Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have consummately expressed what very few people seem to understand. Please ask Toby Young to read this - he hasn't replied to my last email pointing this out, as a response to him assuring listeners to the Weekly Sceptic that we don't need to worry our pretty little heads about the WHO Pandemic Treaty because it would never get past Parliament, conveniently forgetting about Royal Prerogative, party whips, collective cabinet responsibility and all the other mechanisms that are designed to make sure that Parliament is the snoozing lapdog of the Executive.
I'm slightly reeling from the surprise of learning that Net Zero isn't just a PR stunt but that the policy elements that were cleverly positioned as ways to get there are just hopes and dreams.
I'm wondering what other things that we think of as 'the law' just aren't.
Thanks for the article, which is excellent, as ever. Given the very similar governing modality in the US, perhaps this helps explain the increasingly polarised tone of politics both here and there? Being the opposition in the legislature, functioning as it should, allows shaping the law and a degree of control. Executive power with the legislature largely irrelevant, it is critical to be the party in power, so the bad people with dumb ideas do not have untrammelled ability to instantiate them. The smarter folks on both sides understand this and view even ‘fortifying’ elections as not unreasonable to stop the bad people.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have consummately expressed what very few people seem to understand. Please ask Toby Young to read this - he hasn't replied to my last email pointing this out, as a response to him assuring listeners to the Weekly Sceptic that we don't need to worry our pretty little heads about the WHO Pandemic Treaty because it would never get past Parliament, conveniently forgetting about Royal Prerogative, party whips, collective cabinet responsibility and all the other mechanisms that are designed to make sure that Parliament is the snoozing lapdog of the Executive.
I'm slightly reeling from the surprise of learning that Net Zero isn't just a PR stunt but that the policy elements that were cleverly positioned as ways to get there are just hopes and dreams.
I'm wondering what other things that we think of as 'the law' just aren't.
Thanks for the article, which is excellent, as ever. Given the very similar governing modality in the US, perhaps this helps explain the increasingly polarised tone of politics both here and there? Being the opposition in the legislature, functioning as it should, allows shaping the law and a degree of control. Executive power with the legislature largely irrelevant, it is critical to be the party in power, so the bad people with dumb ideas do not have untrammelled ability to instantiate them. The smarter folks on both sides understand this and view even ‘fortifying’ elections as not unreasonable to stop the bad people.
I think that is going on in the background for sure.
Bene, bene, tekel upharsim.