Daily Globe British Values, Global Perspective
A disgraceful thing happened yesterday. Parliament, having blocked, decelerated and harried Britain’s exit from the EU for two years, decided to delay Brexit. May had said a great many times that No Deal is better than a Bad Deal, but refused to acknowledge that hers was a bad deal, despite …
Read More »Of the Freedom of Speech
Freedom of Speech is apparently something which is now under threat. Spiked magazine recently made the bold claim that some three hundred years of press freedom was threatened by the British Parliamentary vote on the implementation of the second stage of the Leverson inquiry earlier this month. At roughly the same time, and with …
Read More »We Need To Constrain Unchecked Government Power, For The Sake Of Brexit And Our Future Democracy
Does the UK government have the unilateral right to ignore instructions from the electorate if it finds them to be “harmful” based on narrowly subjective criteria? And if so, shouldn’t we do something to constrain that power? A couple of days ago I mused that the most fundamental question facing …
Read More »Don’t Expect Better Political Outcomes In Britain Until We Change The System
Upset by how Brexit is being prosecuted by the government, overseen by Parliament and reported on by the media? It’s time to stop lamenting the symptoms and fixing the underlying issues with our constitution and system of government Of the sum total of British political discourse at all levels, a …
Read More »The Story Of Hamilton Is Also The Story Of #Brexit
What do the latest imported smash hit musical from America and Britain’s historic vote for Brexit have in common? The answer, it turns out, is nearly everything. It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, …
Read More »CCHQ Should Not Automatically Protect Tory MPs From Deselection
A seat in the House of Commons is not a job for life. And just as the Parliamentary Labour Party should not be encumbered with MPs increasingly at odds with their local constituency parties, so Tory MPs should not be immune from deselection if they repeatedly ignore the priorities and …
Read More »Resurrecting The Citizen Politician
After Brexit, attracting more exceptional citizen politicians and fewer mediocre career politicians is the next crucial step towards democratic renewal in Britain A worthwhile article by new Labour MP Laura Smith for LabourList underlines the urgent need for more politicians who look and sound like contemporary human beings rather than …
Read More »Leaving the EU is the Conservative Thing to Do
As you may have noticed, there’s been quite a lot of squabbling within the Conservative Party over the issue of the EU referendum recently. The party leader is all for remaining within the EU as he clings to the terms of his “renegotiation”, that is to say, his failure to …
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