Next recession, trade wars, up to 50% portfolio losses

ValiantSon

Glen_Clark wrote: »

The fact Her Unelected Majesty & Hangers On, and her staff are always exempted from inconvenient legislation like the, Employment Protection Act etc suggest she does use it But we don't really know much about they because they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act too, and refuse to give interviews or answer unscripted questions. We only know what gets past her spin doctors.
We have not one page of written constitution, they make it up to suit themselves as they go along.
All we have is an unwritten understanding she won't use her power as long as everything keeps going her way.
This is what they call Democracy.

I'm no fan of our existing constitution, and certainly don't believe that our country can meaningfully be considered a functioning democracy, but it is not correct to say that there is no written constitution. Our constitution is written, but it isn't codified. There are four sources of the constitution: statutes; common law; conventions; works of authority (Walter Bagehot; A.V. Dicey; Erskine May).

For those arguing that the monarch does not exercise executive power, you are missing the fact that her power is delegated, through royal prerogative, to officers of the crown. The use of royal prerogative circumvents parliament in many situations (including, for example, declarations of war). Furthermore the current monarch has exercised direct royal prerogative during her reign. She most recently did this in 1974 when she appointed Harold Wilson as prime minister. You could, also, reasonably argue, that she directly exercised the royal prerogative in 2017 when she allowed Theresa May to remain as prime minister despite her being unable to command a majority in the House of Commons (a supply and confidence agreement, such as exists with the DUP, does not create a majority).

Glen_Clark

ValiantSon wrote: »

. She most recently did this in 1974 when she appointed Harold Wilson as prime minister.

I thought she failed to appoint Harold Wilson as Prime Minister despite his winning the election - the Unelected Head of State kept the elected Prime Minister out of office for 2 days whilst Heath tried and failed to cut a deal with the Liberals?

Glen_Clark

ValiantSon wrote: »

I'm no fan of our existing constitution, and certainly don't believe that our country can meaningfully be considered a functioning democracy, but it is not correct to say that there is no written constitution. Our constitution is written, but it isn't codified. There are four sources of the constitution: statutes; common law; conventions; works of authority (Walter Bagehot; A.V. Dicey; Erskine May).
.

They still make it up to suit themselves as they go along. For instance we aren't allowed to see her paintings in Windsor Castle unless she lets them out on loan to museums. But when they caught fire in her care they were ours because we had to pay for their restoration. And now we have paid for them they are hers again.

ValiantSon

Glen_Clark wrote: »

I thought she failed to appoint Harold Wilson as Prime Minister despite his winning the election - the Unelected Head of State kept the elected Prime Minister out of office for 2 days whilst Heath tried and failed to cut a deal with the Liberals?

Labour were the largest party, but with no majority. The correct constitutional procedure is for the existing prime minister to remain in office until a new government can be formed. This can involve the existing PM trying to reach a coalition or supply and confidence agreement. The same thing happened in 2010 when Gordon Brown remained in office, but in this instance, David Cameron was able to demonstrate that he could command a majority after having agreed a coalition deal with the Liberal Democrats.

Glen_Clark wrote: »

They still make it up to suit themselves as they go along. For instance we aren't allowed to see her paintings in Windsor Castle unless she lets them out on loan to museums. But when they caught fire in her care they were ours because we had to pay for their restoration. And now we have paid for them they are hers again.

That has nothing to do with the constitution, however. That is simply because we are, collectively, very stupid.

dividendhero

Reaper wrote: »

Although you say they have a power of veto they do not. They can only delay bills for between 1 month and 1 year, and some types not at all.
.

As I understand it, the House of Lords can't stop legislation - but with two conditions

(1) The legislation must be in the Governments manifesto
(2) The Govt must have an overall majority

These are the "Salisbury Conventions".

Maybots Govt don't have a majority, as such the HoL can block legislation ... How relevant this is when Govt only seem interested in trying to ban plastics and making a hash of Brexit, but not much else..who knows?

grey_gym_sock

IanManc wrote: »

The Conservatives have a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP, so the government does have a majority.

they have a working majority. but the conservatives and the DUP ran on different manifestos in the general election, so i don't see how the salisbury convention can be engaged. there's no manifesto which a majority of MPs ran on.

bowlhead99

grey_gym_sock wrote: »

they have a working majority. but the conservatives and the DUP ran on different manifestos in the general election, so i don't see how the salisbury convention can be engaged. there's no manifesto which a majority of MPs ran on.

They did of course have different manifestos, though if there are common points of those manifestos then despite the fact that DUP is not part of the administration (because of not being in a proper coalition) it wouldn't IMHO be unreasonable to follow the Salisbury concept of the Lords not thwarting a bill that implements a manifesto commitment of a majority of MPs, where the public had voted for a majority of MPs which had that commitment in their manifestos.

Of course, the manifestos were not the same but if there was something that was in both, and 'the will of the people' in an election returned enough MPs from those two camps which both wanted a certain option (even if there was stuff around the edges that differed a bit - as an actual bill will always have stuff around the edges that wasn't in a high level manifesto commitment anyway) then it doesn't seem outlandish that the Lords could see, as Salisbury did, that the proposals were put before the country at an election and the electorate liked them and gave power to the people who had put the proposals to the country (despite the proposals being worded differently and sitting in two separate documents).

However, it depends how you interpret the convention in terms of what it's trying to achieve; you could take the view that the DUP themselves didn't get a mandate to do what they wanted, so we'll disregard what they want, even though what they said they would do in the area under discussion is aligned with what Conservatives said they would do and the public votes returned enough MPs from both camps to pass parliamentary bills implementing the common commitments made.

Mark Elliott's blog had some discussion about this last year, extract below if it's of interest
https://publiclawforeveryone.com/2017/06/10/does-the-salisbury-convention-apply-during-a-hung-parliament/

The question thus reduces to whether the "mandate"; that is relevant for the purpose of the Salisbury convention is one that attaches to the manifesto commitment in question or whether the convention is triggered only when the government has earned a mandate to implement its manifesto commitments. On the first view, shared Conservative-DUP commitments would fall within the convention (as would, say, shared Conservative-Liberal Democrat commitments) because there would be majority support for the commitment. But on the second view, the convention would have no application to a minority government's manifesto commitments even if other parties, including a confidence-and-supply partner, had made the same commitments ; because, as a government, the minority administration would have failed to earn a mandate to implement those commitments. Normative arguments can be made in support of either of these views. But, for reasons elaborated upon below, no answer can be dictated, because the governing criterion is ultimately what members of the relevant political community think.

This doesn't really address the critical question contemplated by the OP about whether anyone is or should be concerned about the next recession, trade wars and 50% portfolio losses. I haven't previously responded on the thread so should probably offer the thought that it is natural to be concerned about those things but I am not unduly concerned about them. I'm just the normal amount of concerned, and have arranged my portfolio accordingly.

dividendhero

IanManc wrote: »

The Conservatives have a confidence and supply agreement with the DUP,.

The Tories supply the money and the DUP supply the confidence seems to be the top and bottom of it.

The Scottish Tories are a separate party so I think there's even less of a case for the Salisbury convention to apply. However main problem with issue isn't the HoL (who don't seem to have delayed or blocked anything yet) it's the sheer weakness of Maybots leadership - there's Ministers in place who should have been sacked ages ago - Johnson and Davis come to mind, both just seem to go round saying whatever's on top of their head at that moment

grey_gym_sock

bowlhead99 wrote: »

The question thus reduces to whether the "mandate"; that is relevant for the purpose of the Salisbury convention is one that attaches to the manifesto commitment in question or whether the convention is triggered only when the government has earned a mandate to implement its manifesto commitments. On the first view, shared Conservative-DUP commitments would fall within the convention (as would, say, shared Conservative-Liberal Democrat commitments) because there would be majority support for the commitment.

it seems to me a very odd idea that the salisbury convention might also apply to shared conservative / liberal democrat commitments, in a parliament in which there is no coalition (nor other arrangement) between those parties. by the same logic, would it also apply to commitments shared by all parties represented in the commons other than the conservatives (e.g. (IIRC) abolishing the bedroom tax)?

i think the point of the convention is about not frustrating the will of a government which has a democratic mandate. you can't leave the "government" part out of that.

in practice, the house of lords show a lot of restraint when their views are in conflict with the commons. it is not limited to the salisbury convention. for instance, they often back down when the commons insists "yes, we do want this" and send the identical issue back to the lords for a second vote.

This doesn't really address the critical question contemplated by the OP about whether anyone is or should be concerned about the next recession, trade wars and 50% portfolio losses. I haven't previously responded on the thread so should probably offer the thought that it is natural to be concerned about those things but I am not unduly concerned about them. I'm just the normal amount of concerned, and have arranged my portfolio accordingly.

me, too

Glen_Clark

Malthusian wrote: »

Ooh, that's a tough one. Do we broadcast footage of a royal wedding with parades, flags, pomp, circumstance and a celebration of national unity and shared history, or do we broadcast interviews with tedious shrivelled-up pub bores who spend their free time smugly correcting anyone who refers to 'British citizens' ("don't you know you're a subject?") while wearing "Blair for President" T-shirts.

Blair supports the Monarchy. (and sucks up to anyone else with wealth and power?)
I am no fan of his but if we had him as President at least we could get rid of him after 5 years. We wouldn't be stuck with Blair, plus his extended family and hangers on, then all Blair's descendants and their externded families and hangers on, whatever they turn out to be like, for evermore.