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

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.

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