Utopia, you are standing in it!

Spitting Image was right: John Major really does look grey in the analogue 1990s television signals.

Something about prorogation seems to bring out a toxic mixture of anger and ignorance.

Brexit and Prorogation

The Fixed-Term Parliaments Act, 2011 put the prerogative over dissolution as well as the established constitutional position of the Queen and Prime Minister with respect to dissolution into abeyance. This resulting inflexibility in the British constitution has made a right mess of things and prevented a natural dissolution of a deadlocked Brexit Parliament elected in 2017. And now Britain’s radical reformers have set their sights on the prerogative authority over prorogation as well.

In a recent Times article, Lord Pannick QC – leading Counsel in the Miller litigation – argues that if a Prime Minister were to advise HMQ to prorogue parliament to avoid a No Deal exit, an application could be made to the courts to determine the lawfulness of such advice. Sir John Major said on the Today programme on 10 July that he would personally bring a judicial review of any decision by the Prime Minister to advise prorogation.

After briefly considering issues of timing and justiciability, Lord Pannick makes three main arguments as to why, in his view, advice to prorogue parliament to achieve No Deal would be ruled unlawful by the courts. First, he claims that proroguing parliament would contradict parliamentary sovereignty. Secondly he claims the urgency of the situation would make prorogation unlawful. Thirdly, he argues that such advice would be ‘seeking to evade parliament because it…

Lady Jane Grey (c. 1537 – 12 February 1554), also known as Lady Jane Dudley (after her marriage)and as “the Nine Days’ Queen”, was an English noblewoman and de facto Queen of England and Ireland from July 10 until July 19, 1553.

Lady Jane Grey was the eldest daughter of Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon, the second child and eldest daughter of Princess Mary, and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. Princess Mary was King Henry VIII’s younger sister. Jane had two younger sisters, Lady Catherine and Lady Mary; through their mother, the three sisters were great-granddaughters of Henry VII, grandnieces of Henry VIII, and first cousins once removed of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Lady Jane Gray

The traditional view is that she was born at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire in October 1537, while more recent research indicates that she was born…

A few years ago, the late Sherlock Hibbs gave $5M to his alma mater, the University of Missouri. The intent was for Mizzou to hire six (!) professors and each needed to be a “dedicated and articulate disciple” of Ludwig von Mises. The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the university got sued by Hillsdale College over this donation. Why? Hillsdale College claims that the terms of the donation were not met and the terms of the donation require that the gift, now valued at $9M would go to Hillsdale if the University of Missouri could not fulfill its terms.

Comment #1: This is a fascinating way to create some enforcement within the non-profit sector. It’s not full proof but in relatively simple donations, third parties would be willing to litigate if the reward was big enough and the enforcer could be written into the contract. Hillsdale is ideologically…

Unlike the current manufactured climate crisis, Tony Heller states, in 1936 the US and much of the rest of the world were having a very real climate crisis. The week of July 7-14, 1936 was the hottest week on record in the US – and that was just a small portion of the climate troubles that year. Atmospheric CO2 levels were very low at the time.

PHOTO CREDIT: – 1936 Atlantic hurricane season – Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2504597

KOMO-TV reported last Wednesday that “a climate study has estimated that Seattle’s costs associated sea level rise could be more than $23.8 billion by 2040.”They said that the “Center for Climate Integrity conducted the evaluation of potential costs of constructing seawalls in 22 coastal states and the District of Columbia.”

Well, not so fast. Junk Science.com pointed out that while high water and/or flooding may be a future problem for Seattle, it won’t be because of sea level rise so much as subsidence.

The NOAA tidal gauge data shows that for the past 120 years or so the rise has been about 8 to9 inches–nothing unusual.

What is happening is that manmade activity (land use, groundwater withdrawal) is making Seattle subside. A 2016 study showed that “Fast subsidence in downtown of Seattle was observed with satellite radar.

Can a Christian secondary school require that its teachers not openly advocate a sexual lifestyle that is contrary to the Bible’s teaching? Can an Orthodox Jewish preschool ask its teachers to live in accordance with Orthodox moral principles? Can a Protestant church refuse to hire someone to act on its behalf in political advocacy when that person does not share their religious beliefs?

These are all issues that have come up in recent months. Two of them are dealt with in decisions in connection with judicial proceedings, one in the UK and one from the European Court of Justice. One has been raised by media reports in Australia. In this post I want to flag these three cases briefly and to comment on the issues they raise for religious freedom, and how they should be resolved. 

Readers may recall that just over a month ago listeners to BBC domestic radio’s news and current affairs station, Radio 4, were told by a presenter of the ‘Today’ show (which reaches 6.8 million listeners a week) that:

“The fact remains that healthcare restrictions are being used to dehumanise the Palestinian people…” 

BBC R4’s ‘Today’ listeners get a distorted view of medical permits – part one

BBC R4’s ‘Today’ listeners get distorted view of medical permits – part two

As was noted here at the time, the BBC has a history of ignoring stories (see ‘related articles’ below) which explain the need for security checks before permits are given to residents of the Gaza Strip to travel to or through Israel for the purpose of medical treatment. 

Last week another such story emerged when the Israel Security Agency announced the arrest of a Hamas explosives expert who had entered Israel with a humanitarian permit for medical treatment…

Until now, Australia’s wind industry owned the game. Having written the rules of operation, helped by corrupt government officials and its pet acoustic consultants, wind power operators have treated noise affected neighbours with derision and contempt.

Now the game is the wind industry’s to lose, and it all started at a little place in Victoria, called the Bald Hills.

Driven mad by incessant, grinding, thumping wind turbine noise a group of farmers lawyered up and went on the offensive: their run of victories now pose an existential threat to the Australian wind industry.

For years, they’ve battled their local Council – the body responsible under the Public Health and Wellbeing Act to prosecute noise nuisance complaints.

Their lawyer, Dominica Tannock, a tenacious young Melburnian, never let up.

Ground into submission, the Council was forced to engage one of Melbourne’s top Queen’s Counsel to get his independent opinion on…