A very British Coup

A very British Coup

So it seems the ruthless Johnson Regime plan to suspend Parliament to stop it holding them to account for their Brexit do-or-die policy.

We are in Charles 1st territory now! The English Civil War was fought to make the Government subordinate to (some of) the people’s representatives and it was the King who eventually lost his head in attempting to ensure that his Government could rule without reference to the elected House of Commons. One of the procedural/structural 450 year old reforms was the development of the post/role of Speaker; the reason the Speaker is dragged to the Chair on their election is that standing up to the Crown was originally personally very dangerous.

In these circumstances, the Speaker can and should just tell the Government that the House of Commons will continue to meet.

We should note that control of the Met. Police, who control the doors is shared between the Home Secretary and the Mayor of London, but we need to give MP’s some help by showing our solidarity with them as they return to the House of Commons.

Please write to your MP, and sign these petitions,

  1. https://www.anothereurope.org/petitions/defend-democracy/
  2. https://www.bestforbritain.org/queenproroguepetition
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On ward boundaries

On ward boundaries

I attended yesterday’s meeting on Lewisham’s Ward Boundaries and discovered the source of much confusion. The meeting had been called by the Boundaries Commission, and the discontent was caused by the Council’s proposed evidence to the LGBCE, which I review on my wiki. The council propose to split up Ladywell, Whitefoot and Lewisham Central and the howls of rage from Ladywell Labour can be heard in Harrow. I make some pissy comments on the arguments against change and the foolish xenophobia of some councillors; I look at Councillors per Constituency and I finish by presenting an impossibility trilemma arguing that it is not possible to have equal numbers of councillors/ward, equal numbers of voters/councillor and respect the constituency boundaries.  For more, see below/overleaf … …

On ward boundaries in Lewisham

‘The borough of Lewisham has changed substantially since the last ward review in 1999 that was published in 2002. In those 20 years, our borough has seen significant housing development and population expansion, particularly in the central and northern wards.

The Council have made proposals and are having an open meeting to discuss this at the town hall.

See also https://davelevy.info/wiki/redistricting-lewisham/ …

No Deal & cross border data flows

No Deal & cross border data flows

I have just written a blog at linkedin on the impact of a No Deal Brexit on cross border personal data flows. Obtaining an adequacy agreement will take time, one would have hoped that the transition period would have been enough, but without one there will be no adequacy decision on Day 1. Large and prepared entities may be OK as they can use the currently legally permitted alternatives. The US privacy shield may not be avaialable n Day 1, since its an EU agreement. If we leave, we i.e. the UK state may no longer avail itself of the Article 23 powers and the Investigatory Powers Act and the DPA “immigration exception” may cause problems in achieving an adequacy decision. …

Childish Innocence

I can’t remember who reminded me to look this up, but I rather like,

“What childish innocence it is to present one’s own impatience as a theoretically convincing argument!” (Frederick Engels, “Programme of the Blanquist Communards”, [30] from the German Social-Democratic newspaper Volksstaat, 1874, No. 73

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Bosses & CCTV

I wrote a piece on my linkedin blog called, “Reusing CCTV in employee relations“. I rang the ICO and was told that employers can reuse CCTV, “if they come across something they cannot reasonably ignore”. The linkedin article looks at the ramifications of this and points to the ICO document, “the employment practices code“, which states that cameras may not be covert and may not be used for general monitoring. …

This (LibDem) parrot is no more

This (LibDem) parrot is no more

It’s all got very tactical since Jo Swinson was elected Leader of the Lib Dems with Labour people exhorting people to remember their role, and hers personally, in the coalition government. She and the Lib Dems are in the strange and hypocritical position of arguing for a Remain Alliance but rejecting the help from Parties larger than itself.

For those with a memory of the Lib Dems, we know that that the time delay between announcing a policy and asking for electoral support is generally around a nano-second. No matter who leads them, this sectarian approach to other parties and the politics of the voters remains a constant.

But given today’s politics, the only, or at least the easiest, growth strategy for the LibDems is to act as a welcoming repository for Tory Remainers; Swinson’s rejection of a coalition with Corbyn’s Labour and now it seems with the SNP are designed to make it safe for Tories to vote and/or even join them. There are certainly several Tory MPs suggesting that they can’t and won’t support Johnson in a VONC and several of them might well survive in their seats if they were to run as LibDems. The LibDems also owe the Tories a drubbing in the South West.

The other thing to recognise is that the Lib Dems ceased to be a progressive party in 2007, when their Leadership election was between Clegg and Huhne; both were “Orange Bookers”, which was the right-wing economic manifesto within the Lib Dems. It was ideological commitment as well as Parliamentary arithmetic that led to the Lib Dems supporting Cameron’s coalition government. Their internal opponents have mainly left the LibDems. …

Chessum on Labour’s Brexit Policy

Michael Chessum charts Labours to & fro-ing on Brexit, the article is entitled, “How Labour Screwed Up On Brexit”” and comes to the conclusion that

  1. Corbyn himself is not a Lexiter
  2. its opportunism and not Lexitism that has led us to where we are
  3. the priority unlike on everything else has been electoralism
  4. the opportunism of rump New Labour and the issue’s weaponisation by Labour First brings out the worst in Corbyn’s supporters in terms of a siege mentality

He makes the point that changing our policy immediately after the European elections doesn’t have the scent of principle.

His criticism that Labour needs to listen to its members and voters, refresh its democracy and put principles first certainly speak to me.

One of the good things in this article is his capture of the history of the policy and its advocates over the last three years. …