When you stop and think about it, voting is a very low information form of communication. We get nothing about the certainty of the voter’s view, nothing about the enthusiasm of the voter, nothing about the considerations that led the voter to that view. All we get is a single recorded choice. As a result, every so often a political truth is so stark staring obvious, so central to British politics, that it is almost entirely missed. We are at…
Bercow needs to be eased out, one way or another Goodwill is the oil which lubricates the British constitution. The rules of parliament have been inherited from a time when governing was a gentlemen’s business and was expected to be carried out by gentlemen acting as gentlemen. Self-restraint and the awareness of when it becomes inappropriate to keep pushing a case are an essential aspect to enabling the system to work. Parliament is frequently criticised for being overly adversarial –…
A deferral on March 29th could lead to similar calls once the extension ends Lots of talk today about the possibility of the March 29th Brexit deadline being deferred because the UK Parliament does not have the time left to enact the required legislation. Apparently six bills would have to complete the parliamentary process before the article 50 deadline of March 29 when the country is due automatically under the legislation that allowed the Article 50 notice to be given….
Yesterday in what was billed as his “big Brexit speech” LAB leader Corbyn called for a general election should TMay lose fail to win backing for her Brexit deal in the vote next week. But he’s been far more reluctant to allow Labour to give any backing to the increasing clamours for a specific referendum on the deal. As is widely known Corbyn has been anti the EU just about all his political career and he’s not going to change…
And a 35% chance that 2019 will see a Brexit referendum Mike Smithson Follow @MSmithsonPB Tweet
Now joint favourite for the Democratic nomination This is from my post under the heading “My 66/1 long-shot bet for the 2020 White House race: Democratic Senator Kamala Harris from California” from January 18th 2017 – two days before Donald Trump was inaugurated as President. “..With Trump’s inauguration taking place on Friday there’s been a flurry of betting activity on the newly elected Senator from California, Kamala Harris, for the next White House Race in 2020. This followed a lot…
LICE – Luxembourg, Ireland, Channel Isles, Estonia – we could add others and play alphabet soup, but the basic premise is the same small countries which live well by diverting the tax revenues of their larger neighbours. These are parasites not in the derogatory sense but in the biological sense of entities which live off others. This is not new, tax havens have been around for centuries but largely as an irritant to those next door. However in the last two decades things…
This week’s latest Westminster scorecard : The Executive NIL Parliament TWO By any standards the events that we are seeing at Westminster over the process of the government’s EU Exit legislation are completely unprecedented. Generally parliament is very much there to follow what the executive rules and Westminster’s structures and rules are designed to achieve that end. The two defeats for the government that we’ve seen yesterday and today are designed to eat away some of the executive’s power in…