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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Joff Wild on Jeremy Corbyn and an impending constitutional
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Joff Wild on Jeremy Corbyn and an impending constitutional crisis
As leader of Her Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition Jeremy Corbyn receives a salary of close to £138,000 per annum. On top of this, of course, he gets expenses and a generous pension package. Last week, he told us that he does not consider himself wealthy.
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Interesting piece, Mr. Wild.
How can the Speaker impose a change, though? Surely the PLP needs to split, and the non-socialists form a new party?
The matter of who is the Leader of the Labour party is ultimately a matter for the members of the party, not the Speaker.
Also does that 138k include his 64k as an MP and his index-linked final salary pension?
If not, he owes something like 182k in change for taking the money under false pretences...
The MPs will still be taking the Labour whip, Corbyn is filling the main posts, it's hard to see what justification Bercow would have to get involved.
If the rebels resign the whip and/or form a breakaway party-in-a-party with more MPs than Corbyn then there might be an alternative lever to try to persuade Bercow to pull, but it seems unlikely that they'd have the numbers.
That's the case now with the Leader of the Opposition " A fish rots from the head......
If the Labour Party isn't interested in Parliament, Parliament can return the favour.....
It is the job of the PLP to support their leader. They are not doing it.
You might as well argue that Bercow should fire the PLP. They are preventing Corbyn from doing his job.
We shall see, if Corbyn wins, whether Labour MPs do the decent thing and split; whether their loyalties are to the name or to the values of Labour.
Other than the PLP selecting their own leader in Parliament (which would be a clear breach of the party's constitution and entitle the party to suspend them) it is not obvious what can be done about it.
If the person is the Leader of the Opposition, well, whatever.
Yes, but Ed M was elected by the PLP for the PLP.
Corbyn was not.
Ok, but he was an acceptable alternative to DavidM for the PLP (within the voting process).
I suppose a loss of thousands of council seats might start a revolution in Labour, but the MP's have played it very badly. they seem weak and indecisive and even fecked up the resignations from the front bench..
There is no one I can think of who could take the PLP by the scuff of the neck..
Any suggestions?
It suggests a question: what is the legal basis and requirements of the Official Opposition in parliament? Is there any exact wording written down anywhere? Its too long since I read the uni's copy of Erskine May (*) to remember much about it, and I'm no sure if it's the sort of thing it covered anyway.
Do the OO actually *have* to do anything?
(*) It's a real shame this costs so much - £318 for the latest edition. Ouch.
That depends what you mean. I think it will go away for a time, perhaps a year or more, while the beaten lick their wounds.
Our constitution demands a properly functioning opposition – one in which a full shadow cabinet is backed up by a full team of junior shadow ministers and parliamentary private secretaries. For as long as Jeremy Corbyn leads Labour, this will not happen.
Not quite - he has just enough MP support for a full team I think. The question is if they are up to the job.
I'm not sure at what point Bercow would be prompted into taking action. There is definitely an argument if the opposition leader is not actually leading parliamentary opposition that is a problem, no matter how much Corbyn claims to be opposing in the country at large, but it would be such a momentous thing to attempt.
Like the Constitution itself, I expect all sides will attempt to muddle along for as long as possible, and surprisingly long at that.
"Given his proximity to power, however, some questions have yet to be asked. Will Weiner have an official role in the White House? (Director of Social Media, perhaps?) Will he, in fact, be living at the White House with Huma Abedin? One can only imagine the late-night hijinks of First Man Bill Clinton and his junior sidekick."
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/08/07/will-anthony-weiner-enter-white-house/
Outside there is Ed Balls, David Miliband and arguably even Alan Milburn or James Purnell who would have been options. Labour have yet to recover from the catastrophe that was Brown and a whole generation of potential leaders who decided to do other things with their lives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3755404/Britain-NEVER-leave-EU-claims-professor-says-Boris-Fox-ignore-Leave-vote-avoid-massively-complex-withdrawal-call-second-referendum.html.
'Britain will never actually leave the EU because Boris Johnson and other leading Brexiteers did not realise how ‘massively complex’ the process would be, a leading expert has said.
Professor Thom Brooks warned Article 50 – the formal process of leaving the European Union – is unlikely to ever be invoked.
The head of Durham University Law School said Brexit-supporting ministers would decide unpicking nearly half a century of European law was too difficult and row back on their commitment to leaving.
And he dismissed Prime Minister Theresa May’s ‘Brexit means Brexit’ pledge as similar to saying 'gobbledygook is gobbledygook' as it did not necessarily mean exiting the EU.
Professor Brooks, who advised the Electoral Commission on the wording of the referendum question, told MailOnline: ‘I do not think Article 50 will be invoked.'
But on to the matter at hand:
The prevalence (on the whole) of the two-party system has usually obviated any uncertainty as to which party has the right to be called the 'Official Opposition'; it is the largest minority party which is prepared, in the event of the resignation of the Government, to assume office. The Leader of the Opposition and some of his principal colleagues in both Houses form a a group, popularly known as the Shadow Cabinet...Since the strength of modern party discipline tends to reduce the effectiveness in the House of Commons of a direct attack upon a Government, the criticism of the Opposition is primarily directed towards the electorate, with a view to the next election, or with the aim of influencing government policy through the pressure of public opinion.The floor of the House of Commons provides the Opposition with their main instrument for this purpose...The Leader of the Opposition is by custom afforded certain rights in asking questions of ministers, and members of the Shadow Cabinet and other official Opposition spokesman are also given some precedence in asking questions and in debate.
On 'Opposition Time' - Seventeen of the days so allocated [for such time] are at the disposal of the Leader of the Opposition, and three at the disposal of the leader of the second largest opposition party.
There's a lot of technical guff, but it doesn't look the Opposition have many formal responsibilities, as it also notes in some ways government days are in essence also opposition days with the ways they can debate and influence government time.
This is a Labour party issue and not a constitutional one. The labour party got itself into this mess, not least by some of its MPs nominating Corbyn for the leadership ballot. It is down to the party to sort itself out not for the Speaker to try and rescue it from its own folly.
"The prevalence (on the whole) of the two-party system has usually obviated any uncertainty as to which party has the right to be called the 'Official Opposition'; it is the largest minority party which is prepared, in the event of the resignation of the Government, to assume office. "
Interesting, so it isn't just pure numbers (assuming this is used as the definition of official opposition).
If it came to pass it would be the worst defeat by any party Ever(except for the LIb Dems;)
UK General Election Seat Forecast (29th Aug)
CON: 420 (+89)
LAB: 140 (-92)
SNP: 51 (-5)
LD: 12 (+4)
PC: 6 (+3)
UKIP: 3 (+2)
GRN: 2 (+1)
He's a yank and Blairite academic placeman . A new entry to my black book.
So on day one nothing changes. As time goes on parliament just changes bits and pieces of it as it pleases by repealing or changing the SIs.
In a decade or two they might replace the EEC act with a new one to tidy things up but that is not unusual with any major legislation.
Corbyn is paid £138,000 a year because he has a constitutional role beyond being his party's leader. If someone can't do the job they're paid to do, they either resign or are fired. Corbyn can't do the job he is paid to do :-)
(1) Britain is fully compliant with all EU regulations so once a deal on the SM is reached it should be straightforward to implement. If it isn't it is unlikely we will get a FT deal anyway, so that won't take much negotiating;
(2) The claim that there are 60,000 pages of EU law on the statute book is false. Take, for example, EU regulations on caged hens. The original was 12 pages long. Our regulations are over 250 pages long. This is because the civil servants at MAFF (as it then was) took the opportunity to add loads of other regulations to the same statute and blame the EU for it. So most of those are British laws anyway and don't need removing, or can be removed as they come up;
(3) trade will continue in some form, as it always has since the days of the Celtic tribes. There may well be costs. But there is no law saying we must impose tariffs on EU components for assemblage in this country (for example). There are things a clever Chancellor can do to mitigate the impact. As for the loss of City euro traded, did they ever pay taxes on that anyway, or make up for the huge banking losses of 2007-8?
There may be changes. But if it is complex, long-drawn out or especially painful, that is not because of the inherent impossibility of Brexit but because somebody is playing silly nuggets.
Police officers should be allowed to have tattoos on their hands, neck and even faces, the Police Federation of England and Wales says.
It believes a ban on visible tattoos imposed by many forces may hamper the recruitment of promising candidates
Really? That's hampering the recruitment of promising candidates? This isn't exactly the FBI saying those really good with IT don't have to dress in suits and can have minor criminal records.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37214262
A majority of 240 seems a shade optimistic.
Repulsive.
I've changed the thread picture with a picture that's much more appropriate for this thread.
1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance
He's got a long way to go.
" trade will continue in some form, as it always has since the days of the Celtic tribes. "
Excuse me! Trade with europe, and indeed beyond, was happening well before the celtic tribes.
So, although Jo Swinson is very impressive, I doubt they'll be competitive. (I wouldn't be surprised if she was the candidate in O&S next time around.)
I just looked at NE Fife again, and I'm staggered by how Willie Rennie did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_East_Fife_(Scottish_Parliament_constituency) - I've gone from thinking that's a 50/50 seat for the LDs to thinking it's a likely LD gain, given it's 80% of the parliamentary constituency.
There is of course some discussion about what came before that, if anything, but having read innumerable books on the subject that go into exhaustive and in my view pointless detail (I think the low point was somebody who asked 'woher komme diese Kelten' for no apparent reason other than to show off his knowledge of German) I just draw the line at 'Celts' and call everything else 'an argument'.
That said, I wouldn't be too reassured if a rozzer had one. On their face.
In most circumstances, the political reality would tell you who was the official opposition. But with Corbyn, he'd claim it with fifty MPs - and fourth party status - if it came to it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-37212256
Staggeringly, the Turks and Kurds (or their affiliates, at least) appear to be having a go at one another in Syria. Gosh.
Edited extra bit: a very trivial aside, but Hannibal's last elephant was called Surus, Latin for Syrian. He rode it through the Arnus Marshes when he lost an eye to exposure.
Of course, if you want to define anything pre-(Claudian)Roman invasion as celtic you are most certainly correct, if a little misguided.
Indeed are their any markets up yet on the size of the next Tory victory?