Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

The Campaign for Fixed Term Parliaments has launched their brand spanking new sparkly site, following first reading of the Fixed Term Parliament Bill earlier this week. As the list of supporters shows, this is a cross party campaign, showing genuine commitment across the political spectrum for ending one of the most egregious, anachronistic* royal prerogative […]

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Brown’s lead over the Tories, if YouGov are to be believed, is now 11%. That’s 44% to 33%. Hands up everyone who thinks he would be just plain daft not to call a general election this side of Christmas. The Norfolk Blogger probably puts it best:
“Brown may be a cautious man, but surely he isn’t […]

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Yesterday new Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a series of constitutional reforms, to Parliament of all places. Not the press, to whom most important government announcements were made under the old regime, but that old democratic institution situated in the Palace of Westminster. Well done him. The Guardian has printed up a fairly good rundown […]

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The Guardian reports that Robin Cook’s gravestone has been engraved with the following words from his memoirs:
“I may not have succeeded in halting the war. But I did secure the right of Parliament to decide on war.”
Except he didn’t of course. The right to wage war* still falls (unfortunately) under the royal prerogative, that most […]

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