Monthly Archives: November 2009

Chopping the chancellor

Posted on November 2, 2009 | 2 Comments

Lord ChancellorLord Irvine has spoken of the “insensitive, high-handed and incoherent” manner in which Tony Blair abolished the thousand year-old office of Lord Chancellor in 2003.

The Guardian reports that Irvine was told of the proposal to replace the office with that of Secretary of State for Justice only a matter of days before it happened:

In the ensuing confrontation with Blair, Irvine writes, “I asked him how a decision of this magnitude could be made without prior consultation with me, the judiciary … and the palace. The prime minister appeared mystified and said that these changes always had to be carried into effect in a way that precluded such discussion because of the risk of leaks.

“I was surprised he thought the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor was of the same order as any machinery of government changes.”

I have to say that I am surprised that Irvine was surprised.  Throughout his tenure of office, Blair repeatedly displayed an ignorance of, or indifference to, the British constitutional settlement that was truly breathtaking.  His half-baked reform of the House of Lords, for example, has left us with a constitutional dog’s breakfast that will take years to clear up.

So far as Blair was concerned, the ancient and constitutionally pivotal office of Lord High Chancellor was probably of no greater significance than that of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government.

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Tony Blair

Tagged

Scarily true to life

Posted on November 1, 2009 | 1 Comment

The new series of The Thick of It is an absolute delight, easily the funniest, best-written thing on TV at present. 

Peter Capaldi’s prime ministerial enforcer, Malcolm Tucker, remains a wonderfully monstrous creation: a perpetually erupting volcano of unspeakable anger, spewing out a continuous pyroclastic flow of apoplectic profanities. 

And yet, Armando Ianucci’s comic narrative continues to develop, mirroring what is happening in the real world.  Tucker’s rages, though still breathtaking in their expletive versatility, are losing some of their ability to cow: in yesterday’s episode, his barely-veiled threat to ruin the career of a cub reporter from the Mail was met with the unfazed response:

“At least my career’s got a trajectory, whereas yours is about to crash head-on into a change of government.”

That would never have happened in the last series.

Last night’s plot turned on the loss of a memory stick containing seven months’ worth of computerised immigration records – mirroring the multiple data losses experienced in real life over the last couple of years.  As in real life, consideration was given to delaying the announcement of the foul-up, before a lowly civil servant was offered up as a sacrificial lamb and summarily sacked.

The episode concluded with Ollie finding the memory stick in the bottom of his “second-best bag”; after some discussion with Glenn, it was agreed that it would be best if it were destroyed, on the basis that its reappearance would cause even more problems. 

It will be recalled that the lost HMRC data discs containing the personal details of half the British population were never recovered; what, I wonder, would happen if they ever came to light?

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Miscellaneous

Tagged

It doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you

Posted on November 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

According to Simon Walters in today’s Mail on Sunday, Peter Mandelson is regaling ministerial colleagues with a cruel witticism at Gordon Brown’s expense, suggesting that Tony Blair was a better Prime Minister because he was “less paranoid”:

“If Tony and Gordon were stranded on a desert island surrounded by sharks, Tony would charm the sharks to carry him to safety.  Gordon would sit there raging: ‘Who sent the sharks?’”

Paranoia is generally understood to be a delusional condition in which the affected individual believes he is being persecuted.

If Lord Mandelson is indeed doing the rounds with such an unpleasant joke, it seems to me that any such belief on the Prime Minister’s part would not be delusional at all.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson

Tagged

Exile for Miliband?

Posted on November 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

MilibandThe Sunday Times reports that, with Tony Blair’s presidential prospects apparently waning, Gordon Brown is discreetly lobbying for David Miliband to become the first EU high representative for foreign affairs, believing him to be “ideally qualified” for the role. 

Miliband, it would appear, is also keen to have the job, if his noticeably increased, profile-raising, activity over the past few days is anything to go by.

For the Prime Minister, the exile of Miliband to Europe would be a useful means of clearing the way for Ed Balls to become Labour leader after his own departure. 

It would also, in the PM’s eyes, be just deserts for Miliband’s near-treachery in the politically febrile summer of 2008.  Brown will certainly recall the experience of Roy Jenkins, who became president of the European Commission only to find that he had travelled to Brussels on a one-way ticket. 

As Jim Hacker put it in a 1982 episode of Yes Minister:

“You’re reduced to starting your own party if you ever want to come back.”

→ Leave a comment

Posted in David Miliband, Ed Balls, Gordon Brown

Tagged

Bank to the future

Posted on November 1, 2009 | Leave a comment

I was nostalgically pleased to read in today’s Sunday Telegraph that the name of Williams & Glyn’s Bank may be resurrected as a consequence of the Government’s decision to break up the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Although I never banked there, I always had a soft spot for Williams & Glyn’s, principally because the name (a) had a ring of old-fashioned, long-established solidity and (b) sounded Welsh.  In fact, it was neither; the bank was established as a result of a merger in 1970 of Williams Deacon’s Bank and Glyn, Mills and Co, both of which had long been subsidiaries of RBS.  Williams & Glyn’s was primarily a north of England bank, though it did have branches in both Llandudno and Colwyn Bay, perhaps reflecting the long tradition of Lancastrian emigration to the North Wales coast. 

Many solicitors, however, may be somewhat less pleased to see the return of W&G; the bank gave its name to the leading case of Williams & Glyn’s Bank –v- Boland, relied on heavily by mortgagees in negligence actions against conveyancing practitioners.

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Trivia

Tagged