and the other said he was abstaining entirely ("Ed Miliband is an idiot").
This is the Tory hope. Conservative voters are relatively positive and energised. Labour voters are seriously apathetic and unimpressed with their own leadership.
In the end the electoin will be won or lost on the question of whether Tory-hatred outweighs contempt-for-Miliband, amongst English lefties.
I don't mind supermajorities for repealing laws, provided that they are enacted by a Parliament that achieves that same higher standard when the law is passed.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Only if you dad actually goes out and votes to prevent that fear, which if he feels alienated by all politicians but UKIP aren't scratching that itch, he might not?
My father will vote. Like many of his generation, he sees it as a duty. Who he'll vote for I'm not sure, but the chances have risen substantially that it will be the Conservatives.
Its the notion of 2 things. 1 - the Regional bias of the SNP which would mitigate against the rest of the country 2 - the movement ever leftward of the SNP and its effect on Labour
On another older topic I'm beginning to wonder if I can independently persuade 10 different people from 10 different constituencies to postal vote for the party of my choice in return for me showing them a picture of my own postal ballot which would match their preference.
I think there is a third. That lot get more than their fare share of our taxes already. Get Salmond and Milipede in power and as sure as night follows day more bags of gold than ever will be headed up the M6
No, I think the SNP would be quite happy with FFA - of course at the moment the Scots would have to cut their cloth but it'd also mean they'd need to sort out welfare and so forth particularly in the DE areas of the west of Scotland. As @Notme has aluded to though I think that would be good for the Scots.
It's clear the UK has done very well off of Scotland and particularly it's North Sea revenues, sadly pissed away (By both Labour & Conservative Gov'ts) - http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0043/00435654.gif. Voting SNP would be a very easy choice if I was in Scotland.
Wouldn't be at all surprised if Farage was physically assaulted before the election
Would be great if the UKIP activists did what the traders at the LIFFE floor did when the soap dodgers started whining about capitalism one May Day.. give em a good hiding
Note the length of the sections on ending FGM (one paragraph, where they decide to 'consider the issue'), and compare it to the 2+ pages of anti-Israel dribble that follows.
Of all the countries in the world that commit human rights abuses, the UN Commission on the Status of Women's annual meeting chooses to excoriate... Israel.
Not Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive. Not Syria, not Iraw, not Afghanistan.
Israel, ffs.
Israel probably killed 700 women in Gaza. FGM is serious. But does not compare to death.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
We had the Green Party candidate round last week here in Norwich South but no sign of anything else going on yet.
My medical friends will be voting Green, as will Fox jr in Norwich South.
Fox jr does seem to save on soap, and certainly does not overuse water!
So Cameron was very wise to demand the Greens as well as UKIP in the original debate format then.
She is indeed ER in Scotland, the senior monarchy - hence that is what is on the pillar boxes, and the ship misleadingly known as QE2 is actually 'Queen Elizabeth'.
Oh dear.
The QE2 is actually the Queen Elizabeth 2, named after it replaced the Queen Elizabeth.
Wouldn't be at all surprised if Farage was physically assaulted before the election
Would be great if the UKIP activists did what the traders at the LIFFE floor did when the soap dodgers started whining about capitalism one May Day.. give em a good hiding
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
But James II/VII was entirely after the union (i.e. after Charles II passed on) - and that is the accepted usage depending on whether you are in England or Scotland.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it?
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
After the Union of the Crowns there were still two separate countries of England and Scotland, it was only after the Act of Union that the single Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
That still does not explain why - and despite what DavidL perhaps implies - the title of QE north of the border was not at all contentious, in the sense that officialdom and the establishment accepted the different regnal number as shown by the launch of the liner and the pillarboxes. I was taught about those when a child without a trace of a hint that it might be in any way contentious. Hence my puzzlement at some of the suggestions. One of those constitional anomalies I expect ...
Anyway, goodnight and thanks for the discussion.
The liner was named after Queen Elizabeth the then future Queen Mother, not Elizabeth II. The QE2's naming is ambiguous as to whether it is the second ship named after the Queen Mother, or whether it's named after the Queen but with an unorthodox numbering.
I'm no fan of Labour but this is appalling. Just as the original council house selling was. If Miliband does win he needs to pass an act that makes it impossible for the Tories to do this in the future. Perhaps needing a 75% majority in both houses to do it.
That would be outrageously undemocratic.
Why stop at that bill? Why not make it part of all legislation you really, really don't want repealing? Indeed, why stop at 75%? Why not make it 90, or 95, or 100?
snip
There is no case for having some laws sit higher than others.
snip.
Do you really not see how undemocratic it is to protect legislation against reciprocal repeal? Indeed, it's so undemocratic that if a government proposed it, I'd argue that it's the kind of circumstance in which the Royal veto should be invoked.
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
Shouldn't really matter anyway because you can regress up the hierarchy. There is no mechanism to create unrepealable laws at the moment so any law which creates that mechanism will itself be repealable, so you repeal it.
But it would only be repealable according to the revised rules.
no, because whatever created the revised rules would itself be repealable.
It would be repealable but only on the rules that it itself had created.
The precedents are the Parliament Acts, where the 1911 Act was amended in 1949 using its own provisions. The 1911 bill needed the consent of the Lords; the 1949 one didn't.
Likewise, a bill protecting its measures by including a percentage threshold for repeal would have to meet that threshold in order to repeal it, even though the original one didn't when it was passed.
Not a good analogy because the Parliament Acts don't run up against the principle that parliament cannot tie its own hands.
If we're doing anecdotes, my father started a conversation on the phone about politics(I just listened). He is alienated by all politicians and would probably be inclined to UKIP but he doesn't like their divisive tone. But "what really scares me is the idea of a Labour government propped up by the SNP".
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
Haven't come across the SNP issue, but I do meet the "don't like the tone" comment on UKIP - it's not that such people think they're racist, but that they think they're rabble-rousing, which is seen by many as a mortal sin in a middle England constituency like mine. Equally though I suspect there are people who do like the tone and would not vote for them if they seemed too bland.
On enthusiam (responding to SeanT), I find about half the Labour and Tory voters are very keen and see it all like a thrilling football match between their favourite team and Man Utd. The other half are much more unenthusiastic, both Labour and Tory, though in general not IMO enough to put them off voting. Again the dynamics of marginals are likely be different - for many people, the election has been going on for five years here, ever since the last one ended in nearly a dead heat. The polls suggest similar certainty to vote for Lab/Con/UKIP, and I think that's right.
Note the length of the sections on ending FGM (one paragraph, where they decide to 'consider the issue'), and compare it to the 2+ pages of anti-Israel dribble that follows.
Of all the countries in the world that commit human rights abuses, the UN Commission on the Status of Women's annual meeting chooses to excoriate... Israel.
Not Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive. Not Syria, not Iraw, not Afghanistan.
Israel, ffs.
Israel probably killed 700 women in Gaza. FGM is serious. But does not compare to death.
Then why doesn't the report spend even more space on a resolution about Syria, where the death toll from fighting was several times that of the recent Gaza Conflict by the time this meeting took place? Rightly or wrongly, Israel is treated differently to other countries. Compare for example the reaction (both in intensity and duration) Sri Lanka got for the beach massacre which finished off the Tamil Tigers (and many many civilians) compared to Israel.
No - James II/VII was before the union so it's correct to use the two numbers independently, depending on the kingdom in question. Future monarchs will take the higher of the two, so another James would be James VIII in both, or if Prince George decides to use his second name rather than his first, he'd be Alexander IV.
But James II/VII was entirely after the union (i.e. after Charles II passed on) - and that is the accepted usage depending on whether you are in England or Scotland.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it?
Elizabeth II is called that in Scotland as well. Some proto nationalist numpty went to Court to challenge it in MacCormick v Lord Advocate 1953 SC 396. He lost, comprehensively. Even more clear cut than the referendum really.
This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
After the Union of the Crowns there were still two separate countries of England and Scotland, it was only after the Act of Union that the single Kingdom of Great Britain was formed.
That still does not explain why - and despite what DavidL perhaps implies - the title of QE north of the border was not at all contentious, in the sense that officialdom and the establishment accepted the different regnal number as shown by the launch of the liner and the pillarboxes. I was taught about those when a child without a trace of a hint that it might be in any way contentious. Hence my puzzlement at some of the suggestions. One of those constitional anomalies I expect ...
Anyway, goodnight and thanks for the discussion.
The liner was named after Queen Elizabeth the then future Queen Mother, not Elizabeth II. The QE2's naming is ambiguous as to whether it is the second ship named after the Queen Mother, or whether it's named after the Queen but with an unorthodox numbering.
Note the length of the sections on ending FGM (one paragraph, where they decide to 'consider the issue'), and compare it to the 2+ pages of anti-Israel dribble that follows.
Of all the countries in the world that commit human rights abuses, the UN Commission on the Status of Women's annual meeting chooses to excoriate... Israel.
Not Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive. Not Syria, not Iraw, not Afghanistan.
Israel, ffs.
Israel probably killed 700 women in Gaza. FGM is serious. But does not compare to death.
The deaths of civilians in war is a different issue. Women are not being targeted as women, civilians are not being targeted at all. If there were no rocket fire there would be no shelling. Israel cannot be both indiscriminate and biased at the same time in its shelling.
The mob which attacked UKIP leader Nigel Farage in a Kent pub was lead by Green Party member and 'Stand up to UKIP' activist Dan Glass and PCS Union NEC member and Hope not Hate activist Zita Holbourne, it can be revealed.
quelle surprise, not.
Not surprised to see the Government sponsored and Labour front Hope not Hate involved. One of the least accurate names for an organisation since the amusingly named German Democratic Republic.
Comments
I tend to agree that France and (to a lesser extent) Italy are long-term losers in terms of car production. Nevertheless, the last five years have seen a loss of jobs in the UK car industry, and the recent trends have been somewhat worrying.
If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001.
I went to Norwich today to pick up Fox jr for the Easter break and had lunch with some old friends there.
No election posters or signs anywhere. The only bit of literature my friends had had to do with the election in Norwich South (perhaps a 3 way marginal) was a single flyer from Labour promising GP appointment within 48 hours. It didnt go down well with my Guardian reading medical friends as he knows that GP vacancies are already unfilled in the city. Where are the extra 7 000 GPs to come from?
Six weeks away from an election that few care about.
The only substantial investment has been in Eastern Europe CZ, Slovakia and Romania.
Belgium has been wiped out as a car manufacturing centre, and plants and closing in France.
No, I don't think he will. We are not in the euro and have no incentive to take part in ever closer union. Its in our interest for Europe to do well, if they want this ever closer union good luck to them, but it won't help us or them if they make a mess of it. Our challenge it to try to get the best of both worlds.
I think it will be bad news all round if the Tories do not win the election since with labour the tough choice will be fudged away. With the tories we will at least get a referendum and then take the consequences.
Seems like UKIP are going to try and give Nadine a run for her money. Perhaps his lordship might care do to a constituency poll in Mid Beds?
"If I was Major, I would have repealed the Parliament Act in 1996 and replaced it with an act disbarring all life peers and prohibiting any more hereditary peers to be created except when a line dies out and needing an 80% majority in both houses to repeal. That would have stopped Brown opening the spending spigots in 2001."
Do you think if a government actually did that the Monarch would intervene?
You're stuck in 1978
Can you not see how absurd it would be to stop a government that had just won a second landslide majority from pursuing its policy on the basis of one kicked out several years earlier and a bunch of people effectively nominated centuries ago?
Were it not for the fact that you're a regular poster, I'd suspect you were trolling.
Edit - OK, turns out you were trolling on that bit but the principle still stands.
In both cases there is a presumption that Parliament intends all subsequent legislation to be compliant with either the Convention or EU law. It is still open to Parliament to expressly disapply these provisions but unless they do so any new Act will be interpreted in a way that is compliant unless that is absolutely impossible.
The FTPA does not have any special protection and can (and probably should) be binned if the next Parliament is so minded.
In that time PSA in France have been cutting 8000 jobs. They are in good company in Europe because of years of subsidy and over capacity.
Fox jr does seem to save on soap, and certainly does not overuse water!
http://www.cityam.com/1405852602/uk-foreign-investment-highest-europe-and-second-highest-world
''The UK's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock was greater than that any of its European neighbours last year ... FDI stock is a stable measure of foreign investment, demonstrating the long-term interest of foreign investors and their confidence in an economy. The UK reached a total of $1,606bn (£975bn) last year in FDI stock, which is almost $500bn more than any other European country. It marks an 8.3 per cent increase in its FDI stock from the previous year ...Only the USA had a higher value than the UK, reaching the considerable sum of $4,935bn in FDI stock: over twice as much as any other country in the world.''
"Miliband has already lost Scotland."
There was someone, I think their name was Sean, who said that if Cameron lost Scotland then he would have to resign.
And if Cameron didn't lose Scotland, the offers he had made to keep it would damage him immensely.
Huh.
Turns out that it was Miliband who paid the price.
Lynton Crosby is earning his money.
But while posh lefties are influential they are not present in great numbers. The big issue is how the core working class vote feels.
In a low turnout election (which I expect outside Scotland) the most committed will vote. These will be Tories, Kippers and Greens. Labourites and LDs will not be very enthusiastic.
http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2015/01/norwich-south/
Two of the most critical Labour MPs associating with one of the protesters who was part of the mob which descended on the pub in Kent.
Supporters of Stand Up To UKIP:
Diane Abbott MP
Len McCluskey – Unite the Union General Secretary
Ken Livingstone – Mayor of London – 2000 – 2008
Owen Jones – Writer and Journalist
I presume they will be comdemning the criminal acts which took place today.
This is the point of the 66% - for constitutional change. In our country it only needs a bare majority in Parliament by a party with less than 50% of the vote to change the law on gun ownership. In America its part of the constitution.
For constitutional change I think a high barrier for change is wise.
EDIT: just realising you are thinking of the Union of the Pmts in 1707 - the right Union in this context is the 1603 Union of the Crowns surely. Or is it? This doesn't make sense. Why then were they so careful to name the liner Queen Elizabeth, and put QE on the pillar boxes?
And I wouldn't say Mr MacCormick lost it - in a sense the result was neutral (ie the regnal number is royal prerogative, not constitutional law). It had major implications for confirming the validity of Scots law, after all.
Two of the most critical Labour MPs associating with one of the protesters who was part of the mob which descended on the pub in Kent.
Supporters of Stand Up To UKIP:
Diane Abbott MP
Len McCluskey – Unite the Union General Secretary
Ken Livingstone – Mayor of London – 2000 – 2008
Owen Jones – Writer and Journalist
I presume they will be comdemning the criminal acts which took place today.
And she calls herself black? I've been blacker after a summer holiday in skegness.
All a constitution is really is such an act that needs a two thirds majority to amend or repeal.
She's completely come to terms with me being gay, but if she ever found out that I'd voted Green in the past, I would probably be disowned.
He was of the opinion that she could de jure but only de facto if it was a matter of critical importance that the people - and armed forces who are hers not parliaments - would support. The example he gave was if a government attempted to repeal the representation of the people act to avoid submitting themselves for re election.
Would certainly be interesting if she went all Charles II.
http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/scum-mob-lead-by-green-party-member-and.html
The mob which attacked UKIP leader Nigel Farage in a Kent pub was lead by Green Party member and 'Stand up to UKIP' activist Dan Glass and PCS Union NEC member and Hope not Hate activist Zita Holbourne, it can be revealed.
quelle surprise, not.
1 - the Regional bias of the SNP which would mitigate against the rest of the country
2 - the movement ever leftward of the SNP and its effect on Labour
On another older topic
I'm beginning to wonder if I can independently persuade 10 different people from 10 different constituencies to postal vote for the party of my choice in return for me showing them a picture of my own postal ballot which would match their preference.
So I was on the golf course and I yelled "FORD".
The golfers in front of me turned around, and said "It's FORE, idiot".
That's when the truck hit 'em.
Hmmm, I think you're using a bit of artistic licence there.
What would be interesting would be if a subsequent government passed primary legislation that any act of Parliament could be repealed with a simple majority.
Another lesson for Farage, after Janice Atkinson, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. He should have listened to Reggie Perrin.
Portugal perhaps slightly more proportional than Spain.
Both use D'Hondt, but the smaller house size in Portugal [230 versus 350] is offset by a larger average district size [11 versus 7], and I don't think Portugal has the same deliberate malapportionment as in Spain. No threshold in Portugal either, although that's a very minor point.
The precedents are the Parliament Acts, where the 1911 Act was amended in 1949 using its own provisions. The 1911 bill needed the consent of the Lords; the 1949 one didn't.
Likewise, a bill protecting its measures by including a percentage threshold for repeal would have to meet that threshold in order to repeal it, even though the original one didn't when it was passed.
Labour have a mini-revival, their lead up 0.5% from their record low of 0.0% last week.
Massive fall in UKIP = below 14% for the first time since August
LibDems on 8% for the first time in 4 weeks
Greens on their lowest score since November
Lab 33.8 (+0.6)
Con 33.3 (+0.1)
UKIP 13.9 (-0.9)
LD 8.0 (+0.6)
Green 5.5 (-0.2)
Anyway, goodnight and thanks for the discussion.
Well, almost. Thirty years ago, the better reserve power to use would be to dissolve parliament on her own initiative in that situation. One would assume that the other main parties would oppose the controversial measure and that it was a critical issue in the public's mind. If either wasn't the case, it'd be near-enough impossible to justify an extraordinary use of a reserve power but assuming both were, then it would be better put to the electorate than vetoing outright.
However, now that she doesn't have that power any more, the veto would be the only option.
Would be great if the UKIP activists did what the traders at the LIFFE floor did when the soap dodgers started whining about capitalism one May Day.. give em a good hiding
(This has been reported on several news sites, so I thought I'd go to the horse's mouth):
http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=E/2012/27
Note the length of the sections on ending FGM (one paragraph, where they decide to 'consider the issue'), and compare it to the 2+ pages of anti-Israel dribble that follows.
Of all the countries in the world that commit human rights abuses, the UN Commission on the Status of Women's annual meeting chooses to excoriate... Israel.
Not Saudi Arabia, where women are not even allowed to drive. Not Syria, not Iraw, not Afghanistan.
Israel, ffs.
However
I am not opposed in principle to regions being in receipt of disproportionately more spending if that decision is made by a parliament which has uniform authority. Regional policy may require it.
The SNP do not stand anywhere else in the country. Even if as is/was the Labour party had a clear majority of seats in Scotland then if it had a Labour majority in the UK then it could put money where it wanted.
But as we are constituted the SNP in Westminster would have disproportionate power - voting on say the English NHS whilst not being able to vote on the Scottish NHS.
http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=340616&page=6
It's clear the UK has done very well off of Scotland and particularly it's North Sea revenues, sadly pissed away (By both Labour & Conservative Gov'ts) - http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0043/00435654.gif. Voting SNP would be a very easy choice if I was in Scotland.
But then again I wish he would stop his dog whistling.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073990/quotes
https://twitter.com/Sunil_P2/status/579764172013068288
Exploitation - 650 cases involving children referred to police in a yr
#tomorrowspaperstoday
The QE2 is actually the Queen Elizabeth 2, named after it replaced the Queen Elizabeth.
The SNP don't do maths, or history it seems...
On enthusiam (responding to SeanT), I find about half the Labour and Tory voters are very keen and see it all like a thrilling football match between their favourite team and Man Utd. The other half are much more unenthusiastic, both Labour and Tory, though in general not IMO enough to put them off voting. Again the dynamics of marginals are likely be different - for many people, the election has been going on for five years here, ever since the last one ended in nearly a dead heat. The polls suggest similar certainty to vote for Lab/Con/UKIP, and I think that's right.
http://www.pocruises.com/cruise-ships/britannia/overview/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia