22nd October 2021
I was a guest this week on this podcast – so you can listen to my Brummie Wednesday Addams voice:
PODCAST: What does the tragic killing of David Amess mean for democracy? And confirmation that the UK was always going to break the NI protocol.
Guest @davidallengreen joins @Dorianlynskey @rosamundmtaylor & @sturdyAlex on this week's show.
Listen: https://t.co/jzLjNohha7 pic.twitter.com/090yWMT54v
— Oh God, What Now? – the politics podcast (@OhGodWhatNowPod) October 22, 2021
One of the discussion points was about re-branding – and thereby the power of names.
And as I said, I have often said that a good part of the problems of both the Human Rights Act and the European Union are their names.
Had the Human Rights Act had a more plodding, prosaic name like The European Convention on Human Rights (Construction and Interpretation of Statutes and Related Purposes) Act then a great deal of the political antipathy would dissolve.
And if the European Union was known as the Sir Winston Churchill Memorial International Organisation then perhaps Euro-scepticism may never have got off the ground, let alone Brexit.
That these playful averments are even plausible is, of course, not a Good Thing.
It would be a lot better if people were concerned with the substance rather than the form of such legal regimes.
But they are not.
It is difficult to get people to look at – or care about – the detail of law and policy.
And that is why this blog has a plodding, prosaic name – rather than its predecessor Jack of Kent blog – so it would help focus both its author and its readers on the topic in hand.
Law and policy blogs, like constitutional law, should not be exciting; they should be dull.
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Hmm, is there any mileage to be made by the EU doing something to honour Winston Churchill in such a way that the UK would have to acknowledge and take part in it?
Maybe an annual award to the politician(s) that most embody Churchill’s ideals with respect to the EU?
UK brexiteers could moan all they want about cultural/historical appropriation but they can’t argue Churchill’s own words, can they?
Just a thought…
Of course, the EU may already do this and I should do more research…
If the Human Rights Act was called the Constitutional Rights Act, its detractors might focus elsewhere.
Of course, that might upset those who believe that the consitution should remain unwritten ;-)
Perhaps if it were renamed “the British Bill of Rights”, we would be done.
This is undoubtedly true.
In a similar vein I have often thought Prevent should be renamed Engage (or perhaps something altogether more boring and ambiguous).
Arguably this Government has the opposite problem: a Department for Levelling Up with no actual policy or substance behind it. It is all Name and Substance!
“Law and policy blogs, like constitutional law, should not be exciting; they should be dull.”
If that’s the case, you must, I’m afraid, count yourself a failure. This blog persist in being interesting, sometimes even amusing. But never dull
Your blog is never dull!
This law and policy blog isn’t at all dull. That’s only partly because of the raw material of government stupidity, ineptitude, negligence, parsimony and malevolence. Even in happier times it wouldn’t be dull.
You’re right about the names thing, David. I loved that you used to go under “Jack of Kent”, but the way things are now, life is more “Mad Jack Fuller”, who was noted for his follies, his drunkeness, and his defence of slavery. I sometimes wonder if some modern politicians are actively modelling themselves on him.
it’ll be interesting to see what facebooks new name will be
Agreed: I’ve always thought the real problem is that it was the Treaty of Rome. Atavistic anti-papalism dies hard in the U.K.
“Sir Winston Churchill Memorial International Organisation”
love it, thank you, hadnt had the time to listen to the podcast but with this slogan you already gave my a big smile. As a typical engl. catchy acronym it would need some more work but i guess it is to late for that anyway.
Hope you have a nice Weekend
I seem to remember, when the idea of the Single Currency was being floated, that someone said that the Brits would be on board as long as you called it something like the Florin or the Guinea.
Which is both worryingly accurate, and, frankly, an indictment of the shallowness of much of the Euroskeptic/Europhobic line of thinking.