DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

I like the ones where I can stop throwing up within an hour of reading them.

Was too busy thinking the guy in front of DCam in that tube socks pic was Nick Clegg to notice it was actually a DCam pic.

Good piece on the World At One about the 55% thing by a constitutional expert. His main points:

Ppl need to stop saying this is for no confidence, it's for dissolution. He even went as far as calling Jack Straw "stupid" for continuing to claim it was.
It's a consequence of fixed term parliaments and nothing more, to try and hold them together. In his opinion it was set too low, that anything under 60% was still too easy to dissolve at a whim.
An easy way round it, if it were sought, would be to raise a bill to change the date of the next election - this would only require 50%+1 of voting MPs.

The way I would then see it working would be as follows (and this is my interpretation):

In an LD/Con split, LD and Lab could force a motion of no confidence and win at 50%+1. David Cameron would then have to resign as PM. There would then be a vote for dissolution. If >55%in favour then there is an immediate election. If <55% in favour then the sitting parliament could try and raise a new PM - LD/Lab, LD/Con on different/improved terms, Rainbow Coalition) - which presumably has a time limit for formation before an election becomes the default status.

This answers all of stet's points to me earlier this morning I think. Given that complete PR seems still to be the LD gameplan (Simon Hughes on the radio on Tuesday talking about AV+ as a target in the life of this parliament, and STV this decade) it would appear to be consistent with their policies to start putting in building blocks that support it now like making it harder to dissolve a parliament with NOC.

that's at about 26:00 here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00s8k9f

cambridge constitutional dude (30:00 onwards) is a former LD MP btw

Hmm.

Simon Hughes on the radio on Tuesday talking about AV+ as a target in the life of this parliament, and STV this decade

He's unlikely to get re-elected otherwise!

tbf, he also thinks it's a good idea for other reasons.

Good piece on the World At One about the 55% thing by a constitutional expert. His main points:

Ppl need to stop saying this is for no confidence, it's for dissolution. He even went as far as calling Jack Straw "stupid" for continuing to claim it was.
It's a consequence of fixed term parliaments and nothing more, to try and hold them together. In his opinion it was set too low, that anything under 60% was still too easy to dissolve at a whim.
An easy way round it, if it were sought, would be to raise a bill to change the date of the next election - this would only require 50%+1 of voting MPs.

The way I would then see it working would be as follows (and this is my interpretation):

In an LD/Con split, LD and Lab could force a motion of no confidence and win at 50%+1. David Cameron would then have to resign as PM. There would then be a vote for dissolution. If >55%in favour then there is an immediate election. If <55% in favour then the sitting parliament could try and raise a new PM - LD/Lab, LD/Con on different/improved terms, Rainbow Coalition) - which presumably has a time limit for formation before an election becomes the default status.

This answers all of stet's points to me earlier this morning I think. Given that complete PR seems still to be the LD gameplan (Simon Hughes on the radio on Tuesday talking about AV+ as a target in the life of this parliament, and STV this decade) it would appear to be consistent with their policies to start putting in building blocks that support it now like making it harder to dissolve a parliament with NOC.

― BLOODY BOLLOCKS HELL! (aldo), Thursday, May 13, 2010 2:45 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

but we don't need fixed-term parliaments. only a tiny number of disproportionately powerful MPs were elected saying they'd bring it in.

that guy on TWAO says that a vote of no confidence needn't lead to a general election but to a new government. in other words more coalition bullshit no-one wants.

i.e. in practice no-confidence votes DO lead to dissolution, even if they don't "necessarily" (what is this, france?)

Useful cribsheet on just how rich our new overlords are

http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/10/oxford-universitywealth-school

Election Winning leader Alma mater
1945 Clement Attlee University of Oxford
1950 Clement Attlee University of Oxford
1951 Winston Churchill Non graduate
1955 Anthony Eden University of Oxford
1959 Harold Macmillan University of Oxford
1964 Harold Wilson University of Oxford
1966 Harold Wilson University of Oxford
1970 Edward Heath University of Oxford
1974 Feb Harold Wilson University of Oxford
1974 Oct Harold Wilson University of Oxford
1979 Margaret Thatcher University of Oxford
1983 Margaret Thatcher University of Oxford
1987 Margaret Thatcher University of Oxford
1992 John Major Non graduate
1997 Tony Blair University of Oxford
2001 Tony Blair University of Oxford
2005 Tony Blair University of Oxford
2010 David Cameron University of Oxford

LOL Chris Grayling

fuck if that were boatrace results cambridge would prob just have taken up kites or some shit by now

1992 John Major Nonentity

churchill, major

try to find a pattern there

Missing a few there

Gordon Edinburgh
Callaghan got into oxford, couldn't afford to go went into the civil service instead

that's election winners, not pms

ah

basically, the public love us.

Even under rampant PR you don't need power to vote to dissolve. Fixed terms are fine without it.

What I can't see is any justification *for* it, but that's because it hasn't been debated, just announced.

Chris Grayling owns four houses in London but is only worth £500,000?

Think Churchill's educational career of posh school followed by Sandhurst may be a little different from Major's, but by all accounts he did pretty terribly at school and I always like to point and laugh at Sandhurst, so

55% is totally becoming a thing. From the Guardian liveblog:

4.07pm: The 55% threshold required for an early dissolution is turning into an issue for the new coalition government with PA reporting a "backbench rebellion":

The newly formed Cameron-Clegg coalition government is facing its first threatened backbench rebellion, over a controversial plan to reduce the risk of it being voted out of office before the end of its planned five-year term.

As the new Conservative and Liberal Democrat cabinet met for the first time today, some senior Tory and Labour MPs voiced concern over a proposal in the coalition agreement that dissolution would need to be approved by 55% or more of MPs.

It would represent a radical shift away from the Commons tradition that a simple majority of one would be enough on a no confidence vote to force an unpopular government to resign.

The 55% threshold means that Mr Cameron could survive at the head of a minority Conservative government even if the Lib Dems pulled out of the coalition deal.

It would need a significant rebellion by disaffected Tories joining force with all the opposition MPs to force him to call another election ... Labour MPs are already alarmed by what they see as an attempt to change long-standing Commons rules in the new government's favour.

They have been joined by several senior Conservatives on the libertarian wing of the party who are lobbying behind-the-scenes for the 55% threshold to be removed before the legislation is introduced in the Commons.

The last time a government fell on a no confidence vote was in March 1979, when the minority Labour administration led by James Callaghan was defeated by 311 votes to 310."

David Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary, described it as "a profoundly anti-democratic move".

He said: "The numbers mean that it would be impossible, even if every opposition MP united against this coalition, for the house to express its lack of confidence in it.

"This is nothing less than a stitch-up by the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats to overturn historic precedents for their own advantage. If Labour had attempted something like this in government, the Lib Dems in particular would have been incandescent," he said.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, defended the move on BBC Radio 4's The World at One:

"Once you agree that there should be a fixed-term parliament, it is only fixed-term if there is some provision to really give it credibility to make it hard to dissolve parliament, other than exceptional circumstances, part way through its five-year term.

"We thought about it carefully in the negotiations, and we do intend that to happen."

He said: "The numbers mean that it would be impossible, even if every opposition MP united against this coalition, for the house to express its lack of confidence in it.

This is always true.

(I agree with his conclusion tho)

http://twitter.com/vincecable/status/9588118738
http://twitter.com/vincecable/status/11418243066
http://twitter.com/vincecable/status/11245928535

change that works for you

it's certainly working for him

55% is totally becoming a thing.

basically i think it's taking time for people to understand the implications. my own idiot LD MP doesn't get it. they're all saying hey it's only for dissolution motions, confidence motions. but it's customary to dissolve parliament after a vote of no confidence and what they are trying to argue is that now we would just reshuffle the deck. with only three parties, i don't see how that even works, let alone whether it's democratic.

There would be uproar if the LibDems just shuffled to the other side and the cobbled together a belated Rainbow Coalition with the same Parliament and D Miliband or whoever at the helm. Why not just have another election? It's ridiculous.

I can see why the LibDems are so keen on PR as it would virtually guarantee them being in power with one party or another forever.

Why not just have another election? It's ridiculous.

?

because a govt can be formed out of the last one.

not really, unless we go down the LOL LAB-CON AMIRITE?! route

act 1: lib dems and tories: we can't go on like this
act 2: vote of no confidence
act 3: but not dissolution! no, that'd be lame
act 4: another coalition is formed out of _________
act 5: profit

that happened in '24, so at least it's no worse. If you're going to have a fixed-term parliament, the German model seems way better imo

that happened in '24, so at least it's no worse.

How'd that Parliament work out for everyone again?

http://www.poecker.homepage.t-online.de/01/1ge12mo1.jpg

god imagine a parliament where they just actually voted on the individual issues, every time. nightmare scenario.

again with the krautwerk

Feel free to way in with some fussball

yeah sure rafa out lol carragher paul robinson is a health risk and lol terry k i'm done

He said: "The numbers mean that it would be impossible, even if every opposition MP united against this coalition, for the house to express its lack of confidence in it.

This is always true.

― caek, Thursday, 13 May 2010 16:29 Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

What's also true is that the coalition could collapse and LibDem-Lab-DUP-SNP-Green-SDLP-PC-SfuckingF-whoever I've missed from the Big Rainbow still couldn't vote to dissolve parliament without a couple of dozen Tory defectors from a *minority* party.

Sure.

Common sense says that enough Tories would realise governing in minority was kinda fuckin pointless and would do the right thing in those circumstances - meaning that, like 5 year fixed terms, it's a solution to something that doesn't need fixed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2010/may/13/55-per-cent-coalition-rule

Guardian finally getting round to raising this 55% thing. I'm sure the rest of the media won't cover it though.

Report on C4 news speaks of 55% as perhaps 'the first casualty' in the coalition agreement.

We'll see..

From the comments on that Guardian story:

Parliament has no right, priviledge or power to dissolve itself. That prerogative rests with the Crown alone.

The Crown invites a Member, who commands the loyalty of the largest number of Members, to be Prime Minister. The Prime Minister in the time being appoints the Crown's Ministers. When a Prime Minister chooses to resign he so does, there is nothing that the House can do to frustrate his action. It may be that he resigns on health grounds, or because he is fed up with the job or because he has lost the confidence of the House. This latter means that the Members have given him notice that they will, in future, vote against all legislation that he proposes. This can be achieved by the House passing a vote of no-confidence in him and his government. In these circumstances he resigns, there being no point in carrying on in Office. It maybe that, when he resigns he can advise the Sovereign that another Member commands a majority of the House and could be invited to form a Government. It may be that he cannot so advise and must therefore request the dissolution of Parliament and the election of a new one.

It is difficult to see what value the Losers' Coalition Memorandum of Understanding brings. It merely expresses the intention to propose a Motion that the Parliament shall run for a full five years and that a Motion for Dissolution with less that 55% support cannot be allowed to succeed. But, hey, the House cannot dissolve Parliament, only the Queen can do that, and then only on the advice of her Prime Minister.

Face it, Cameron will remain free to ditch the Liberals when ever he chooses. What are they going to do about it when he does? Whine about it to the Voters? Sue the Tories until their eyes fall out? Take it to the European Court?

January 2009

But Robert Goodwill, shadow minister for Leeds, claimed that the cabinet meetings outside of London were "a bit of a gimmick".

He said: "The cost of hosting them given the increased security is something that should be borne by Labour rather than by the taxpayer.

Mr Cameron said he would continue the Labour tradition of holding cabinet meetings in different parts of the UK.

shadow minister for Leeds?

He was Shadow Minister for Roads. Was that first quote in the Guardian perchance?