Utopia, you are standing in it!

In light of the attempt of the current government to prorogue Parliament, we thought it would be appropriate to offer examples of prorogation or the aversion thereof in Parliament’s past. Today, Dr Vivienne Larminie, Assistant Editor of our House of Commons 1640-1660 project explains how prorogation was narrowly avoided in 1641 during a crisis in the early months of the Long Parliament. In an earlier blog, Vivienne has also explored how, a few months later in January 1642, the king deployed an alternative tactic to gain control over Parliament when he attempted to ‘decapitate’ Parliament by seeking to arrest prominent adversarial MPs.

In early May 1641, six months in to what became the Long Parliament, Members sensed that a crisis point had been reached.On the one hand it had become clear that enormous sums had to be found to pay for…

In today’s political and social climate, trying to defend colonialism is just asking for trouble—in fact, even for death threats. That’s what happened to associate professor Bruce Gilley at Portland State University, who recently published an article—actually, a “Viewpoint”, the academic equivalent of an op-ed, but refereed like a regular article—called “The case for colonialism” in a journal called the Third World Quarterly. If you go to the link, though, you won’t find the article; you’ll find this:

According to Andy Ngo, who’s been reporting this in Quillette, Gilley’s article said this:

First published on September 8, “The case for colonialism” argues Western colonialism has created net-good in some instances, particularly through establishing governance, institutions and infrastructure. Gilley argues that nations who embraced and built on their Western colonial legacy, for example, Singapore, have fared better than those who followed anti-colonial nationalist ideologies. The article also…

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.  The decayed and degraded state of moral and spiritual feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.  The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept free so by exertions of better men than himself.”  John Start Mill

“Intellectuals in society such as our own, it is not unusual for an intellectual to feel no attachment to his own country.  This type is mostly deeply cynical, disaffected.  Most strike a pretense of imitativeness or sheer cowardice.  Most are members of religious sects or humanists who have not bothered to think of the consequences.  The real though unadmitted motive is pure hatred for Democracy and liberty.”  George Orwell

The chief reporter was the veteran Frank Keeler, a terrific journalist who became my mentor. He was a stickler for accuracy, dunning into all cubs he ever mentored his personal philosophy: check, check and check again. Then write. I still do. (p.107)

This is a very entertaining, amusing, informative and life-affirming book. What a great life Forsyth has had and with what brio he sets it down in his brisk, non-nonsense style.

The challenge of autobiography

We think and feel and speak and interact with other people all the time in a myriad of complex ways. Just writing down everything that happens in a day would be challenging, because so much of our interactions have a long history of interactions preceding them, and ramify out in all directions. So if describing everything that happens in a day would be challenging, how do you go about writing about your entire life

The Commonwealth Attorney-General has released Exposure Drafts of a package of Federal Bills designed to improve religious freedom protections under Australian law, along with associated explanatory information. The legislation responds to the recommendations of the Ruddock Panel into Religious Freedom, released late in 2018. Public comment has been invited by 2 October, 2019.

The main item is the Religious Discrimination Bill 2019 (“RDB”), which broadly replicates the existing pattern of anti-discrimination laws enacted by the Commonwealth, but picking up for the first time at the Federal level the “protected characteristics” of “religious belief or activity”. Two ancillary Bills propose consequential amendments to other legislation, add some specific matters to be taken into account in objects clauses for other discrimination laws, and slightly amend or clarify the laws on charities and marriage.

The RDB is a lengthy document (68 clauses over 52 pages), with some complexities that will need to be…

An article in the Sunday Times by Professor Richard Ekins and Sir Stephen Laws QC advised that the Monarch could withhold Royal Assent to a bill passed if advised to do so by ministers.  Robert Craig  has also argued for that position in a blog post, making clear why in his view that is the democratically legitimate position.  Professors Mark Elliott and Thomas Poole both refute these views, but recognize a prima facie tension between a constitutional convention that the Monarch follow ministerial advice on the one hand, and a convention that the Monarch almost automatically give Royal Assent to duly passed bills on the other.  Poole assumes for the sake of argument that they might be in conflict, and argues that were it so, the convention on Royal Assent would prevail.  I agree with him so far as that argument goes. (Professor Poole also alludes to the view that…

Our ‘Named Parliaments’ series continues. Today Paul Seaward, British Academy/Wolfson Research Professor at the History of Parliament Trust explores the Cavalier Parliament, the first Parliament after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660…

The Parliament elected in April 1661 was designed to sweep away the last vestiges of the English Revolution and restore the monarchy to its pre-Civil War glory. It was the Convention of 1660, elected a year earlier, that had brought the Interregnum to an end, summoning Charles II back from his continental exile; but men who had fought for the king and his father had been deliberately excluded from it. As far as the king was concerned, the Convention needed to be replaced as soon as possible with something more vigorously reactionary. His new Parliament fitted the bill: ‘no man’, wrote his lord chancellor and chief minister, the earl of Clarendon, ‘could wish a more active spirit…

I just read John Cochrane’s essay “Inflation and Debt” in the Fall 2011 issue of National Affairs. On his webpage, Cochrane gives this brief summary of what the paper is about.

An essay summarizing the threat of inflation from large debt and deficits. The danger is best described as a “run on the dollar.” Future deficits can lead to inflation today, which the Fed cannot control. I also talk about the conventional Keynesian (Fed) and monetarist views of inflation, and why they are not equipped to deal with the threat of deficits. This essay complements the academic (equations) “Understanding Policy” article (see below) and the Why the 2025 budget matters today WSJ oped (see below).

And here’s the abstract to his “Understanding Policy in the Great Recession” article:

I use the valuation equation of government debt to understand fiscal and monetary policy in and following the great recession…

Mark Levin asks Dr.Patrick Michaels to explain Climate Change and why it seems to be a major crisis just now. AOC claims that we have just 12 years left, which gets lots of attention because she is “click-bait” for the media, largely because she is so ignorant about the Constitution, and how the government works. But we have Climate Marches, lots of people who, never having learned anything about the science, believe that there is a crisis and we have to save the planet or we’re all doomed.

This is what I was trying to explain in my previous post. The internet, and the ability to “surf,” picking up little bits and pieces, has given us the illusion that we know more than we do. We no longer understand things in depth, because we don’t stick around long enough. The talking-heads and the ideas change with a click of the…