There’s Powerful Evidence This Great Panic is Foolish
Our Freedom is Still Broken and Our Economy Crippled
Peter Hitchens
Mail On Sunday
As I watched the Prime Minister order mass house arrest on Monday night, I felt revulsion, anger and grief – as anyone brought up when this was a free and well-governed country would. I also felt terribly alone.
You could not have known, from anything broadcast that night or printed the following day, that anyone was unhappy with these events. But they were. So, above all things this week, I would like to thank all the kind, perplexed people who have got in touch with me by so many means, to say they share my doubts about the Government’s handling of Covid-19. There are, in fact, many of us. If you feel this way, you are nothing like as solitary as you think.
Next, I would like to thank all those who disagree with me, who choose to abuse me, often with lies, personal smears and swearwords. Your childish, intolerant reaction has strengthened me in my conviction that mine is the better case. If your policy is so good, why can you not defend it like civilised adults? Do you really think that I regret needless deaths any less than you? Can you not accept that I also have good motives?
I now suspect this dark season might get still worse before we see the clear, calm light of reason again. The greater the mistake we have made, the less willing we are to admit it or correct it. This is why I greatly fear worse developments in the coming few days.
When I predicted roadblocks in my column two weeks ago, which I did, I did so out of an instinct that we were entering on the craziest period of our lives since the death of Princess Diana. And now there are such roadblocks, officious, embarrassing blots on our national reputation.
But even I would not have dared to predict the mass house arrest under which we are all now confined.
Showing posts with label UK Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UK Constitution. Show all posts
Wednesday, 8 April 2020
Friday, 6 September 2019
What Happens Now?
U.K. Parliament Gives A Full-Fledged Finger To The British People
The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people.
Sumantra Maitra
The Federalist
The British Parliament stood firmly opposed to the British people, as 21 Conservative Party members of Parliament (MPs) defected and joined the Liberals-Democrats to damage the new Boris Johnson government and oppose a No-Deal Brexit on October 31. In a win for the European Union, keenly being watched from the Americas and the European continent, the British government is now paralyzed, with no majority for any Brexit, even a diluted one; no mandate for another election; no unified opposition to win in an election; and no government strong enough to push through.
Modern Western democratic societies, whether parliamentary or senatorial, have never faced a situation where the declared majority result is straddled against the checks for majoritarianism. The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people. And the outcome and direction of this will be a lesson for the entire English-speaking world.
A bit of background is necessary. The British system was a compromise from the chaos in the continent, and miraculously has managed without a written constitution, or a revolution, since the end of the Cromwellian Tyranny. The power lies in Parliament, which is the supreme authority in the country.
The supreme authority is not the monarchy, which is basically a symbolic figurehead, and which, despite what leftists might say, earns Britain a lot more than the cost to upkeep it (an estimate found it is around 69 pence per resident per year, far less than the security of any politicians in the West, and less than what it earns from tourism in its name and estates). For example, it is almost compulsory for the monarchy and the aristocracy to serve in active combat and line of duty, a better day’s work than the majority of the elected politicians in the entire West.
Nor is the prime minister the most powerful person, as his power runs on his control of the Parliament.
The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people.
Sumantra Maitra
The Federalist
The British Parliament stood firmly opposed to the British people, as 21 Conservative Party members of Parliament (MPs) defected and joined the Liberals-Democrats to damage the new Boris Johnson government and oppose a No-Deal Brexit on October 31. In a win for the European Union, keenly being watched from the Americas and the European continent, the British government is now paralyzed, with no majority for any Brexit, even a diluted one; no mandate for another election; no unified opposition to win in an election; and no government strong enough to push through.
Modern Western democratic societies, whether parliamentary or senatorial, have never faced a situation where the declared majority result is straddled against the checks for majoritarianism. The British parliament is nominally more powerful than the monarch or the prime minister. Ever since Brexit, it is aspiring to be more powerful than the people. And the outcome and direction of this will be a lesson for the entire English-speaking world.
A bit of background is necessary. The British system was a compromise from the chaos in the continent, and miraculously has managed without a written constitution, or a revolution, since the end of the Cromwellian Tyranny. The power lies in Parliament, which is the supreme authority in the country.
The supreme authority is not the monarchy, which is basically a symbolic figurehead, and which, despite what leftists might say, earns Britain a lot more than the cost to upkeep it (an estimate found it is around 69 pence per resident per year, far less than the security of any politicians in the West, and less than what it earns from tourism in its name and estates). For example, it is almost compulsory for the monarchy and the aristocracy to serve in active combat and line of duty, a better day’s work than the majority of the elected politicians in the entire West.
Nor is the prime minister the most powerful person, as his power runs on his control of the Parliament.
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