Garters in a Twist 641

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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.

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641 thoughts on “Garters in a Twist”

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  • Habbabkuk (Mary's Nemesis)

    Pulcinella (14h18)

    Nice try!

    Would you prefer the IDF to give potential stone throwers good notice of the likely consequences or would you prefer them not to do so?

    I’m sure you won’t answer that rather simple question because (1) if you answered NO then you wouldn’t be able to pose as a Palestinian sympathiser and (2) if you answered YES then you would be admitting that your original indignant post on the subject was just a load of bollocks.

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    And now to return to Craig’s original theme and to leave behind the Pulcinellas and other Original Trolls:

    there is a rather interesting opposing point of view on the constitutionality or otherwise of the House of Lords vote on the blog of the excellent Brian Barder.

    Older readers (indeed, posters who can actually read more than a couple of lines of thoughtful, well-argued prose) will recall that Brian Barder is a former Office colleague of Craig’s of whom Craig has quite a high opinion.

    I recommend reading it.

  • nevermind

    @Habbakuk Mary’s cyber stalker, have you got anything to say about Trowbridges latest conspiraloon theory?

    No? I thought not,
    you poor old attention seeking fart.

  • Mary

    The reports of the plane crash had hardly come through before the BiBiCee’s nitwit travel correspondent Calder was brought on to criticize Russia’s air safety record.

    Calder – make as many air journeys as you can… use as much fossil fuel and increase the CO2 emissions as much as you can…keep travelling … keep visiting Disneyworld … go on as many holidays as you can… the world is not burning…sea levels are not rising. Travel broadens the mind or NOT in case.

  • Mary

    Israel’s Daily Toll on Palestinian Life, Limb, Liberty and Property
    27 October 2015
    Palestinian Monitoring Group http://www.nad-plo.org/dailyreports.php%5D

    Israeli Navy opens fire on Palestinian fishing boats

    Israeli Army position opens fire on Central Gaza

    Israeli Army separates boy (11) from his father, then abducts him

    Israeli settler knifes and hospitalises West Bank villager

    Night peace disruption and/or home invasions in 5 towns and villages

    4 attacks (2 Israeli ceasefire violations

    13 raids including home invasions

    3 dead – 49 injured

    12 abducted (aged 11 to 17)

    Economic sabotage

    36 taken prisoner – 10 detained –

    *98 restrictions of movement

    http://palestine.org.nz/phrc/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2921&Itemid=44

  • Monteverdi

    Lo Zuccone 2.37pm .

    Nice attempt at obfuscation but it refuses to answer my own original question which I’ll happily repeat . ” Would you accept that a similar broadcast with similar wording should have been broadcast to these illegal squatters throwing stones at the Police ”
    If your answer is yes then I’ll assume you agree that these squatters should be told ..” If you throw stones we will hit you with gas till you die , the youth , your children , your old people ” .

    PS / The addition to your Avatar of the word ‘Nemesis ‘ is looking a little pretentious if not to say crumbling if the level of response is ad hominem attacks such as ” you’re an amoral git ” and your weak responses to genuine questions .
    I’m afraid to say I’m disappointed and sense your abilities are declining fast but these threads seem to keep you occupied , struggling but occupied .

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Pulcinella

    “Nice attempt at obfuscation but it refuses to answer my own original question which I’ll happily repeat …etc…”

    ____________________

    Another nice try, Pulcinella.

    Since my “original question” came before yours, here’s my suggestion; you amswer mine and then I’ll answer yours.

    My original question (to which you responded with what you now call your “original question”)was:

    “I suppose you would prefer the IDF not to give advance warning of the likely consequences of stone throwing?”

    Off you go, laddie – just simple yes or not, no weasily little evasions and qualifications please.

  • nevermind

    Thanks Mary, I agree, their report is very likely censored and biased, we can only go by what the stats say, if they are right, and by what the security forces on the ground have reported, Sisi’s men.
    So, at present we are speculating.

    Just as Erdogan in Turkey, Sisi is facing an election in two parts, he’s eager to look strong, we have to see what he’s doing on the ground in Sharm Al Sheik.

    Is false flagging now part of the ME’s election strategy? Have they both engineered a security situation that allows them to clamp down on the Kurds/Muslim Brotherhood.

    It broke in half on impact most likely as the two parts are close together going by witness reports.
    IS claims the downing, but its not the only option as a neighbouring rogue state, very well equipped to watch the whole of Sinai’s airspace also has the ability and means to down such a plane.

    If IS has planted a bomb, the plane would have broken apart much earlier, if they have sabotaged the engines by infiltrating staff/gaining access to the plane, despite the checks that were supposed to have made in Sharm Al Sheik, then this option only supports the theory that Sisi is only really in charge in Cairo, but nowhere else.

    I think that this accident could be an election clincher for Sisi, whoever is responsible.
    As for Erdogan, our good ol’ NATO partner, he has shut down two opposition TV stations and he has arrested one of the opposition candidates. He’s mad as hell and the 50 green berets better watch out that he does not bomb their Kurdish brethren fighting IS…..

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Nebelmind

    “@Habbakuk Mary’s cyber stalker, have you got anything to say about Trowbridges latest conspiraloon theory?

    No? I thought not,”
    _______________

    You’re wrong, as usual.

    I say that Trowbridge’s latest conspiracy theory is bollocks.

    And now, Ingo – what do YOU say to Trowbridge’s theory?

    Off you go!

  • nevermind

    Zionists who patrol in occupied territories should expect to get stoned by unarmed harassed residents of that area. If Netanyahu keeps his SA/SS/psyop troops away at night, people want to sleep and have to work the next day, after all, nobody would throw stones and/or be gassed for it. What could be simpler…

    You never know, if good motivations rule the day and persist, children of that area could even be going to school together, regardless of being Jewish or Arab.
    That was normal some years back, before the butcher of Sabra and Shatila wound everyone up.

  • Mark Golding

    From: COIA
    Subject: Kolavia Flight 7K9268
    To: [email protected]
    Message-ID:
    Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2015 14:06:02 +0000
    User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101
    Thunderbird/38.3.0
    MIME-Version: 1.0
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
    Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

    Dear Sirs,

    Please convey our heart-felt condolences to the family and friends of
    Russian passengers and crew of Kolavia Flight 7K9268 that lost height
    almost vertically and crashed in central Sinai killing all onboard.

    God Bless those devastated by this terrible incident.

    Mark Golding
    Chair
    Children of Iraq Association
    http://www.coia.org.uk

  • Monteverdi

    Lo Zuccone 3.55pm .

    Happy to answer . I have no objections to the illegal Occupying Israeli Army giving advance notice of the likely consequences of stone throwing just as I have no objections as to how Palestinians respond to it . I do object however to an Occupying Army threatening ” to hit you with gas till you die , the youth , your children , your old people ”.

    So back to my question : ” Do you agree with a similar broadcast being made to stone throwing squatters ..” If you throw stones we will hit you with gas till you die , the youth , the children , the old people ” ?

    A] If the answer is ‘ Yes ‘then those on this thread who haven’t already judged your ‘ morality ‘ can now do so .
    B] If the answer is ‘ No ‘ then you accept there should be different consequences for different Israeli squatter stone throwers throwing similar stones at Israeli Occupation Forces .

    As you say , ” just simply yes or no , no weasily little evasions or qualifications please ” .

  • Mary

    Edward Snowden is currently Rector of Glasgow University. He is opposed to the SNP’s Higher Education Governance Bill before the Scottish Parliament.

    https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/658387361924042753

    He refers to this article.

    Senate brands controversial HE Governance Bill a threat to ‘institutional autonomy’
    20 October, 2015
    http://glasgowguardian.co.uk/2015/10/20/senate-brands-controversial-he-governance-bill-a-threat-to-institutional-autonomy/

    He has good info on his twitter.

  • Mary

    [ Mod: Results of match deleted. People might watch it time-delayed, and readers get can live sports results elsewhere. ]

    Who will win??

  • Republicofscotland

    You realise a party is clutching at straws when they start reminiscing about the old days.

    Jeremy Corbyn yesterday appealed to voters to back London Labour’s branch office in Scotland at next years elections.

    Corbyn waxed lyrical about how much he admired, Labour founder Keir Hardie.

    Gordon used to Brown prattle on about James Maxton, when he was in a tight spot, which was often.

    Brown wrote his uni thesis on Maxton, yet Brown wouldn’t have recognised socialism, if it jumped up and bit him on the leg.

  • Republicofscotland

    Meanwhile, Lady Mone of Mayfair, unelected in every sense of the word, waltzed into the House of Lords this week and voted to stop Tax Credits for hard working families. She picked up £300 in expenses in the process, her qualifications, amount to selling bra’s.

    Mind you the HoL is full of unelected unqualified troughers, who’s only contribution to politics is donating to the Labour/Tory/Libdem party’s.

    What a completely f*cked up and undemocratic chamber the House of Lords is.

    The Lords is the second largest chamber in the world, with only the National Peoples Congress in China larger, but China has a population of 1.3 billion, as opposed to Britain’s 64 million.

  • Republicofscotland

    Ash Carter US Defence Secretary has said that US Special Forces are to be deployed in Northern Syria, Carter added the US will also be sending in more F-15 fighters and the formidable A-10 aircraft.

    Conclusions to be drawn from this, are Russia and the Syrian army are getting the upperhand on the rebel forces.

    The USA claim the civil war in Syria has so far killed 250,000 people.

  • Mary

    Apologies for running those two comments together. Jarring.

    Got carried away by the exciting conclusion of the match.

    [ Mod: Result of match deleted ]

  • fwl

    Habbs thanks for ref to Brian Barder’s blog,but I don’t see how he is justified in accusing Lords of driving a coach and horses thro constitutional conventions because (1) not in any manifesto and (2) there actual election representations that if elected into Gov the Cons wouldn’t do this. No doubt such representations will have induced some part of the electorate (ie Tory wets and floating voters) to vote for Conservatives. In these circumstances Lords have high ground.

  • Silvio

    911 widow Kristen Breitweiser (her husband died in the 9/11 attack when the WTC towers collapsed) tells Condi Rice to get stuffed (so to speak).

    Dear Condi:

    I’m going to keep this really simple.

    In response to your comment that you could personally “plead guilty” to not having imagined terrorists would use passenger aircraft as weapons→please stop lying.

    As proof, I provide the “Iron Man” documents from the Asymmetrical Threats Division of Joint Forces Intelligence Command (JFIC), also known as DO5, whose task it was to track UBL from mid 1998-mid 2001.

    I would first note that you were National Security Advisor to the President of the United States — that means that you had pretty much access to anything and everything available regarding terrorist threats from groups like Al Qaeda.

    Fourteen years later, everyone now knows about the summer of 2001 and the more than one dozen intelligence reports blinking red about an impending Al Qaeda terrorist attack. There was the August 6 PDB, FAA reports, CIA reports, DoD reports, and FBI reports — all indicating and discussing terrorist cells inside the US planning attacks inside the US.

    What most people don’t know about is the smoking gun report from JFIC, DO5.

    According to the report written in the summer of 2000: “The WMD Threat to the U.S.” (information cut off date 16 July 2000) the briefing slides emphasized that NYC was the most difficult consequence management problem and recommended using NYC as the model for planning/exercises. The oral briefing itself was much more sensitive, indicating that the World Trade Centers #1 and #2 were the most likely buildings to be attacked in the U.S., followed closely by the Pentagon. The briefer indicated that the worst case scenario would be one Tower collapsed onto the other. The possibility of striking the buildings with a plane may have been discussed then — it was certainly discussed in the Red Cell Analysis leading up to the briefing period. The acting Deputy of DO5 (name redacted), proposed in the Red Cell Analysis that the building could be struck by a jetliner. Discussion followed on contacting World Trade Center security and engineering/architectural staff, but the idea was not further explored because of a command climate discouraging contact with the civilian community.

    More at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristen-breitweiser/condi-rice-heres-your-911-smoking-gun_b_8430814.html

    Ms Breitweiser also appears in the 2006 documentary “Press for Truth”. Press for Truth covers the struggle Breitweiser and other 911 widows from New Jersey (AKA the “Jersey Girls”) had to undergo fighting a reluctant Dubya Bush and his boss Dick Cheney to get Bush to call a formal inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The documentary is now freely available on Youtube and other internet sites.

    The first part of the film describes the efforts to pressure the U.S. government into setting up a formal investigation and shows how eventually the decision was made to create the 9/11 Commission. The family members in turn, set up a group called the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, to monitor the Commission and provide it with additional questions. The film shows some of the initial stumbles of the Commission, such as the resignation Henry Kissinger, the original chairman of the Commission, after receiving criticism for refusing to release the names of all his firm’s clients. It denounces some of the decisions of the Bush Administration, such as only allowing certain members of the Commission to review sensitive White House documents, and president George W. Bush and vice president Dick Cheney agreeing to meet with the Commission, but only together, behind closed doors and not under oath. The segment ends with the Jersey Girls complaining that the eventual report of the 9/11 Commission failed to meet their expectations.

    The second part begins by expounding the Jersey Girls’ complaints of what they perceive as unsatisfactory coverage by the U.S. news media. It introduces Paul Thompson, who discusses what he claims is evidence showing the U.S. government was aware of the threat of planes being flown into buildings, and that it ignored numerous warnings from foreign countries. He then describes the August 6, 2001 President’s Daily Brief (entitled Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US) that gave a general warning about a possible attack.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11:_Press_for_Truth

  • Habbabkuk (scourge of the Original Trolls)

    Pulcinella (17h08)

    “Happy to answer . I have no objections to the illegal Occupying Israeli Army giving advance notice of the likely consequences of stone throwing”

    ________________________

    Excellent(although I’m puzzled why it you took so much prodding to finally provide an answer).

    And I have no objections to the IDF giving anyone, whether settlers or Palestinians, advance warning of the possible consequences of stone throwing.

    ++++++++++++++++++++

    And with that out of the way, let’s take a closer look at the link you provided and in particular the video which purports to show the IDF vehicles and the warning, in Arabic, by an IDF soldier:

    http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/watch-israeli-soldiers-threaten-bethlehem-refugee-camp-over-loudspeaker-1147215543.

    That video is a sophisticated forgery: a voice speaking in Arabic has been grafted over unclear pictures of an IDF vehicle, with English subtitles provided for non-Arab speakers (the subtitles give a correct rendering of the Arabic speech).

    The problem is that the speaker is not an IDF soldier but a Palestinian propagandist.

    It is not surprising that the Palestinians should also be skilled in the dark arts; the interesting question is whether your source (“middleeasteye”) was duped or was part of the propaganda exercise.

    Mutatis mutandis the same question could be asked of you. But I’m prepred o give you the benefit of the doubt and believe you are just a dupe – albeit a very willing one.

  • BrianFujisan

    Another Airbus down, condolences to the families

    Are The U.N are watching all this, Spineless wasters of Money and Time

    Genocide in Palestine: Israel Storms Hospital. In Bethlehem Soldier Yells: “We will Gas you all until You Die.”

    “Israeli media reported Netanyahu may establish a special court for security issues, perhaps a military one – handling arbitrary revocations of citizenship, illegal administrative detentions, punitive home demolitions, and anything Israeli officials call “terrorism.”

    His scheme, if implemented, is about persecuting Palestinians more viciously than already – longstanding police state practice – brutalizing people for political reasons, fabricating charges, wrongfully imprisoning targeted individuals.

    On Friday, Maan News reported Israel’s Jerusalem District Court indicted 13-year-old Palestinian Ahmad Manasra with attempted murder for an alleged stabbing incident.

    He was seriously injured at the scene of the alleged crime, kicked and beaten, run over by a car, no charges filed against his assailants.

    A video showing him lying injured and bloody on the ground went viral online. An Israeli is heard shouting: “Die, son of a whore! Die!” Another Israeli is heard telling a soldier to shoot Ahmad.

    It’s unclear what, if anything, he did. At a hearing, lawyers representing him, Tareq Barghout and Lea Tsemel, said he had a knife but stabbed no one. When arrested, he told investigators he “didn’t stab anyone because I don’t like blood.”

    While hospitalized, Barghout said he’s been treated badly. Israeli security guarding him threatened to kill him. They constantly yell at him.

    Treatment of Palestinians is notoriously harsh, guilt by accusation assured. Military courts afford no justice. Ahmad could be imprisoned for years, once tried and convicted when he turns 14 in January.

    He’ll be held at a closed facility until prosecuted. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines childhood as anyone under age 18.

    So do UN Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. Israel willfully breaches all international laws, treating children like adults, brutally and inhumanely, including imprisoning them unjustly.” – Stephen Lendman

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/genocide-in-palestine-israel-storms-hospital-in-bethlehem-soldier-yells-we-will-gas-you-all-until-you-die/5485684

  • KingOfWelshNoir

    Herbie @ 12:34am

    If James Corbett is working for the CIA I will not only eat my hat but marinade it overnight and serve in a Marsala cream sauce followed by jelly and ice cream.

  • twoleftfeet

    habba, please desist from feebly attempting to deny the blinding obvious. I know you have a superiority complex, albeit a delusional one but also your hypocrisy knows no bounds either. Consistent claims that readers and writers to this blog are sycophants and would believe the earth was flat if Craig said so are followed by strong suggestions that readers should read a web site article because Brian Barder has written it and Craig has a high opinion of him. I’ll give it a miss thanks.
    Regarding throwing stones, do you really think stones are an over the top response to live ammunition and gas attacks? Is it reasonable behaviour for government forces to arrest a 5 year old child, no matter what the circumstances? The Israelis profess to be so tech savvy, why don’t they use their skills and collect evidence of these children’s heinous crimes? No they prefer to raid homes in the middle of the night to create maximum terror and know that they don’t require any evidence anyhow. They can do what they want when they want.
    Gerald Kaufman recently claimed around half of the alleged knife attacks are set ups. Considering the distinct lack of evidence provided by Israel, it wouldn’t be a surprise.

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