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davidallengreen

@davidallengreen@mastodon.green

Law and policy commentary from England.

I also geek out here about lore and fantasy, which are my real interests, as well as about other cultural stuff.

I am often ironic and not always earnest, and so please don't take some of the things I post at face value.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

davidallengreen , to random
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Ah, that wonderful Autumnal feeling of putting the central heating on.

davidallengreen , to random
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Who was the worst PM since 2010?

Many people will have strong views, but fwiw this is the case for it being Cameron.

A post prompted by that Normandy pic.

By me, at Prospect

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/66778/david-cameron-the-worst-prime-minister-since-2010

Those three are examples of failures by prime ministers, but they are micro- failures compared to the macro-failure of Cameron. Even the strategic mistakes of Theresa May in insisting on harmful red lines for Brexit and in making the Article 5O notification for withdrawal prematurely, thereby meaning the UK was bested in negotiations by the EU, are lesser wrongs than that one calamity committed by Cameron. For it was Cameron who had the wheeze of a Brexit referendum without any notion of what to actually do if there was a vote for Leave. He took the future of the United Kingdom and risked it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, and he lost.

Of course, there is a case for the worst premier being Boris Johnson, who somehow went from winning a substantial majority to resigning from parliament in less than three years. Or for Liz Truss, who managed a mere 44 days and tanked the economy. Or even the current premier Rishi Sunak, who has failed to achieve any of his signature policies (Rwanda, the smoking ban and so on) and is hurtling his party towards a likely heavy defeat in July’s general election.
ALT
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    The predicted governing party implosion in historical and constitutional context

    The Tories/ Unionists/ Conservatives have done very badly before - 1832, 1846, 1906, 1945 and 1997, but have always come back - but is this time different?

    By me at Substack: https://emptycity.substack.com/p/the-predicted-governing-party-implosion

    And at my own blog: https://davidallengreen.com/2024/06/the-predicted-governing-party-implosion-in-historical-and-constitutional-context/

    davidallengreen , to random
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    And here is Cameron, in exactly the same position yesterday he would have been had he simply carried on as Prime Minister from 2010 to 2024.

    The one person for whom Brexit in the end made no ultimate difference.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Any “constitutional” or legal questions about the general election?

    Ask below and I will reply if I can.

    (I used to do this sort of thing on Twitter and I thought I would give it a go here.)

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Well.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/23/rwanda-flights-not-leave-before-general-election-rishi-sunak

    davidallengreen , to random
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    "I have called a general election by mistake"

    davidallengreen , to random
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    NEW

    The placard of Trudi Warner

    Why the government sought to criminalise someone for stating a feature of constitutional law—and how it failed

    By me, at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/65837/trudy-warner-placard-old-bailey-jury

    On 27th March 2023, a person with a placard was outside a criminal court in London. A high-profile criminal trial was about to begin, but the statement on the placard did not refer to any particular case or defendant. In fact, the statement on the placard was unexceptional and one which could be found in many law textbooks, and even on a plaque at the Old Bailey. The person with this placard did not speak with anyone going into the court. And there is no suggestion that the person or their placard affected the fairness of the trial in any way. Indeed, the defendants in that high-profile trial were convicted. Yet over the last year that person has faced the prospect of a criminal prosecution for contempt of court. The UK state, through the solicitor general, has sought to criminalise the placard holder for their speech act. How did this come about? And should it have come about?
    ALT
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    Perfectly constitutional for the House of Lords to insist that Commons think again.

    And, under the Parliament Acts,House of Lords can require Commons to think again in the next parliamentary session.

    If MPs still in favour, then Bill becomes law.

    Lords cannot veto, only delay.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Asserting we haven’t got a constitution because it is not written down is like saying your washing machine doesn’t exist because you haven’t got the manual

    davidallengreen , to random
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    NEW

    Three public inquiries are currently showing us failures of the British state

    In dong so the inquiries are doing what parliament should have been able to do

    By me, at Prospect Magazine

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/65694/public-inquiries-show-the-state-is-failing-david-allen-green

    But in each, the same problems recur. There is alack of useful communication within the public bodies concerned. There is little or no meaningful accountability for those who have made bad decisions. There is reluctance or outright opposition to the inquiry being given relevant materials by officials. And perhaps most strikingly of all, there is the realisation that what parliament, the media and the public—and indeed ministers—were told at the time was very different to what was actually happening. It almost feels as if, like in a pulp detective novel, we are being told in a final chapter about what was really occurring while we were being misled and misdirected. The implication of this delayed accountability is that the “real-time” forms of accountability are useless. It is not simply that Westminster and Whitehall fail to be efficient; they fail even to be efficacious. Ministerial question times are theatre, if not pantomime. Select committee hearings are just for show. Ministers are often as uninformed as those who are questioning them. It does not have to be this way. Almost none of the information that is now coming to light in these three inquiries needed to be held back for these subsequent formal proceedings.

    A Martian looking down and taking an interest in British politics would assume that the government was accountable to judges and lawyers at public inquiries, rather than to elected politicians in Westminster. For it is only a public inquiry that seems to be able to get to the bottom of what goes wrong with policy and administration, and why. The Inquiries Act 2005 is now a fundamental constitutional instrument.
    ALT
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    In ten years or so of threats and promises of UK leaving the ECHR, there has never once been an attempt to explain how such a departure can square with the Good Friday Agreement.

    The issue is simply ignored - and the threat and promise is simply repeated, for claps and cheers.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Happy birthday to me: cakes are in the kitchen.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Putin and 'democracy'

    Allowing elections where there is no prospect of defeat is far more effective for a dictator than suppressing elections.

    It is basically saying: "look, elections will not help you".

    davidallengreen , to random
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    I wonder if future generations will be bemused that Oppenheimer (a good film) beat The Zone of Interest (a great film) for best film Oscar.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Spell a word beginning with ‘D’ and rhyming with ‘bone’ and now think about what you’ve done

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Why Speaker was wrong not to call Diane Abbott to speak at PMQs

    Why she should have been allowed to speak for herself in an exceptional circumstance

    And how the Speaker's excuse for not doing so fails to convince

    By me, at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/65293/the-speaker-was-wrong-not-to-call-diane-abbott-to-speak-at-pmqs

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Watching "The New Look" on TV and Coco Chanel has just referred to "Sir" Winston Churchill during the Second World War when he was not knighted until 1953 and I now just don't know what else I can believe in this favourable version of what French fashion designers did during the occupation.

    davidallengreen , to random
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    The statelessness of Shamima Begum

    Why both conservative and liberal commentators see this citizenship decision as a fundamental wrong

    By me at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/65095/the-statelessness-of-shamima-begum

    Consider these three propositions. First, that a person should not be rendered stateless: every person is entitled to be a citizen of somewhere. Second, that Shamima Begum, a former British citizen, is stateless. And third, that the statelessness of Shamima Begum is a direct and natural consequence of an order by ahome secretary of the United Kingdom. How can these three propositions all be true? Even the relevant legislation expressly states that the home secretary may not make an order to deprive a person of their British citizenship if they are “satisfied that the order would make a person stateless”. And yet Begum remains detained in a refugee camp in Syria, without the rights and privileges of citizenship of the United Kingdom or elsewhere.
    ALT
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    How the ‘will of the people’ is warping our politics

    The phrase is used by ministers to evade proper scrutiny. Just look at their rhetoric on Rwanda.

    By me, at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/64874/how-the-will-of-the-people-is-still-warping-our-politics

    There has been a great disturbance in the constitutional arrangements of the United Kingdom. Some may say there have recently been many such disturbances—or at least many disturbing things. But there is one which may be more significant than all the others. And that is the rise of the “will of the people”. Of course, those in support of Brexit—surprised by their widely unexpected success in the 2016 referendum and knowing that the consensus at Westminster had long been in favour of EU membership—adopted the slogan as a means of forcing through the departure. Butsince that departure, the phrase has been employed in other contexts. In May 2023, Alex Chalk, the lord chancellor, and Suella Braverman, the then home secretary, earnestly told the House of Lords not to defy the “will of the British people” by opposing the government’s Illegal Migration Bill. And this year, the prime minister himself warned the House of Lords, in respect of the Rwanda deportation bill, that it was the “will of the people” that the legislation be passed. That a prime minister who had not won a general election—and indeed had not even won his own party’s membership contest—could freely use that rhetorical device in support of a policy that had not even featured in his party’s manifesto shows how far the “will of the people” has travelled. This totem of the Brexit era has outlived Brexit—and continues to warp our constitutional settlement today.
    ALT
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    When should the UK government hold a border poll in Northern Ireland?

    The question is essentially a political one, but there are some firm legal limits

    By me, at @prospect_magazine

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/64769/when-should-the-uk-government-hold-a-border-poll-in-northern-ireland

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Why the House of Lords can and should delay the Rwanda Bill

    Using the Parliament Acts, peers can force the House of Commons to think again

    This is an argument why they should do so in this case

    By me, at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/64673/why-the-house-of-lords-can-and-should-delay-the-rwanda-bill

    The current political controversy over the Rwanda Bill, currently before the House of Lords, raises the question of when, if ever, the upper chamber should reject legislation passed by the House of Commons. Many oppose the legislation because it is simply immoral and/or the whole scheme is impractical and unworkable, and so want the bill delayed—if not blocked—by any means. But are there constitutional grounds for the rare use by the House of Lords of its delaying power?
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    davidallengreen , to random
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    How the government is seeking to change the law on Rwanda so as to disregard the facts

    And a speech in the House of Lords yesterday spelled out the constitutional danger of this move

    By me, at Substack

    https://emptycity.substack.com/p/how-the-government-is-seeking-to

    davidallengreen , to random
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    Ireland applies to challenge United Kingdom primary legislation

    A little-noticed case was launched on Friday last week at the European Court of Human Rights

    New by me, at Substack

    https://emptycity.substack.com/p/why-the-united-kingdom-government

    davidallengreen , to random
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    The Post Office scandal is shocking—but not surprising

    The systems failures that led to this miscarriage of justice are all too familiar—and without some remarkable stokes of legal luck they might never have come to light

    By me, at Prospect

    https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/64464/post-office-scandal-mr-bates-law

    The scandal is at once both simple and complex: the result of culpable individual failures, but also a failure of the legal system. The Horizon IT system was often defended by the Post Office as being “robust”. It was not, but what explains the extent of the scandal was that the legal system of England and Wales was not robust either. Both the IT and legal systems were inadequate, and, with both systems, those who knew better pretended otherwise. Between 2000 and 2014, hundreds of innocent sub-postmasters and sub-postmistresses were held to be liable for non-existent accounting shortfalls recorded on a faulty IT system. For some, this meant heavy personal losses and bankruptcy; for others it also meant criminal convictions; some of those caught up in the scandal have since committed suicide. There seem to have been around 900 convictions that relied on the now-notorious Horizon system, though nobody knows for certain. At the heart of the scandal was a botched public sector IT procurement process; the implementation and running of the system were then mismanaged. In this respect the procurement of the Horizon system was no different from many other witless multi-million-pound IT acquisitions by state entities. Like political careers, almost all public sector IT projects end in failure.
    ALT
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