The answer is Yes. But not beyond repair. The Tory and Labour front benches now have to give up party politics and stem the rising waters of an emergency engulfing the very stability of the United Kingdom. Neither leads a united party. May leads little more than half a party, and only for the moment. […]
If the Democrats choose Joe biden to beat Trump in 2020, they will lose. He has many qualities. He is very experienced, well liked, steady and level headed, already a proven statesman and he understands how the world works. Correction. How the world used to work. That is the problem. It is a bigger problem […]
She had become a byword for disaster. Wherever she went defeat was her handmaiden. Then suddenly out of nowhere she corralled her dog fight cabinet for eight solid hours, having seized their phones, so that they were cut off from leaking to the outside world or being briefed by their many factions. First they were […]
This blog has no time for the DUP which has brought down power sharing in Northern Ireland and is now making organised government in the UK impossible. It is a Leave party, but Northern Ireland voted Remain. It is against the Backstop but the majority in NI favour it. It claims to put the Union […]
The nation, indeed the world, looks on in disbelief as the hope that parliament having taken control, showed it could exercise it, passes in another string of Nos. This is because there is no spirit of compromise at one level and at another far too many members have no idea what they are doing or […]
So May lost for the third time, but not so big. Perhaps. But she still lost and although the Tory party governs it actually doesn’t. This is because about 100 of its own MPs routinely oppose it. Take those off the tally and May has fewer MPs behind her than Corbyn. So no wonder she […]
Well the answer cannot really be yes, because in the international definition of a constitution in a democracy we do not have one. We have a set of customs and practices based on precedent, or what has gone before. So if it worked last time we can do it again. Our problem today is that […]
In any other time since GB became a parliamentary democracy Yes. But in these tumultuous political times when the constitution is flexing and stretching in every direction, No. Not yet. But it is no longer governing as an executive. There are in the end two reasons for this. Forget about new acts and court rulings. […]
Having given an evasive and unconvincing performance at the EU Summit yesterday, the prime minister got her delay, but on very different terms to those expected. The council of EU leaders showed an ability to reach unanimity, make compromises and think creatively which far outshone the wooden May. One is truck by the qualitative uplift […]
Things have been made worse by the Fixed Term Parliament Act and the Supreme Court Ruling, both of which diminished the power of the executive and increased the power of the legislature, while leaving the structure unchanged. That is clearly not now fit for purpose. But it could have been managed as a problem revealed […]