The Jury.

I felt ever so sorry for Barry Devonside, whose son Christopher, 18, died in the disaster at Hillsborough, when he said: "I'm shocked and stunned by the verdict of the jury.   We, the families, have fought for 30 years valiantly."  It's a nightmare for their families that will never go away.

But what did they fight for all these years?  I thought they were always fighting that the cases of their loved ones would find its way into a Court and that a jury of their peers would decide if the person charged was indeed guilty.    

Apparently not.  They simply wanted the person in the dock to be found guilty.  What’s the point of jury and a court if you simply get the verdict that you want.  The jury are asked, on behalf of society, to review the evidence and assess whether or not the prosecution has indeed made the case for the guilt to be seen as being beyond reasonable doubt.  That’s how a free and fair society works.      

Surely they didn’t expect that a jury would simply rubber stamp their personal view that one individual was guilty?   If they did, then only one of two scenarios can exist.  They have been deceived by their legal council. Or they didn’t listen to their legal council.

Amazing stuff from the BBC.

Something very remarkable happened today on the 1pm news on BBC1.  Live on BBC tv a reporter was allowed to say, totally un-challenged, that Mr Johnson told lies.   

First of all, lets take the Twitter feed. The Conservatives didn’t actually change the label that said it was the Conservative Twitter account.  It’s there.  Bold.  No one could miss it.  Unless that is you were deliberately seeking to undermine the Conservatives.    

The party clearly were not touting it as an independent fact checker.  Only the most obtuse individual could surmise that it was genuine.  

Then Amol Rajan, the BBCs Media Editor, popped up with one of the most remarkable things I have ever heard journalist say on the BBC.  His exact words at 5:05? 

“The party of government …. has basically used Twitter … as a way of putting out something that is less than true.”   

He then goes on to say at 5:28 that the information on the Conservative twitter feed “wrong and false”.   

Now, I have no problem a Labour of Lib Dem saying that kind of thing in the hurly burly of an election.  

But not, a BBC journalist accusing the Conservatives of telling lies.  With not a shred of evidence to back it up.  Remarkable.  Balance?  Make up your mind.

Who can you trust?

I know that the Lib Dems are very unhappy that Ms Swinson did not appear in the debate with Messrs Corbyn and Johnson last night.  But fear not for all is still well in her camp.   

Take what was said on Sky News a month or two ago.  “The Lib Dems fightback is real – and it's changing everything”.  And in the Guardian, “Lib Dems winning and on the up after by-election victory”.   

Well, I would be very happy as a party leader hearing these words.  Indeed, I would be so happy I would plaster them all over my election literature.  Why wouldn’t you.  And that is exactly what she did.  And had it posted through letterboxes all over the country.  Though interestingly, I haven't seen it through my letterbox yet and I live in her constituency.

The only problem is, these words were not from some independent commentator who was observing things from a neutral stance.  These are words that Ms Swinson herself used to these news outlets.   

As you can see from the leaflet, nowhere does it say that these words are hers.  And she has the audacity to point the finger at others who are being "economical with the actuality" as the late Alan Clark used to put it.   

If Ms Swinson is what we deserve as prime minster, as it says that on the other side of the leaflet, what have we done wrong?  

I know.  We voted to Leave the EU.  And she wants to put that right (in her eyes) and stop the democratic mandate of the people being implemented.   

Or putting it another way, if you can’t trust what she puts on her leaflets, how could you trust her in No 10?

Having a laugh?

The Lib Dems really are having a laugh.   

Though with their figures in the polls steadily falling, Datapoll’s findings say they are now down at 11%, they are not the ones laughing.  Unless they are in denial.   

Ms Swinson, in the latest polls from Survation, the Pollster who called it right at the last election, is in trouble.  When asked who would be their preferred PM, Mr Johnson is up 6pts to 47% while Ms Swinson tumbles 6% to even below Mr Corbyn, on only 15%.   

To parody their leaflets, LibDems NOT winning here.    

The party that seeks to undermine the democratic mandate of the Referendum by simply, should it have the power to do so, wipe away the 17,410,742 votes that won Leave the victory, now seeks to claim the democratic moral high ground.  Its President, Baroness Brinton, in an interview after the party lost its Lib Dems ITV debate legal challenge, had the audacity to say that the decision was “disappointing for democracy in this country”.  

Let me get this right Baroness.  You think it is ok for the president of a national party that, at every stage over the past three years, has sought to undermine the democratic vote of the people of the UK to leave the EU, to have the right to call a decision by a judge as disappointing for democracy?  This is more nauseating distasteful stuff from a party that long ago gave up on agreeing with the principle of Losers' consent, the very bedrock of our democracy.

What is our health service for?

In my childhood, we were not a wealthy family.  We simply had to match our spending to what money we had coming in from my dad’s salary.  We struggled like many families did in the 60’s.  And sometimes it is only when you look back you see that the generation then simply lived by their means.  And got on with it.  Did it do us any harm?  Not really.  Did we borrow money to pay for the day to day living expenses?  No, we just didn’t get that new coat, the old one had to last a bit longer. 

It is the same attitude that exists in business. If we would like to buy an additional bit of machinery to make the business more efficient, but we don’t have the money, we would just make the old machine last a bit longer.  Or borrow money to buy a new one.  But what we would never do is borrow money just to run the business.          

But when it comes to the taxpayer funded National Health Service, all logic goes out of the window.  In the current situation where there are hospitals that are not hitting their target times, the immediate response is Accident and Emergency needs more money.  And perhaps it does.  Though if you do look more closely at the figures rather then the headlines, you realise that actually, 83.6% of A & E patients are admitted or transferred within four hours in October is, on the whole, not too bad.  Definitely a first world problem if you have to wait a little longer.  

And it is all the more impressive when you go and sit in an A & E unit as I have had to do on occasion recently and see people clogging up the system with things that a locally pharmacy or GP could have dealt with.  They are certainly not emergency cases.   But the response then generally continues, well, let’s just take more taxpayers money and throw it in the never ending deep hole that is the NHS.  No one says, as you and I would do at home, or a business would do, ok, what else can we trim in order to pay for this.  The assumption is, if the NHS needs it, extra money will be given.     

Of course, take money away from the taxpayer, and that means they will have less money to spend on a new coat.  Or a business on a new machine.  And if people have less money to spend, then shops will eventually feel the pinch and have to lay off staff.  And so it goes on.      

What nationalised industries have is what you and I don’t have.  A money tap that can be switched on.      

What should be happening in the current situation is, the NHS should say, well, A & E is more important so we will allocate resources to it and another part of the free at point of delivery health care provision be considered as less important so we will cut money to that.  Yes, there would be a hue and cry.   

But that brings us round to the question no political party is willing to address as they promise to spend billions on propping up an inefficient health care service that really has no thought out mission except to keep doing what it used to do and add more in.  What should the NHS actually be doing?   

What actually should be free at the point of delivery?   Everything?  From Abortion to Zenker's diverticulum and everything in between?  That’s the real debate we should be having in society.   

One thing is certain, the nation’s finances cannot be 100% spent on health care provision.  Our party leaders are being reckless in the extreme suggesting that more and more money is the solution. 

Votes for women.

An interesting day today in Westminster.  We had two women stating the reason for them to be allowed to where they would like to be was because they were women.   

We had Ms Swinson with her increasingly shrill voice and, how shall we put it, impassioned face, demanding that because she is a woman she should be in the one TV debate that has been announced.  Listen to her outside St Stephens Entrance, that really was the order in which she set it.   Yes, almost as an afterthought she said it was because she was leading the only party committed to overturning the wishes of 17,410,742 people, that she should have equal footing.   

The other was Ms Harman who was seeking to be become Speaker in the House of Commons.  Her main reason for thinking she should assume the chair?  She is a woman and it is time that a woman should be in the chair.  Not that she is the best skilled and competent.  She’s a woman.  You can listen to her speach at 15:02 on the Parliament TV website.

So there we have it, we should not appoint people by the level of their ability but because they’re a woman.  Now, when giving people opportunity not because of their ability but because of the colour of a person’s skin in South Africa in the olden days, we called that apartheid.   

What should we call what Ms Swinson and Ms Harman are seeking to do?

Different economic views.

I am always slightly bemused when I see a headline that is in parenthesis.  Take yesterday’s article on the BBC web site.  Brexit deal means ‘£70bn hit to UK by 2029'.  So the national broadcaster can make a statement on its website that may or may not be true, it's fall back position being we were merely quoting someone else.  No one knows if it will happen that way or not for that is just one economist’s view.   But that is not made clear in the article.  It is presented as fact.  Indeed, it may be completely the other way around; we may have a £70bn bounty by 2029.  But anyone who reads the article would think it to be true because it is a headline on the BBC.  While not fake news, it certainly is very misleading.     

There are other economic visions of the future that are different ones to those of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research that the BBC is quoting.  Some people have said there is political bias in the NIESR.  I’m not so sure that’s true.  But what I am sure of is that NIESR is a very devout follower of Keynesian economic theory.  And a highly respected one too.   So if you want a Keynesian approach, they are the people to go to.       

And there is the problem.  Keynesian thinking is only one way of seeing the economy.  And the NIESR is very biased if we mean it seeks to see the world though a Keynesian macroeconomics perspective.   It is true, Keynes certainly isn't politically biased.  It is not his fault that some on the moderate Left support his views and policy recommendations.  And yes, some to the right have been devoutly Keynesian as well.  But the reality is, there are dozens of different flavours of economic thinking.  But the BBC has showed a bias to Keynesian thinking by its failure to reflect there are other mainstream economic models that would fundamentally disagree with the headline of the article.   

One economic model to watch in the next few weeks of the election campaign will be the one espoused by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell.  They come from the Little Red Book from Chairman Mao, the man who’s economic and social polities caused the death of up to 35 million people.  Indeed, nowhere in the world has this brand of economic theory ended in anything other than utter failure.   

Yes, I know his answer, chillingly, is always along the lines of, ‘yes but they weren’t fully and properly implemented, that’s why they failed’.   

So over the next few weeks as we head to an election I am sure his brand of Marxist economics, which to be honest are as legitimate a position to hold as any other, even though its implementation around the world has caused unimaginable misery and destruction to once great economies, will be tested to the limit with the likes of Andrew Neil holding Mr McDonnell’s feet to the fire. 

Just flagging up an issue.....

 

Today outside a court in Edinburgh.  Not one UK or Scottish flag in the picture.   

Sadly, it kind of says it all.  They really do want us to be totally subservient to the EU.  

Meanwhile, the rest of us were spending the day working, earning money so that Ms Cherry and her SNP friends can take a slice off to spend on their pet projects. 

The question is, why do they hate the UK so much? 

Contempt. That is what remainers like Ms Cherry hold 17,410,742 people in.

Ms Cherry said it was a well-established principle in law that it was unlawful for a minister, including the Prime Minister, to do anything that frustrated or undermined the principle of an Act of Parliament.   

Really Joanna?   You having a laugh?    

Is she then going to explain why she and her anti-democratic friends are seeking to do just that by undermining the legislation that was passed into law by her fellow MPs?  It is Ms Cherry and her colleagues that should be held in contempt, not just by the courts as they clearly are the ones who are frustrating and Act of Parliament, but by the public.   

Let’s not forget, more people in Scotland voted to leave the EU than voted SNP at the last general election.    

A final point, can you think of any other democracy that has had its legislators voting against what they themselves had enacted? 

Want to know Lib Dems policy?

A Third Way.

So Saturday is straightforward now.  Deal or no deal, if we are to believe President Juncker who ruled out granting an extension to the UK.  Mind you, I'm not sure he talked to everyone else at the EC before he spoke.  So what’s new! 

But assuming he’s is right, and why wouldn’t he be, the EU refusing an extension means for MPs there is genuinely this New Deal or No Deal, no matter how much parliamentary trickery they engage in.       

So at the Super Saturday’s sitting, MPs will be presented with a single motion, a choice between Boris’s new negotiated deal and no deal. This will be entirely compliant with the provisions of the Benn Act, rendering it meaningless.  By voting against the deal MPs would have given consent to leaving on the 31st without a deal.  Genius in its simplicity…      

Interestingly, as Arron Banks noted, if you step back from entrenched positions that exist in NI, the deal could turn NI into an economic powerhouse with a foot in both camps.  Thye would benefit from UK trade deals and inward investment from UK co.  Talk about win win!!  

Paradoxically, it would stop a United Ireland becoming reality.  Why would the population of NI throw away their new found status and riches to join the Republic of Ireland, a withering economic branch of a failing EU empire.  

But there is a third way (sorry Tony Blair).   

Given no deal is agreed till its signed, on Saturday, and assuming the Commons is sitting, perhaps the prime minister should tell MPs he has changed his mind.  He can tell them he has just pressed the reboot button and taken us right back to the stage before Mrs May ludicrously agreed to Brussels’s sequencing of the talks (in its favour) in which she agreed to hand over £39 billion without knowing what we were getting in return.  So an extension will be used to run both the agreement and trade talks in parallel which can be signed together in three months’ time.     

Now, that would get my vote!

Disingenuous? Doesn't do him justice.

Well, today Remainer MPs voted to allow backbench MPs to amend Boris Johnson's Brexit plans, in a knife edge vote that passed by 287 votes to 275.   

But it was the words of one MP that really caught my eye.  I am really not sure I have ever heard or read anything quite as astonishingly disingenuous as this from Sir Oliver Letwin today.   

He told MPs, with a straight face: "That will enable those of us, like me, who wish to support and carry through and eventually see the ratification of this deal, not to put us in the position of allowing the government off the Benn Act hook on Saturday, but only at a time when the bill has been taken through both Houses of Parliament and legislated on."   

His words fool no one.  Clearly he does not want us to leave the EU.   He is just cynically seeking to continue his mission to overturn the votes of 17,410,742 people. And it is he and his ilk that will be to blame should unrest befall our nation if we don't leave. They truly are playing with fire.

What the UK buys and sells in a day.

It was kind of sad to see Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor, on his series on BBC2 to be apparently so out of his depth, discovering things that you would have thought, and hoped, the person who had his eyes of one day taking the great office of Chancellor of the  Exchequer would have had fully under his grasp and understanding.   

No so. Like a child in the metaphorical sweetshop he was wide eyed at the issues faced in the port of Southampton.  Take the number of cars that went out and in each day.  He dicovered there were more cars coming in than going out, though the cars going out were much higher value and going around the world while the ones coming in were almost exclusively from the EU.   

Just ponder that fact for a moment.    

And yet that boyish charm of his seemed to wave away the underlying thought that this was actually probably the first time he had been in a place like Southampton, away and free from political slogans.   

Going back to Episode One where he first discovered that the majority of stuff going in and out of the UK wasn’t coming or going to the EU but to the big wide world which we are actually pretty good at trading with, in spite of all the limitations that being in the EU  brings to exporters.   

Unfortunately he spoiled the whole programme with his last sentence, a somewhat disingenuous and naïve comment about Brexit.  The programme didn’t need politics in it.  Particularly when his comment went against everything he had just discovered in the programme.

The UK is a world trader.

All around the world they are doing it.

It’s been happening in Northern Ireland since 2002.  And it happens in Europe in Greece, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.  I could go on with the European list.  Worldwide?  It happens in Brazil, Greece, Argentina, India, Israel, Iceland, and so on.   A really big list!

What am I talking about?  The need to present some form of identification to authenticate who you are before you can cast your vote in an election.   Mr Corbyns response to the inclusion of this in the Queens Speech? "The people that the Tories are trying to stop voting will be disproportionately from ethnic minority backgrounds, and they will disproportionately be working class voters of all ethnicities."   

Now, this has all come to the surface after a report that showed there is evidence of voter fraud “especially in communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background” but that the cases have been ignored because of “over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion”.  The report continues with the warning that “challenging issues” over community cohesion should never be an “excuse” for failing to “uphold the rule of law and protect British liberties”.   

So back to Labour.  One can’t help but ask, why is Mr Corbyn so dismissive of the intelligence of people he claims to represent?  He is in effect saying they clearly are not clever enough to get themselves registered in the free system that will be available at all local authority offices.  Indeed, why would anyone not want to?  

Which forces you to ask the very uncomfortable question, why is Labour so against the idea of making our electoral system safer from fraud?  Answers on a postcard…..

Remember Lisbon?

What other nation in the world, apart from Ireland in its caving in to the Lisbon Treaty with a 2nd referendum, would allow itself to be so humiliated by being told by a foreign power that we had to hold a 2nd  vote on our leaving the EU or a general election on a decision we already democratically have taken?   

No MP could possibly vote for such a democratic outrage.

Benefits outweigh downsides of brexit.

No, not the words of some LibDem or Labour MP who has seen the light, unfortunately.  No, these are words from people who actually know what they are talking about.  The people who are at the very sharp pointy end of all this leaving the EU stuff.

The overwhelming focus on the negative impacts of Brexit on UK and EU ports has eclipsed positive outcomes of the ongoing process of Britain’s departure from the European Union.  This was the theme at the UK Ports Conference earlier this year when a number of panellists spoke of the operational benefits and opportunities of Brexit.     

For example, Oxera partner Andrew Meaney praised the development of better working relationships between ports and governments as a direct result of Brexit.  He said that ports within the UK and EU are “in a pretty decent place” and that there's “a lot of reasons to be cheerful”.   Even though the sector is plagued with uncertainty as a result of the departure deal being negotiated, ports now have close working relationships with government that were not there three to four years ago, he said. “That's a positive.”      

Chantal McRoberts, principal consultant at Drewry Maritime Advisors, pointed out that there is spare port capacity in the UK which could be seen as an opportunity for shifting cargo flows from traditional UK import hubs, which would relieve pressure. “If I were certain ports, I would be out there meeting and marketing that opportunity for that risk management option,” she said. “There is some flex in the system. Dover is not the be-all and end-all.”      

UK Major Ports Group chief executive Tim Morris agreed that customers are now re-thinking supply chains which could bring opportunities in volume light, but value rich areas. “It's possible we'll see a future that’s a lot more about value rather than volume growth,” he said.     

Meanwhile, Nick Clarke, global service line director for ports, marine and waterways at Ramboll, said that the key to making the best use of the opportunities presented by Brexit is for ports to be “flexible, prepared and able to deliver”.   He added that master-planning and being ready with consenting will be critical in how well ports adapt to this changing market.

My only comment is, if these people quoted here are living in the real word, what world are politicians living in when they see nothing but obstacles?  Their real problem is, they have probably never actually worked in the the productive side of the economy that creates wealth.  They, in all likely hood, have always been on the side of spending taxpayers money.  It shows.

Adapted from an article on www.portstrategy.com

Stopping Brexit is like fighting the Nazis.

Yip, you read that headline correctly.  But Mr David Charles, a Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate, has apologised for saying stopping Brexit is like fighting the Nazis when he said: “So we have to stop this - just as we stopped the Nazis in Germany and their sympathizers is this country at the time from destroying this country in the 1930s (sic).”.   

So hang on a minute, what did he apologise for?  Mr Chalmers apologised "for the use of any language that has caused offence".   

Notice that?  He didn’t actually apologise for what he said, only if had caused offence.  Welcome to the new world of the Lib Dems.  

Mind you a few years ago Sir Vince Cable did himself no favours with a remarkable Nazi jibe at then prime minster, Mrs May, as he accused her of using language that could have featured in Hitler's Mein Kampf.   

But what of the current leader of the Lib Dems, Jo Swinson.  She rightly told others to mind their language in an emotional speech in the Commons a few days ago.  Mind you, her target was the prime minster who, if you actually take the time to listen to the debate in which she made the comment, his use of the word “humbug” was deliberately taken out of context by the media.  And his use of “surrender bill” was entirely warranted as the Benn bill surrenders all UK power to the EU as to when we can and can’t leave the EU for good.  Parliament itself won’t have a say.  Go read it.   

So Lib Dems, follow your leaders advice.  Stop calling people names just because they believe in a different kind of democracy from you.

German cars.

Did you know that the UK consumes a fifth of German car exports?     

Did you know that the UK is the market with the highest profit margin for German car manufacturers?      

So why would Germany not want to reach a deal with the UK based on trade alone without the encumbrance of a political deal?      

The answer is straightforward. Because the EU will not retreat on its desire to create an EU state.  And this is the hub of the current battles.  It's not about a backstop.  It's about the future of the UK.

The evidence?  Every single one of the following is in European Commission documents plotting its journey ahead.  Some are already in place.  The others are on their way.   

Single army.  Single foreign policy.  Single tax structure.  Single social policy.  Single market.  Single immigration system.  Single judiciary.  Single currency.  Single anthem.  Get the picture?    

I do not recall in the debates a single Remainer putting forward a positive case for staying in the EU.  It was all negative.  Doom and gloom.  Perhaps they just forgot to tell us the truth of the EUs ambitions.  Perhaps they didn't want to tell us the truth for they knew the people of the UK would have voted in even larger numbers to leave.  And rather than defend their position of a federal EU they continue to accuse the Leave side for not telling the truth.  Take the number on the side of the bus.   £350m.  It turns out the figure was indeed wrong.  The real figure was higher with the Office of National Statistics confirming that the Gross payment to Brussels in the period the bus was doing its rounds was £18.9 billion a year, or £363 million a week.  But so far i have not heard an apology fort any one in the Remain side.  Funny that. 

Remainers need to look at the plank in their own eye.

Who is right?

So the Supreme Court is the last word I interpreting the law?  Well, certainly some people think otherwise. 

Indeed, such was the partisan nature and bizarreness of the judgement to some they think its needs to re visited.  Even though it is unlikely that it will be.   One such critic of the judgement is Professor John Finnis.  “The Judgement was wholly unjustified by law” and “should be recognised as a historic mistake, not a victory for fundamental principle”.   Very strong views.  But when you read his paper on the Policy Exchange, you can begin to see his views make sense.        

The Professor argues, not unreasonably, that the Judgement itself undercuts the genuine sovereignty of Parliament by evading a statutory prohibition – Article. 9 of the Bill of Rights 1689 – on judicial questioning of proceedings in Parliament.  He demonstrates that the Judgement was wholly unjustified by law and “it wrongly transfers the conventions about prorogation into the domain of justiciable law”.  His conclusion is that the Supreme Court Judgement is an “inept foray into high politics and should be recognised as a historic mistake, not a victory for fundamental principle”.      

So why did the Supreme Court take such a different understanding as to what its role was?  Well, unfortunately given the comments made by at least one of the judges who sat on that bench, personal political views may have played a part.  Wearing a brooch that implied she had taken down the Hulk (the nick name some use of the prime minister) and bragging that she had done so was, putting it mildly, insensitive.  And certainly not neutral.     

There are many reason why we are in the place we are.  The main one of course is that extreme Remainers refuse to accept the result of the biggest democratic vote our nation has ever undertaken.  That those Courts don’t consider this democratic fact in any of their judgements perhaps says something about what they see as their priorities.  Upholding the democratic will of the nation?  Or continually upholding the complainants who seek to overturn that democratic mandate? Seems increasingly more like the latter.

Just read what your parliament has agreed to.

"The Prime Minister must seek to obtain from the European Council an extension of the period under Article 50(3) of the Treaty on European Union ending at 11.00pm on 31 October 2019 by sending to the President of the European Council a letter in the form set out in the Schedule to this Act requesting an extension of that period to 11.00pm on 31 January 2020 in order to debate and pass a Bill to implement the agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union under Article 50(2) of the Treaty on European Union, including provisions reflecting the outcome of inter-party talks as announced by the Prime Minister on 21 May 2019, and in particular the need for the United Kingdom to secure changes to the political declaration to reflect the outcome of those inter-party talks."

Just imagine taking that sort of strategy into a car showroom when you next want to buy a car.

Be careful what you wish for, Joanna.

Perhaps SNP MP Joanna Cherry, QC, should be careful about what she wishes for in her seeking to have a court rule that the prime minister could be sent to prison for not sending the Brexit Surrender letter to the EU.

It is not that long ago that her colleagues in the Scottish parliament, in relation to the Named Persons Act, a piece of legislation that would not have been out of place in North Korea, were seeking to ignore a ruling from the Supreme Court when it ruled that the information sharing involved in the scheme breached the European Convention on Human Rights.   

So would she have similarly gone to court to see Mr Swinney going to the Big Hoose, aka the Bar-L, aka Barlinnie Prison for refusing to implement the Supreme Court ruling?   

Thought not.

Choices time. Which is worse?

A British rapper, slowthai, yes, that’s his stage name, screaming obscenities such as "f*** Boris" during the live BBC Four broadcast of the Mercury Prize awards ceremony while brandishing an effigy of Boris Johnson’s severed head. (I’ve yet to hear if the producer of the show, who must, or should have known the stunt was going to happen, is still in a job.).    

Or how about when Liam Byrne who said the PM was guilty of treason?   That's a very strong accusation.  And to proclaim guilt before he's even been tried, that sounds like a kangaroo court to me.  Anyway, as one response to Mr Byrne noted, “How could anyone know it was illegal before the Supreme Court published its conclusion. Even the English High Court initially found it was not illegal”. 

Or Jess Phillips who said she will “knife Corbyn in the front”.   Which is odd for Jess as she is, more often than not, measured and sensible.

But one of the biggest offenders is John McDonnell, shadow chancellor and the real Marxist brains behind Corbyn.  His track record includes comparing the PM to a "dictator" during WWII, fantasised about murdering Margaret Thatcher, made the infamous “lynch the b*tch” comments on Esther McVey, accused the Conservatives of social murder and to round it off wanted to garrote Lib Dem Danny Alexander.  What a nice turn of phrase he has.   Of course he now says they were all just in jest.  Aye, right.

Mr Corbyn and Ms Abbot do not have clean hands either.  They have, amongst other things, alleged that the Conservative /Lib Dem coalition government killed 120,000 people and the Conservative were “cruel and callous”.  Other Labour figures also get in on the act.   David Lammy said Leavers behaved like Nazis, and then adding the thought that this comparison wasn’t strong enough.   

And Jo Swinsons lily white LibDems?  Let's ignore the fact that Ms Swinson said on live TV that she wouldn't respect the result of a further referendum if it didn't go her way, Ed Davey called for a remain alliance in Uxbridge to "decapitate" Boris.   He apologised quickly enough, but the damage was done.

Then along comes Boris.  In response to a Labour MP, Paula Sherriff, who invoked the memory of murdered MP Jo Cox in her question, the prime minster replied, in essence, that a democrat like Jo Cox would have accepted the result of a democratic vote and got on with it.  At least, I hope that is what she would have done. From Boris no threat of decapitation or murder.  No calls of traitor.  No saying anyone was a Nazi. Just a statement of the blindingly obvious.  MPs should respect the will of the people.  Ms Sherriff spoiled her big moment of fame on on TV today when she sought to characterise the Conservatives as "this wicked, grotesque government".  

Perhaps Boris should not have risen to the bait.  But the faux outrage emanating from the opposition benches is somewhat nauseating given their track record in abusive language. Pot calling the kettle black and all that.  

Has the Supreme Court broken the law?

Some learned friends believe so.  And the consequences of them doing so are many.  The most obvious, and worrying, is the call that the judiciary now needs to have its wings clipped.  And if that does happen it is their own fault.       

But why are we even here?  Boiling the whole thing down, the political fundamentals against which the Miller-Cherry case fell to be decided are as follows: (1) a majority of those voting in the EU referendum voted to leave; (2) a parliament was subsequently elected in which 85 per cent of MPs won their seats on the promise to respect the referendum result; and (3) in the event most of those MPs reneged on that promise and obstructed the country’s departure from the EU both with a deal (31 March) and now without one (31 October).    

That departure was set in law by MPs themselves.     

Remainer MPs in Parliament then set themseleves on a collision course by seeking to frustrate the will of the Parliament itself and the will of the people as expressed in two votes, the Referendum and the General Election. So, the government decided it wanted to implement the will of the people and one way of doing that would be to prorogue on the basis that it would allow what people had voted for twice and parliament itself had brought into law would actually happen.   Enter the Remain establishment and the lawyers.   

As Andrew Newcombe QC argues, the power-grab of the Court concentrates on the advice allegedly given to Her Majesty.  This is a neat tactic to get around Article 9 of the Bill of Rights 1688 (and the equivalent provision in the Claim of Right 1689).  As Newcombe points out:  “That Article precludes the questioning of proceedings in Parliament, and the court held, wrongly in my view, that the act of prorogation is not such a proceeding.”      

This, he argues, ignores the concept of the monarch in Parliament.  “In proroguing Parliament, the Queen is acting as part of that Parliament and the prorogation is unavoidably a proceeding therein. If this be right, the proceedings before the Supreme Court were themselves unlawful.”   

Which rather puts a different slant on things if the court itself was breaking the law.

Winner takes all?

When I voted for my choice at the general election, I did so in the knowledge that candidate with the most votes would be the winner.  So we had the scenario that Jo Swinson had the most votes and therefore won the seat of East Dunbartonshire.  

But she didn’t have a majority.  Yes, she had 40.6% of the vote, but that’s almost 10% short of a 50%.  Still, no one argued, that’s the way it is.  She won.  Well done Jo.

So one did wonder the mind-set that was guiding the interpretation of the law of the 11 law lords in the Supreme Court if they agreed with the words of former Supreme Court Judge, Lord Sumption, who told the BBC that “52% of the electorate simply cannot have 100% of the spoils, they have to engage with the rest”.  If that was their guiding principle, we are in trouble.   

Doesn’t he realise that the way we operate in the UK is the winner takes all.  The referendum was a binary choice, Leave or Remain.   It was agreed to be a binary choice by the MPs that are now demanding its result be overturned.      

One does wonder what would have happened if the vote had gone the other way.  Would Remainers be keen to compromise for the views of Leavers to be taken into account?   

Somehow I don’t think so. 

What's next?

Now that the judiciary have decided that they do have a role in the political process by ordering MPs back to parliament, can we expect them to similarly intervene to command MPs to enact the legislation they already passed in the form of Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union which began the UKs withdrawal from the European Union?  

Many of those MPs who allege the prime minister is a liar and demand his resignation should reflect that they stood for election on a manifesto to enact Article 50, a policy that they didn’t believe in.  They deliberately misled the people into voting for them.  Shouldn’t they also resign?

A new Empire is being born.

I don’t think I have ever see a Liberal Democrat ever stand and cheer and clap the British Empire.   

So it was rather astonishing to see their conference whooping to the rafters as the EU Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt declared that his vison was a European Empire.   

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but didn’t the last time someone suggested a European Empire in 1933, it all ended horribly?

Housewives, the lot of you!

“A referendum on this matter consists of consulting people who don’t know the problems instead of consulting people who know them.  I would deplore a situation in which the policy of this great country should be left to housewives.  It should be decided instead by trained and informed people.”    
So said Jean Rey, ex-President of the European Commission, in 1974.   

Clearly John Bercow, Jo Swinson, Hilary Benn and others who threw their toys out the pram when they lost the referendum still think we are housewives.

One rule for you. One rule for me?

On 23 June 2016 the people, who are sovereign, voted to leave the EU.  Period.   

That was the response to a question MPs themselves had approved.  No question of there needing to be a deal.   

That MPs should seek to stop that is the truly undemocratic act.  That the Speaker of the House of Commons advocates such an act in a very partisan speech is outrageous.  

In the real world, which Remain MPs seem to longer inhabit, any senior officer in a business so blatantly going against he wishes of the majority of the shareholders would be out the door.   

Is Mr Bercow advocating that he and MPs should disobey the law that set in place the referendum?   

Looks like it.