The House of Lords broke no constitutional conventions in referring back Osborne’s vindictive tax credit cuts. The Tories and their media supporters are talking utter garbage on the question. Taking Britain’s appalling “constitution” for what it is, the arcane rules of procedure were not breached.
Ever since David Lloyd George and Herbert Asquith forced, by threat of massive creation of peerages, the 1911 Budget through and with it the start of National Insurance and the demise of the workhouse, there has been a convention that the Lords do not oppose or amend Finance Bills.
But the tax credit cuts were not in a Finance Bill. Osborne instead tried to sneak them through by statutory instrument. This is secondary legislation whereby a Minister signs off laws under powers delegated to him by primary legislation. Secondary legislation gets much less parliamentary time and committee scrutiny. If Osborne had put the tax credit proposals in a Finance Bill, as they certainly should have been – it is Osborne who was breaking parliamentary convention here – rather than sneak them under the table as secondary legislation, the Lords would indeed not have been able to stop them without breaching constitutional convention. Which just goes to show it doesn’t always pay to be a weasel.
Osborne is hoist by his own petard.
Aah, Tories say. But there is another convention that the Lords do not block secondary legislation.
They are making that one up. There is no such constitutional convention and there are plenty of examples of the Lords blocking secondary legislation. There is a huge quantity of secondary legislation, thousands and thousands of laws – ministers continually are signing off legal changes.
But the entire basis of the secondary legislation is that parliament has delegated to ministers, in Acts, powers to sign off uncontroversial matter. This can be, for example, the detail of regulations needed technically to enforce primary legislation, and the occasional updates needed. Only a very low percentage indeed of secondary legislation ever gets queried by the Lords, but that is not because of a constitutional convention. That is because most of it is dull stuff. But when the government abuses its authority and tries to smuggle vital changes through secondary legislation, the Lords not only has the constitutional right to challenge this abuse, it has the constitutional duty to do so.
I wish they would do it more often. For example, when the Labour Party used Westminster secondary legislation to cede 6,000 square miles of Scotland’s sea to England without parliamentary scrutiny.
Finally, there is a constitutional convention that the Lords do not oppose manifesto commitments on which a government has been elected. But the Tories rather carefully did not put tax credit cuts in their manifesto, and indeed in campaigning said they would not do it.
The British constitution is appallingly undemocratic. The fact that an undemocratic chamber has fended off a proposal from an undemocratic executive which gained the votes of only 37% of the voting electors, is not a blow struck for democracy. It is however a temporary victory for human decency in mitigating an attack on the poor.
It is also an achievement for Jeremy Corbyn. Nobody can truly believe that Labour peers would have been organised to do this under Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall.
UPDATE Wings Over Scotland has a very different take on the Labour Party performance. That the Labour Party was not radical enough to go for the “fatal” option I am afraid I find unsurprising. It remains a deeply conservative institution. But I had not previously encountered the argument that 90% would lose the money from universal credit anyway, and it is stunningly cynical. But on close consideration, I cannot work out what it means. Either there must be some additional cut to universal credit, or that those who lost tax credit could have regained it on universal credit anyway. If anybody could explain that one further, I should be grateful.
“I would say..”
Lysias Lol
Loved that thanks for the Laugh.
Which reminds me..i must get my October Haiku up, like SOON.
P.S well done Japan Winning the Men’s Team Title at World Gymnastics Championship in Glasgow.
Of course it might have occurred to the makers of the fortune cookie to print both expressions, ie “you’re pretty” and “you’re good looking”.
I trust our Transatlantic Fried will consider contacting the Chinese manufacturers (in Chinese, of course) to make the above suggestion.
I expect him to share any reward with me.
….Order of the Brown Nose for Fuji-san !
Thanks for the video’s Brian, the old chap carving caves is awesome, most of it done with spade and pick axe.
Interesting techniques and instant counters, a lot of hip work and using the others momentum.
Asquith resigned the Liberal party leadership, once he was safely ennobled, in 1926, “over Lloyd-George’s handling of funds” (Longman’s Companion to British History by Charles Arnold-Baker), of course he was tainted. A war-monger and a trougher through and through. Lloyd-George had become a figure of fun, known as ‘The Goat’, known for for his opulent lifestyle, and was widely discredited by 1922, whilst Asquith was party leader (1908-1926) covering the period peerages were being openly sold, and which was in due course investigated. 1911 was not the first time Asquith had threatened to pack the Lords with new peers or otherwise deform it: in 1907 he’d had a first failed try including draft bills to limit their veto to two years or three sessions.
What is your motivation for lamely attempting to repair the well-tattered reputation of either of these rogues? the Liberals of this era, this pair particularly, with others were very much the ‘war-party’ that made the the 1914 catastrophe an inevitability.
The Tories were much quicker off the mark wanting to go to war in 1914. As the July crisis began, a majority within Asquith’s Liberal cabinet did not want to go to war. It took days for the minority of “Liberal imperialists” to persuade a majority of the cabinet to go to war, and they might not have succeeded without the German invasion of Belgium.
As usual Habb you lack the acumen to see the point, Priti Patel’s exterior isn’t the ugly side of her, no it’s her cold heartedness towards the less fortunate and poor, she’s the Grim Reapers (IDS) protégé.
However the parasite Elizabetha Regina and it’s off shoots, are different matter.
Of course the Grim Reaper would never suspend the Royals benefits, which rise yearly.
Old saddle bag face will never know hardship, what a pity.
Kuenssberg in a question to Cameron in Reykjavik about the Chilcot delay referred only to the 179 British military killed in Iraq. There was no mention of those Iraqi people killed and injured. Cameron professed profound annoyance at the delay. He was not plausible.
As Felicity Arbuthnot writes in http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/10/tony-blair-is-the-legal-net-tightening/ speaking of Lord Morris of Aberavon,
‘The families and friends of the 179 British service people who died had been “badly let down” by the delays, stated his Lordship. Indeed, but, tragic as the whole Iraq horror is for the UK’s bereaved, their sons, daughters, relatives, signed up to join the armed forces, trained extensively in killing other human beings and had the lawful right, if in conscience they believed it wrong, illegal, to refuse to serve.
In their debate their Lordships devoted no time to the grief of the relatives of the over one million Iraqi dead, the 800,000 Iraqi children who have lost one or both parents, the million widows, the maimed, the limbless, those who lost their minds, homes, all, in the horror, who also are “badly let down”, their need for answers paramount. Only Lord Dykes in just two lines referred to “… the fate of Iraqi civilians. That should be a substantial part of this report.”’
A reminder –
‘Sir Jeremy (Heywood) was Principal Private Secretary to Tony Blair from June 1999 to July 2003 and would thus have been party to every step of the scheming and untruths about the invasion and surely the plotting between Bush and Blair to attack, during their April 2002, three day meeting at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas.
Subsequently Heywood stepped into the same position when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister after Blair’s resignation, a post he held between January 2008 and May 2010, so would also have been party to the plans for, and structure of, the Chilcot Inquiry into the war, which was set up by Brown. Thus those involved in the bloodbath and invasion, convened the Inquiry into the illegality.’
The same Heywood became Cameron’s Cabinet Secretary in October 2011.
You could not make it up.
“Just incase the likes of Fred jumps in and says “it’s their own fault they pay VAT because it’s a national force and not a local force.”
Well if that was truly the case then Northern Ireland’s PSNI should pay VAT.”
It has nothing to do with being national, it is because they are totally central government funded.
The Northern Ireland police force was given VAT exemption by act of Parliament on their creation in 2001 to keep them in line with the rest of the UK police which, being local government funded, were section 33 bodies.
When the Scottish government decided to make Police Scotland totally central government funded they lost their section 33 status and had no legislation to make them VAT exempt, the exchequer had no choice but to charge them VAT.
The treasury did try to explain the situation to the Scottish government and even suggested ways in which they could have a national force and not pay VAT but the Scottish government refused to listen to them.
In short, the Scottish government deliberately and knowingly lost VAT exemption for the Scottish police and fire services so they could cry foul and blame Westminster. They could easily have created the national force and kept VAT exemption if they had wanted to.
http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_PublicAuditCommittee/Correspondence_from_the_Cabinet_Secretary_for_Justice2.pdf
Nevermind… Yes i was totally amazed at the old chap, stunning work..and you are spot on Re the counters.. great stuff..and talking of jutsu, i better dash to the dojo.. But first –
Since Craig’s Birthday in in October, and there were a few others, Here is October’s Haiku
Shigi toku
kuwa susugi
uneri kana
Far away the birds go
On the water are ripples
made washing a hoe
– Buson ( 1716-1784 )
STOP THE WAR
Protest against dictator Sisi’s visit to the UK
True to form, the UK government is preparing to roll out the red carpet for yet another vicious dictator. Under the military regime of Egypt’s president, Abdelfattah El-Sisi, over 3000 people have been killed, more than 40,000 people have been detained as political prisoners (hundreds of whom are awaiting the death sentence after corrupt show trials), journalists and writers are being persecuted and imprisoned, detainees are subjected to torture and abuse, and the brutal siege on Gaza has been tightened still further. Sisi’s regime continues to close the Rafah border and has flooded supply tunnels with poisonous water.
Join us as we stand in opposition to his visit to the UK and show our government that we will not welcome war criminals in our country.
4 November • 5pm-7.30pm • 10 Downing Street
Stop The War’s Facebook page – more details
https://www.facebook.com/events/1043410655702990/
Some time back, I wrote to my MP about the visit by this revolting person. I was told that diplomatic channels have to be kept open. The letter included two pages of bilge from Tobias Ellwood, the FCO minister concerned with the Middle East.
The Glasgow Chamber of Commerce seem to approve of UK Egypt connections.
http://www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/news-media/glasgow-buzz/2014/december/09/tobias-ellwood-mp-trade-delegation-to-egypt-12-16-january-2015/
http://www.glasgowchamberofcommerce.com/about-us/biographies/board/
It’s always all about the money.
Fred, the Westminster government could make the Police and Fire Brigade in Scotland exempt if they wanted to, the did with centrally funded schools in England.
If they can change the rules for one then why not the other.
This is from your link:
Whether or not we can agree that there is an element of ‘local funding’, we still think
there are other compelling reasons for allowing the new Fire and Police Authorities
to recover VAT.
This will ensure that the reform of Scotland’s police and fire services
is fiscally neutral, and maintain parity of treatment between police and fire services
across the UK.
By failing to agree the continuation of the services’ ability to recover VAT, your policy
is in stark contrast with your treatment of Academy schools in England. These
schools are fully funded by central government.
Originally the funding UK
Government department (Department for Education) met new VAT costs associated
with the shift to central funding and those costs were reimbursed by Treasury.
You then changed the rules, by creating a new provision in the Value Added Tax Act
1994, to allow the Academy schools to reclaim VAT thereby taking funding pressure
off the Department for Education.
You stated to the Public Bill Committee of the UK
Parliament on 9 June 2011 that in doing so your “objective is to ensure that we can.
“Fred, the Westminster government could make the Police and Fire Brigade in Scotland exempt if they wanted to, the did with centrally funded schools in England.”
Using separate legislation, state funded schools do not qualify for section 33 status, they have section 33B status which only applies to academies.
This is all explained in the letter to Kenny MacAskill. The Scottish government knew full well that the police and fire services would lose section 33 status well in advance. It’s nobody’s fault but theirs. Never mind what Westminster could do it’s what the Scottish government should have done that matters.
Personally I’m quite worried as to why a Nationalist government was so determined to take absolute total control of the police force they would throw away VAT exemption to achieve it.
Yesterday’s PMQs, for those who may have missed it…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja0kF9piIL0
With the rise of the SNP, and then the election of Corbyn as Labour leader, PMQs has become a must watch. Corbyn did well yesterday, but once again the SNP’s Angus Robertson did even better, in my humble opinion.
http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Report-Captain-on-Israel-bound-flight-from-Spain-announced-landing-in-Palestine-430340
A discomforting experience for the Israeli passengers on this flight as reported in the Jerusalem Post . Try as they might some Israelis just can’t escape that history didn’t start in May 1948 . The Captain may even have reminded them they were arriving at Lydda Airport , renamed Ben Gurion Airport , Lydda renamed Lod . An onboard history lesson . Now who could complain about that ?
They had already pre-emptively invaded Belgium themselves, the hasty Belgian defences were built, maintained and manned by Britain and France as a provocation and intended to be no real obstacle, but good spin; back then they might have called such pre-meditation or news management a ‘jolly wheeze’. Belgium as a public cause was a fiction, concocted long before the war broke out, then rolled out in due course to explain it, for the press and public to gorge on. Reality is the British Government had been preparing for and looking for an opportunity to have a war with Turkey since 1906, for control over a greater part of the middle-east, knowing soon enough that implicit in this might be war with Austria and Germany. Once Turkey submitted as the Americans piled into France, to replace experienced troops taken from westen front or sent direct for a coming battle with Turkey, who gave them a dizzy, the organised slaughter in Europe was quickly wound up as inexplicably as it had began. For the preceding half-century, the serial aggressor in Europe was France, the term ‘Prussian Militarism’ is of early 20thC opportunistic coinage, their prior experience was primarily as a hired army in the service of other nations.
Iberia is saying that the Israelis on board the plane misheard, that the pilot said not “Tel Aviv, Palestina”, but “Tel Aviv, nuestro destino” (i.e., “Tel Aviv, our destination”). http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2015/10/29/piloto-iberia-palestina_n_8421032.html . Maybe they’re too quick to imagine slights.
I wonder if the UK will pay any attention to this EU decision. European Union tells member states to protect Edward Snowden from U.S. extradition.
Right so Westminster screws the Scottish Government and Police force over VAT, and that’s the SNP’s fault, according to Fred. Why can’t Westminster simply extend existing rules, and we are talking about rules which they make as they please, to exempt Police Scotland from VAT as with other Police forces. It’s not difficult, but they’d rather piss about harbouring grudges and storing dud ammunition to launch yet another ‘scandal’ ‘shock’, ‘horror’ load of pish media scare. Westminster, government by petulant brats.
Actually, according to that report, the pilot’s words were, “Queridos pasajeros, estamos en descenso para aterrizar en nuestro destino, Tel Aviv” [“Dear passengers, we are now descending to a landing in our destination, Tel Aviv”], and this has been confirmed by the Spanish-speaking passengers.
Habbabkuk, of course, you-know-who, our English immigrant-into-Canada, has argued that ‘genocide’ is going on in the UK, where people like me are assuming genetic dominance over people like him. Nonsense, of course. So, like the word, ‘fascist!’, or ‘we are devastated’ or (from footballers, this)’we are gutted’, the word, ‘genocide’ often is used inappropriately by all and sundry. This in no way reduces the basic crime which Israel has been committing for many years – the crime of occupation, blockade and oppression – and the frequent crimes against humanity which Israel commits against the people of Gaza.
But as I said, the thread is about the Government attacking the poor in the UK.
QT tonight from Edinburgh BBC1 22.35
Kezia Dugdale MSP Lab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kezia_Dugdale
Annabel Goldie MSP Con https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annabel_Goldie
Billy Bragg http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1446019257.html
Keith Brown MSP SNP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Brown_(politician)
Merryn Somerset Webb https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merryn_Somerset_Webb
“the SNP’s Angus Robertson did even better”
I thought Kirsty Blackman’s question was better still:
“Did the Prime Minister refuse to put this in his manifesto because he knew that, if he did, he would not be elected?”
If the US or EU tell you the sun will rise in the East tomorrow morn, make sure you rise early to verify, Edward.
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/edward_snowden_calls_eu_vote_to_offer_him_asylum_20151029
Priti Patel always looks very pleased with herself.
Rather a meteoric rise up the ranks of the lobby fodder brigade ex the PR world.
https://www.gov.uk/government/people/priti-patel
She is of Ugandan Gujerati heritage and is ‘an officer of Conservative Friends of Israel’.
At Weber Shandwick she did her best for British American Tobacco and then worked for Diageo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priti_Patel
Weber Shandwick was founded by John Gummer’s brother Lord Chadlington. Ben Gummer is also a young Con MP and is the son of John, now Lord Deben. Quite a little dynasty.
Some familiar names mentioned here.
http://powerbase.info/index.php/Weber_Shandwick_Public_Affairs
Hooray!
See Drone Wars UK report on the victory yesterday at the High Court in Birmingham. The right to protest against UAV Engines, owned by Israeli arms company Elbit, has been asserted in a British court room.
Elbit’s extraordinary attempt in July 2015 to create a ‘forbidden zone’ around the drone engine factory, similar to the closed military zones created freely by the Israeli occupation forces in Palestine, lies in tatters.
Campaigners claim victory as High Court throws out injunction against protests at drone factory
28/10/2015
http://dronewars.net/2015/10/28/campaigners-claim-victory-as-high-court-throws-out-injunction-against-protests-at-drone-factory
Glenn, commiserations with regard to your close buddy passing away.
I was thinking of you while listening to this song, by Leonard Cohen, one of my favourite singer-songwriter poets. Its co-sung by Sharon Robinson, an old time collaborator who produced one of his best albums in, relativel recent times, 10 New Songs.
Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snNpEUJp_Z4
” Here is your sickness.
Your bed and your pan;
And here is your love
For the woman, the man.
May everyone live,
And may everyone die.
Hello, my love,
And, my love, Goodbye.”
While I’m at it with the music (btw, anyone who isn’t using Spotify is missing out big time–awaken your dull lives!), here’s another beautiful duet, Kris kristofferson and Norah Jones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwFcmPwYyr4
and finally, Shani twain and Willie Nelson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6wBxQVBozI
Its country and western music night.
Btw, Krishnamurti talked a lot about Death, both psychological death and physical death; may be a good time to explore.
With all good wishes.
Suhayl
I wouldn’t call it genocide, for that would imply a conscious effort on the part of the immigrant, and that is where CanSpeccy goes too far. The immigrant is merely seeking a better life. It is really the politician, the leftist, the hard-nosed businessman, who are to blame. Craig and the FTSE100 in a strange union. Suhayl and the dreams of globalism.
But certainly mass-immigration is detrimental to the future wellbeing of the country, large parts of which are clearly no longer British. Few countries on earth would be expected to put up with this level of immigration, and indeed most don’t.
Mary
” At Weber Shandwick she did her best for British American Tobacco and then worked for Diageo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priti_Patel
Weber Shandwick was founded by John Gummer’s brother Lord Chadlington. Ben Gummer is also a young Con MP and is the son of John, now Lord Deben. Quite a little dynasty.
Some familiar names mentioned here.”
______________
Mary, is this alphabet soup your dinner? If so, you’re really having a feast tonight! Btw, do you actually memorise all these nebulous relationships/connections in your mind? Do your fans?