On Monday, something happened in the House of Commons that should cause electors to wonder what parliament is for. The motion before the house was that “a commission of inquiry be established to investigate the impact of the government’s welfare reforms on the incidence of poverty”. At the vote the government was defeated by 125 votes to […]
Posts under ‘Constitution’
A King is born
Jul 22nd, 2013 by Phil Burton-Cartledge.While I’ve been writing this, we – Her Majesty’s subjects – have been allowed to learn that a baby boy, weighing 8lbs 6oz was born to the Royal couple at 25 past four this afternoon. Whoopie-doo. Now, I can just about remember the last time the media was dominated by Royal baby hysteria. The year was […]
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Making Parliament more effective is not just a matter of longer sittings
Apr 24th, 2013 by Michael Meacher.Margaret Hodge, chair of the Public Accounts Committee, had a point when she said Parliament should sit for longer sessions if it is to perform its scrutiny function properly. After all the current Parliamentary session is about to end having sat for less than 140 days in the last year. But whilst Parliament certainly does need […]
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Making the grade
Aug 24th, 2012 by Darrell Goodliffe.Today was a day when many, justifiably, were celebrating outstanding academic achievement. However, for different reasons, both the government and opposition failed to make the grade. Exam result days have become somewhat ritualistic, there are winners and losers but no matter what the outcome it has become typical for the political classes, usually accompanied by […]
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Do we really need a House of Lords?
Jul 31st, 2012 by Kelvin Hopkins.With the Euro getting ever nearer to collapse, the world economy moving deeper into recession, unemployment in Britain predicted to surge above three million and the IMF warning that we are facing a decade of depression unless the government does a massive u-turn, there are definitely more important matters to deal with than House of […]
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Devolution max for the North?
Jul 28th, 2012 by Robbie Scott.The population of England and Wales has increased by 3.7 million since 2002 which represents a huge logistical challenge not just in terms of planning local services but also in terms of addressing the widening democratic deficit in England which host the lions share of the increase. We ought to forget talk of an English […]
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Whatever happened to Labour republicanism?
May 31st, 2012 by David Osler.It’s just a guess on my part, but even today, a significant minority of Labour MPs would perhaps privately profess support for a British republic. Maybe even Ed Miliband, if you caught him alone over a beer, would concede the absurdity of selecting our head of state exclusively from the ranks of a single family […]
