4th November 2008
Change You Can’t Believe In
It seems like an age ago, but when Brown was elected there was much talk of change. OK, he was never going to be a British Obama but he did talk about sweeping changes to the Constitution, cleaning up politics and the like.
Eighteen months on and a lot of this has been conveniently forgotten. The Ministerial Code was amended to require the annual publication of Ministers’ interests together with an annual report by the Prime Minister’s independent adviser on the Code (Sir Philip Mawer). More than eighteen months from the publication of the new Code we are still waiting for either the list or the report to see the light of day:
Adam Price: To ask the Prime Minister whether a list of Ministers’ relevant interests declared to their Permanent Secretaries will be published in 2008. [232817]
The Prime Minister: The list is currently being updated and will be published as soon as the work is completed.
Why the wait? They promised the Public Administration Committee it was going to be published after the end of the Summer recess. What’s the hold-up? Is it Mandelson? Is it the Glenrothes by-election? Is Sir Philip refusing to be a patsy? Who can say?
Another report we are still waiting for is the Governmen’t factual report on the Barnett Formula which I seem to recall was promised for the Calman Commission. No sign of that, either, as far as I am aware. And the Calman Commission’s deadline for submissions has closed.
Finally, there has been heavy hints this year by Labour Ministers – first by Vera Baird and then by Chris Bryant – of the posibility of the law of succession preventing Catholics (or even the spouses of Catholics) from sitting on the throne being changed. The Crown was also going to become an equal opportunities employer as regards gender.
But then I got this parliamentary reply:
sTo ask the Secretary of State for Justice whether the Government plans to bring forward legislative proposals to remove the prohibition on Catholics or their spouses from succeeding to the throne. [230104]
Mr. Straw: To bring about changes to the law on succession would be a complex undertaking involving amendment or repeal of a number of items of related legislation, as well as requiring the consent of legislatures of member nations of the Commonwealth. We are prepared to consider the arguments in this complex area but have no immediate plans to legislate.
Equality, apparently, is something for the plebs.
One Response so far to “Change You Can’t Believe In”
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plaidcasnewydd says:
November 6th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
It is a fiscal matter I guess.
The monarch is the biggest landowner in the UK. The CoE the second largest landowner in the UK. The monarch is the head of the CoE. These combined assets are worth billions, and are, by Couts banks supposedly, managed as such.
A catholic monarch could, technically, return the CoE to the navel of the Roman Catholic Church. All the CoE’s assets could therefore, again technically, be transferred to the ownership of the Roman Catholic Church. These technical matters could be detrimental to the future of monarchy. They tend to legislate against even the possibility of this kind of thing, in order to protect their line and their kind. Fortunately for the rest of us at least this kind of law is unobtrusive, even if it is offensive.
It also goes prove though- that it is economics that prevents equality.
I just posted on windfall tax and green energy
plaidcasnewydd.blogspot.com
Feel free to link to the site!
Dioch