Articles with the Tag constitution

BBC Political Editors – Making It Up As They Go Along

Dutch politics, Gordon Brown, Manufacturing consent, Media, Tories, UK politics
Published on

UPDATE: Brown is currently announcing he’s going to see the Queen to resign and to recommend that she ask the leader of the opposition, ie Cameron, to form a government. But still, my post makes some valid points, not least that Nick Robinson should be sacked.

It ain’t over till the Queen lady sings…

The BBC are now performing a complete volte face and promoting a Lib Dem/Conservative coalition to the skies.

This is because, according to their ‘sources’, namely Charles ‘safety elephant’ Clarke, greedy backbench philanderer David Blunkett, that walking piece of unpleasantry John Reid and Bambi-eyed Andy Burnham (who must’ve been inhaling too much of his Maybelline mascara), that any Lib/Lab pact is dead.

The politicoliterati are still trying to turn this negotiating period into a two party adversarial contest (I blame Nick Robinson) – but that’s not what forming a coalition is about.

Take the Dutch model:

In the UK a party’s manifesto is its manifesto for government. In the Netherlands manifestoes exist to be melted during post-election negotiations, and fused together.

The process takes time. To do it in a week would be completely impossible in Holland. It cannot be done in days – or rather it can, but then Dutch people would strongly suspect that the job had not been done properly, and that the deal had not been well thought-out.

It’s understandable that the British newspapers are eager for a resolution, but it’s not correct that the UK is without leadership.

There is a caretaker government. The chancellor of the exchequer can continue to take part in discussions of the global economic crisis. Day-to-day decisions will continue to be made.

It’s absolutely normal, from a Dutch perspective, for parties to drive a hard bargain to get as many of their policies as possible into the programme of the new coalition government.

Dutch coalitions usually last for years… though one in 2002 fell after 87 days.

What is less normal is to have a party, like the Liberal Democrats in this case, in a position of so much power that it can make the difference between stable government and chaos. That is because, in the Dutch political system, there are always several coalition possibilities.

There is also less likelihood of a party holding simultaneous negotiations with the two biggest parties – so less scope for allegations of double-crossing.

This whole mess is a ridiculous media-driven one and it’s been talked up by the likes of Nick Robinson in order to fit his own preferred preconceived narrative.

This isn’t democracy, it’s government by media and the rumour mill, and in no way does it reflect the will of the voters.

If this latest rumour turns out to be true, the LibDems will, unsurprisingly, implode in acrimony and worst of all we’ll have a Tory government. The only upside is there’ll be another election along soon when it all falls apart as it’s bound to.

The downside is it’ll again be run under FPTP, and once again the voters will be robbed.

What If Gordon Won’t Go?

Health, UK politics
Published on

castlereagh_death1

I have cardiology appointments and a dialysis session for the rest of the day and no access to wifi so no blogging from me till much later, if at all and anyhow the media, especially the BBC, seem to have cold feet and have backed off Gordon Brown.

For the moment only. Nick Brown, PM’s top henchperson and Labour chief whip, must surely be running out of nasty little journalistic secrets by now. It won’t be long before the hounds start baying again.

It also can’t be long before Gordon has another phone-throwing tantrum or does himself or someone else a mischief. Even the loyalists might jump if he’s visibly cracking up. But would they? The line from no 10 this morning is that he’ll “have to be carried out of No. 10 in a box”.

It wouldn’t be the first story of ministerial madness in British constitutional history: this morning I’ve been reading about the early 19th century war minister, the notorious Viscount Castlereagh, of whom Byron quipped:

” Posterity will ne’er survey
a Nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh:
Stop, traveller, and piss!

The man who ordered the Peterloo massacre suffered from a form of severe paranoia that first led him to challenge the then Foreign Secretary George Canning to a disastrous duel and eventually to cut his own throat in despair.

But Lord Castlereagh wasn’t a serving PM, only a minister. There was no constitutional crisis as such. That got me wondering – what is the precedent should a British PM become sectionable while in office? Who makes the call? The Cabinet? Parliament? What about the Queen? What if he were to refuse to even see a doctor? What should happen then – should psychiatrists be sent to No. 10 to forcibly examine a Prime Minister?

A patient can be sectioned if they are perceived to be a threat to themselves or other people. Generally, a patient can only be sectioned if two doctors and a social worker or a close relative of the patient believe it is necessary. One of these doctors is usually a psychiatrist. The other is often a doctor who knows the patient well. However, in an emergency one doctor’s recommendation may be sufficient. An approved social worker also has to be involved in the assessment, and has to agree that being sectioned is the best course of action for that patient. The social worker then makes the application for a place in secure accommodation for the patient.

What if Brown were to refuse to leave office at all? The convention is that a PM can hang on for up to 15 months after a general election would have been due, but it’s only a convention and he’s always got the Civil Contingencies Act, which allows the government of the day to declare an emergency – it decides exactly what an emergency is – and to suspend democracy, override normal checks and balances and all local democracy – to rule by fiat, essentially – as the nuclear option. What could be done against that?

It’s an interesting constitutional problem and one I need to do a lot more reading about.