Month: July 2021

The recent two by-election defeats for the governing party and their implications for law and policy

2nd July 2021

This is not a party partisan blog and there are good and bad in all mainstream parties (though some parties have more good than others).

But it is a liberal constitutionalist blog, and so the two recent defeats for the governing party are a good thing: the politics of inclusion and solidarity seem (just about) to have defeated the politics of exclusion and division.

The fragile coalition that bought the current government to power in December 2019 – in effect, to ‘get Brexit done’ and to ensure that the then leader of the opposition did not become prime minister – may turn out to be unsustainable.

So what?

This is of interest to those with strong feelings about party politics – but are there any implications for law and policy, from a non-partisan perspective?

Perhaps.

One of the features of the illiberalism of the current government seems to be a belief that constitutional and cultural conflict ‘play well’.

So you have the sight of infantile government ministers picking fights and attempting to provoke ‘culture wars’.

And you have the loud trumpeting of attempts to further dislocate constitutional arrangements – with the executive seeking to undermine the checks and balances provided by the courts, the legislature, the impartial  civil service and diplomatic corps, and so.

Each attack intended to impress and mobilise the minority electoral base that is believed to be sufficient to keep this illiberal government in power.

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But it seems not to be working any more.

The lever may have come loose.

If this is the case – if – then there are two possible things that may happen: bad and good.

The bad thing would be that government ministers and their supporters want more illiberalism!

More division and exclusion!

More constitutional conflict and culture war!

Or, a good thing: government ministers and their supporters may come to their senses as they realise the diminishing political returns for their illiberal (and vile) confrontational politics.

Any sensible person would hope for the latter.

But nobody who has followed politics since 2016 could be confident that such a welcome development will occur.

So it all could get worse.

Brace, brace.

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No, this blog is not ‘assisting the corrupt Establishment in hiding the Truth from the British public’

1st July 2021

This is from a submitted comment under one of my posts on the Daniel Morgan independent panel report (of all things):

‘Now, why would DavidAllenGreen want to assist the corrupt Establishment in hiding the Truth from the British public. Does Green hold the public in contempt too?’

The rest of the comment, and the commenter’s earlier submitted comments, will not be published, because I cannot vouch for the substance of the serious allegations.

But the lack of this publication does not mean, I hope, that I wish to assist the corrupt Establishment in hiding (either capital-T or lower-case-t) Truth/truth from the British public or indeed from anybody else.

Indeed, this blog has done as much as it can to set out commentary in respect of the serious and substantiated findings of ‘institutional corruption’ against the metropolitan police.

I have even done a video film for the Financial Times on ‘institutional corruption’ in the metropolitan police, which is hardly an example of the establishment protecting the establishment.

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But to gain traction with any serious charges of corruption, one needs a methodical, evidence-based approach.

An approach where the ‘c’ word – corruption – is the natural description of what is otherwise set out in detail and is sourced.

There is no doubt that there is widespread corruption, for that is the nature of those with power – and there is no doubt that more could be done by the media to expose the corruption.

But nothing useful is gained by putting the cart before the horse – or the dinghy before the national flagship.

There are different ways of going about it – and because this blog prefers an evidence-based approach in its commentary that does not mean that it is an establishment stooge.

(Perhaps this blog would say that, wouldn’t it?)

The difficulty with making out charges of corruption or of other serious failures is not in making the accusation – which is easy – but in making the charge difficult to evade or dismiss.

Of course, in this post-truth age of hyper-partisanship it may well be that sources and details are not enough – and here on thinks of the accumulation of adverse information about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson – but if anything is to ever have impact, it will need to have some substance to it.

The ‘corrupt Establishment’ is deftly skilled in brushing off even the most serious of complaints and is especially good at deflection when there is more heat than light.

In making it as difficult as possible for things to be deflected is not to hold anybody in contempt.

It is instead to takes things seriously.

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Please support this blog – and please do not assume it can keep going without support.

If you value this daily, free-to-read and independent legal and policy commentary for you and others please do support through the Paypal box above, or become a Patreon subscriber.

***

You can also subscribe for each post to be sent by email at the subscription box above (on an internet browser) or on a pulldown list (on mobile).

****

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated.

Comments will not be published if irksome.