tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post1632221223443881502..comments2024-03-28T07:16:39.621+00:00Comments on Lallands Peat Worrier: The return of the monsterLallands Peat Worrierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18276270498204697708noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-59808627587501882032015-04-22T11:32:28.601+01:002015-04-22T11:32:28.601+01:00But "Andrew" seems a touch flat-footed. ...But "Andrew" seems a touch flat-footed. Need to change my forename to something more gruesome. Obadiah, perhaps... Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-34531732667054909322015-04-21T17:57:30.073+01:002015-04-21T17:57:30.073+01:00You do have a rather Dickensian name and role - Mr...You do have a rather Dickensian name and role - Mr Tickell the gad fly!Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-87582511436372273172015-04-21T16:55:02.416+01:002015-04-21T16:55:02.416+01:00There, we are in a different domain. Unless someth...There, we are in a different domain. Unless something like a s.30 order is made, we are left with the authority of the Scotland Act 1998, and the UK Supreme Court is empowered authoritatively to adjudicate on whether or not laws fall within Holyrood's legislative competence. This isn't delusional: it is the reality of the situation, and barring something transgressive and revolutionary, we cannot afford entirely to ignore it.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-71429706704476136642015-04-21T16:53:26.943+01:002015-04-21T16:53:26.943+01:00All of my jurisprudential utterances are made whil...All of my jurisprudential utterances are made while squeezing a chapeau.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-15401327576147666422015-04-21T16:53:00.599+01:002015-04-21T16:53:00.599+01:00I've blogged before about international law an...I've blogged before about international law and the scope of the right to self determination. <a href="http://lallandspeatworrier.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/jockophobia.html" rel="nofollow"> It doesn't go so far</a> as many folk imagine. At least at the moment.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-35319320696802319532015-04-21T13:34:12.700+01:002015-04-21T13:34:12.700+01:00We used to say 'God's Grace' when our ...We used to say 'God's Grace' when our desire conflicted with the letter, now we say 'People's Will'Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-55671269606905326332015-04-21T13:32:30.784+01:002015-04-21T13:32:30.784+01:00Bagehot on the mystic nature of royalty and the co...Bagehot on the mystic nature of royalty and the constitution -<br /><br /> 'If a king is a useful public functionary who may be changed, and in whose place you may make another, you cannot regard him with mystic awe and wonder; and if you are bound to worship him, of course you cannot change him. Accordingly, during the whole reigns of George I. and George II. the sentiment of religious loyalty altogether ceased to support the Crown. The prerogative of the king had no strong party to support it; the Tories, who naturally would support it, disliked the actual king; and the Whigs, according to their creed, disliked the king`s office. Until the accession of George III. the most vigorous opponents of the Crown were the country gentlemen, its natural friends, and the representatives of quiet rural districts, where loyalty is mostly to be found, if anywhere. But after the accession of George III. the common feeling came back to the same point as in Queen Anne`s time. The English were ready to take the new young prince as the beginning of a sacred line of sovereigns, just as they had been willing to take an old lady, who was the second cousin of his great-great-grandmother. So it is now. If you ask the immense majority of the Queen`s subjects by what right she rules, they would never tell you that she rules by Parliamentary right, by virtue of 6 Anne, c. 7. They will say she rules by "God`s grace"; they believe that they have a mystic obligation to obey her. When her family came to the Crown it was a sort of treason to maintain the inalienable right of lineal sovereignty, for it was equivalent to saying that the claim of another family was better than hers: but now, in the strange course of human events, that very sentiment has become her surest and best support.'<br />Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-23763177769455957852015-04-21T12:48:26.497+01:002015-04-21T12:48:26.497+01:00Indeed Andrew - but we all agree that it's mad...Indeed Andrew - but we all agree that it's made up, a game in which the rules can be changed.<br /><br />When one party changes the rules and the other disagrees, there is no *ultimate authority*, so there has to be discussion. I hazard that some might argue that there *is* an ultimate authority in constitional arrangements, but if so I would call this argument delusional.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09873063604851441565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-87707294905162028932015-04-21T11:43:54.690+01:002015-04-21T11:43:54.690+01:00The UN does though. The UN does though. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-26201839577034518362015-04-21T11:00:40.898+01:002015-04-21T11:00:40.898+01:00Matt: bang on. It is a matter of politics, in our ...Matt: bang on. It is a matter of politics, in our unentrenched and uncodified constitution. <br /><br />In point of fact, Professor Tomkins and I do not agree on the status of indyrefs under the Scotland Act as it stands unamended after the s.30 order process. My view has been and remains that it is arguably intra vires for Holyrood to order a poll under its existing powers, for reasons along the lines of those advanced by Professor Black above. Tomkins takes the more categorical view of Jim Wallace and the Scottish Affairs Committee. Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-820044197244296832015-04-21T10:26:04.878+01:002015-04-21T10:26:04.878+01:00As a layperson in these matters it strikes me that...As a layperson in these matters it strikes me that constitutional law is, in essence, not founded on anything absolute, or even ethical, but on playground (non-)etiquette:<br /><br />You can't do that<br />Who says?<br />Me<br />Yeah, you and whose army ... oh ... that one<br /><br />It is, in its entirety and totality, a fiction. Yourself and Prof Tomkins may agree on this. It's not physics, the laws of the universe or anything like that. As such it can be criticised in the way that you can criticise art or literature, but not in the way that you challenge a scientific hypothesis.<br /><br />It's made up. You don't have to believe it. You can believe in better.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09873063604851441565noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-38631133450819961302015-04-21T08:10:42.388+01:002015-04-21T08:10:42.388+01:00Well lots of laws remain on the book long after th...Well lots of laws remain on the book long after their application has become impossible - 'interracial' marriage was illegal in Alabama until 2000.<br /><br />I expect the same may be said about any reserve on a referendum vote<br /><br /><br />'If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience.”<br /><br />Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-32494521334700031622015-04-20T21:28:21.788+01:002015-04-20T21:28:21.788+01:00Robert,
My point here is not about the merits of ...Robert,<br /><br />My point here is not about the merits of demerits of the legal arguments -- so much as the debating points. Your position is certainly defensible, and if it was advanced by Labour, Tories or Lib Dems, they might have a coherent point to make here. But it is not their position on the law. They do not even countenance the possibility you might be right. Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-20837341506527677722015-04-20T20:38:12.401+01:002015-04-20T20:38:12.401+01:00Here's the text of a letter from me in The Tim...Here's the text of a letter from me in The Times from February 2012. Nothing has changed.<br />Sir, Yet again an article in your pages (“Ministers to discuss vote as one-question”, Feb 4) proceeds upon the assumption that before the Scottish Government can lawfully hold an independence referendum there must be a transfer of powers (by means of a section 30 order) by the United Kingdom Government; and that this fact gives the UK Government the opportunity to attach restrictive conditions as the price of any such transfer. This is an all-too prevalent misconception.<br />The Scottish Government’s present legal position on entitlement to hold a referendum is a strong one. Any conditions sought to be imposed by the UK Government can therefore be considered strictly on their merits and not as a price that must be paid, however reluctantly, in order to secure authority lawfully to hold a referendum at all.<br />Notwithstanding the restrictions on the Scottish Government’s devolved competence contained in the Scotland Act 1998, no-one disputes that it can lawfully make proposals to, or hold conversations or enter into negotiations with, the United Kingdom Government about (i) altering the constitutional position of Scotland or (ii) widening the devolved powers of the Scottish Government and Parliament (including amending or removing some or all of the matters reserved to the United Kingdom which are set out in Schedule 5 of the Act).<br /><br />That being the case, it is inconceivable that any court would hold that it was beyond the legal power of the Scottish Government to promote legislation to enable it to consult the Scottish electorate (by means of a referendum) about whether the Scottish Government should or should not make such proposals to, or hold such conversations or enter into such negotiations with, the Government of the United Kingdom. This is reinforced by section 101(2) of the 1998 Act which provides that any provision of an Act of the Scottish Parliament is “to be read as narrowly as is required for it to be within competence, if such a reading is possible, and is to have effect accordingly”.<br /><br />That does not, of course, exclude the possibility that referendum legislation might be challenged, as being beyond the Scottish Parliament’s powers, in the courts of Scotland and all the way to the UK Supreme Court. But any such challenge would be doomed to failure.Robert Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03606456028430261555noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-11152138402918117112015-04-20T18:38:20.721+01:002015-04-20T18:38:20.721+01:00It certainly could. But I have some sympathy with ...It certainly could. But I have some sympathy with our media. Politics is a whirling present. Memories are short. Too short, too often.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-86731552695535610942015-04-20T18:37:08.511+01:002015-04-20T18:37:08.511+01:00Horse shoe nail.Horse shoe nail.Lallands Peat Worrierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07238432265194046726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-70478360575263444942015-04-20T17:06:54.146+01:002015-04-20T17:06:54.146+01:00Why has no MSM journalist challenged theUnionists ...Why has no MSM journalist challenged theUnionists about this? It would surely embarrass them. <br /><br />You have made a very good point. Good on you!<br /> <br />Let's hope for a large number of SNPs on May 8th! David Christiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10026972356333189996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-33997472894476480232015-04-20T16:30:10.764+01:002015-04-20T16:30:10.764+01:00A 300 year old Union destroyed by Irn Bru? It'...A 300 year old Union destroyed by Irn Bru? It's too hideous to contemplate.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com