Castle Aching

[Edwardian]

1 minute ago, Hroth said:

 

How/if we get out of this mess is anyones guess. 

 

 

At least that should prove an uncontroversial statement!

[Hroth]

6 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

At least that should prove an uncontroversial statement!

 

I'm just trying not to out myself as a hand-wringing Manchester Guardian reader....

 

 

[nick_bastable]

perhaps Ms A can calm the parish 

 

 

Nick

[Regularity]

1 hour ago, nick_bastable said:

perhaps Ms A can calm the parish 

Distract, maybe, but calm?

 

(And is she posing for some rendition of Rossetti's painting of Ophelia?)

[monkeysarefun]

10 hours ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

All right let's get back to ditches, which considering the latest events in the Mother Country (only joking just being a rude colonial) is strangely appropriate - look what I found in a local ditch 

 

 

 

Nice change from the usual local ditch...

 

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by monkeysarefun

[Buhar]

I'm pleased that over the last few, rather fraught weeks, parishioners have been appropriately careful in their choice of words and that there remains a culture of courtesy, decency and consideration.  Regrettably, other places have seen people in responsible positions failing abysmally in that regard and I'm not sure even the Antipodean ditch above is now appropriate enough.  Although if full of spiders, that would help.

 

Alan

[St Enodoc]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

A bit big for Titty, but the Webley&Scott .25 cal miniature automatic pistol at 45/- might have been more appropriate!

Which reminds me of the fellow who went into a pub and asked for a Colt 45.

 

"Sorry, we don't sell that here"

 

"OK, I'll have a luger and lime then".

 

(I suspect that you need to be of a certain age to get that one)

[Hroth]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Nice change from the usual local ditch...

 

 

 

That floods brought down a lot of logs...... 

[nick_bastable]

well worth a few moments a quick history of what do we do now 

 

 

Nick

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

And the irony of all this Brexiting nonsense is that one of its major proponents has seat in the European parliament - you'd think that would have given some of the more "informed" Brexiteers a reason to doubt his bona fides not to mention being a commodity trader which is the equivalent of being a merchant banker or used car salesman.  But apparently not so so much for informed or even halfway intelligent decision making due diligence. 

 

And if you have dug yourself in to an impossible situation the key is to stop digging, not continue.

 

  

[Compound2632]

20 hours ago, Donw said:

What we now need is to remind MPs their soveriegnty comes from the people. 

 

 

 

As in the countries of the United Kingdom we have have never had a thorough-going revolution, this concept remains in tension with the residue of the medieaval understanding of government, that sovereignty comes from God - as is made abundantly clear in the coronation service. Things tend to come to a head when the rival and, in its origin, equally valid, cry of vox populi vox dei is taken up (as at the present time) without due consideration of the two thorny questions, who the people are, and what evidence is there that they have been open to divine inspiration?

[Northroader]

I’ve had divine inspiration, cos I model in O.

[Nearholmer]

Compound

 

leaving the divine out of the equation just for the moment, the other issue is that ‘the people’ (=us) have not developed a mechanism that allows their (=our) right of sovereignty to be effectively channeled into decisions and actions, except through the ancient institutions of parish councils (which truly are very,  very ancient in origin), other layers of local government, and parliament, which is fine unless or until we loose faith in (taking the current case) parliament.

 

I'm not actually sure that, taken as a whole, we have lost faith in parliament, but the ‘expenses scandal’, plus general cynicism actively cultivated by newspapers and others, and now the very active and deliberate pitting of “people against parliament” by those who find their freedom to act constrained by parliament, have definitely opened-up big cracks in the relationship between people and parliament.

 

That situation creates the opportunity to “do the modern thing”, as per USA and Russia, and have a very direct relationship between a semi-autocratic individual leader and enough of the people to keep said leader in power using the broken shell of the former structures. This, of course, leaves everyone who isn’t happy to line-up behind the semi-autocratic leader, those who aren’t happy to hand-over their ‘sovereignty tokens’, to all intents and purposes completely unrepresented.

 

And, being completely unrepresented quickly tempts people to self-organise to make their voices heard by whatever means are effective .......  to create means to channel their ‘sovereignty tokens’ into decisions and actions, which are very likely at odds with what the semi-autocratic leader wants.

 

That, I think, is why parliament is having an open debate on ‘democracy’ today, because some people think that the moment is absolutely ripe to try to bag a very large number of ‘sovereignty tokens’ easily, under the banner of ‘doing the people’s will’, and having got hold of them, to cling to them like a limpet.

 

Did you hear the PotUSA yesterday complimenting our PM on “doing very well”? By certain lights, he probably is.

 

K

[Malcolm 0-6-0]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

As in the countries of the United Kingdom we have have never had a thorough-going revolution, this concept remains in tension with the residue of the medieaval understanding of government, that sovereignty comes from God - as is made abundantly clear in the coronation service. Things tend to come to a head when the rival and, in its origin, equally valid, cry of vox populi vox dei is taken up (as at the present time) without due consideration of the two thorny questions, who the people are, and what evidence is there that they have been open to divine inspiration?

 

Democracy is the very devil isn't it.

[Edwardian]

Sovereignty is key. Sovereignty is the font of power and authority in any political system. Sovereignty = legitimacy because that which has sovereignty has it as a result of the consent of the politically enfranchised portion of the population.  

 

In my small-c conservative view of such matters, constitutional change is best achieved gradually and incrementally.  The reason for this is that radical breaks from the past that supplant one source of sovereignty with another essentially and necessarily sacrifice the legitimacy that was conferred by consent upon the previous source of sovereignty.  it has, thus, proved very difficult for an alternative source of sovereignty (typically from the Age of Reason, sovereignty resides in a written constitution) to take root, because universal consent is difficult to establish.

 

The exception that proves the rule is the USA forming a republic and adopting a new, sovereign, constitution. In Europe, fresh starts tend to miscarry giving rise to a series of "what ever happened to ...." new constitutional settlements, many of which were models of liberality, democracy and reason: 1793 French Constitution, 1812 Spanish Constitution, 1906 Russian Constitution, 1919 Weimar German Constitution, to name just those that spring immediately to mind.       

 

At the risk of seeming to be a smug Whig Historian, England-Britain's experience was different and probably unique.  As a rule, we did not tend to chuck-out the existing source of sovereignty, but modified it.  Originally sovereignty was conferred by God upon a King, but we pretty soon start refining that to mean the King's right to rule according to the laws and customs of the land, so it's never an exercise in arbitrary power.  We end up with the classic Nineteenth Century statement of sovereignty, which is, by then "the Queen in Parliament", i.e. constitutional monarchy.  Conventions develop to result in the role of the monarch being further reduced until the monarch is insulated from political decisions, and the House of Commons becomes ascendant, with the Lords essentially advisory and with a limited ability to oblige the Commons to 'pause for thought'.  This is because the consent necessary for legitimacy has become increasingly based upon democracy, with universal suffrage achieved in the Twentieth Century and power reserved to the elected elements of the constitution. 

 

All this has relied upon there always being as much continuity as change; it has been a process of evolution, not revolution, and that is why our internal politics have been relatively settled compared with those of Continental Europe (see, I told you this could get smug).  We had a bit of a hick-up in the 1640s and 1650s, but ultimately we realised that we should return to our established system and pretend it never happened, but, even then, we had evolved, making a new improved settlement with the returning Stuarts. The second of these monarchs  led to further adjustment by the 'Glorious Revolution'. 

 

It hasn't always been plain sailing.  Where changes in dynasty have occurred, that essential consent and legitimacy has been absent, requiring periodic fights until the last man standing can continue.  Examples that spring to mind readily would be Stephen and Matilda's civil war of 1139-53 , the Fifteenth Century Wars of the Roses, and the various Jacobite rebellions. 

 

The latter reflects the failure of fundamental changes in state-sponsored religion to gain universal consent, a major factor for the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, and the fact that the constituents of the Union have not always been there by consent, still a live and unresolved point today.

 

That's enough to douse the Anglo-centric Whig smugness, but it remains the case that, on balance, an evolving unwritten constitution has proved both flexible and robust and has allowed the definition of sovereignty to develop and change and, therefore, to retain sufficient consent to avoid frequent and bloody chaos.

 

I see current constitutional developments in this context, Historian David Starkey has suggested that sovereignty has now shifted, from Parliament to the People, and that our Parliament is now on the Wrong Side of History. This is a curiously directly democratic stance for a right leaning Historian, but again shows the extreme and extremely ironic lengths to which one can go to seek a justification for present pro-BREXIT policies.

 

If Starkey is right, we can expect a lot of division and chaos before the relationship between Parliament and the People is re-set, and that will surely change forever how our indirect representative democracy works. Will, as Peter Henessy suggests, there need to be more of our unwritten constitution written down?  Perhaps, yes, if we need to draw up rules about how referenda and Parliament must interact.  Perhaps this will come hand-in-hand with some electoral reform in an attempt to allow the composition of Parliament to better reflect the views of the electorate.  That argues for some form of proportional representation, but probably one retaining territorial constituencies. Whereas the results could be dysfunctionally catastrophic, I suspect that a traditional British fudge will result; balancing, toning-down and preserving a good measure of continuity. It's what we always do and why we have relatively so seldom broken off from our daily pursuits to slaughter each other in droves (smug Whig again).  

 

Many voters have lost faith in Parliament, indeed, are being actively encouraged to do so.  This argues that some change may be inevitable, because that vital consent has been eroded.  It is being purposefully eroded, in my view, by those who ought to know better, simply in order to carry through a political agenda over which that have long been obsessive.   

 

Perhaps, however, we should pause to consider whether we need to abandon our current system of representative democracy and replace it with .... well, with what?  We cannot know.  What would the triumph of the People actually mean? Who knows, but, so-far, those championing the People's right to decide based on a plebiscite are most unwilling to repeat the experiment and contemplate another such vote.  Perhaps unfairly, but inevitably, this reminds me of all those blood-bathed revolutionaries who have done what they have done in the name of "the People".  In other words, for several months now, but intensifying by the day, Parliament has been repeatedly beaten by a big stick labelled "the People", more as an abstract concept than as a reflection of democratic reality.  

 

The point is, it is not known what would follow from a battle for sovereignty between Parliament and the People, therefore the outcome represents a considerable risk to the stability and legitimacy of government. Again this shows the apparent preparedness to throw the baby out with the bath-water if only this results in departure from the EU.  That does make me uneasy. That is, however, inevitably what the Prime Minister will risk if he fights an election on a People versus Parliament platform. Rather, I say, if we leave, we should leave by constitutional means and without taking down the institutions and conventions of government in the process or, worse, causing in the electorate long-term alienation from our democratic system. 

 

Returning to sovereignty; any fundamental shift in the relationship between the people and Parliament affects where sovereignty lies. If that shift is too radical, the risk is that a new constitutional settlement is imposed that settles nothing, because it will simply lack consent and be fought over for decades.  I'm not sure we'd want that.      

 

 

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Edwardian
spelling!

[Nearholmer]

Yep.

 

Which is why I feel very dark about all this ...... it feels like a hinge-point, which implies a prolonged period of “storming, forming, and norming”, that the B-thing is just the beginning of a storm, not the end of one.

 

I would probably have relished all this when I was a slightly hot-headed chap in my early ‘twenties, but feel distinctly too old for it now. Even so, to quote Tom Paine, “If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.”

 

 

 

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

As in the countries of the United Kingdom we have have never had a thorough-going revolution, this concept remains in tension with the residue of the medieaval understanding of government, that sovereignty comes from God - as is made abundantly clear in the coronation service. Things tend to come to a head when the rival and, in its origin, equally valid, cry of vox populi vox dei is taken up (as at the present time) without due consideration of the two thorny questions, who the people are, and what evidence is there that they have been open to divine inspiration?

One problem with all of this is that "the people" are not some amorphous mass but a collection (in the context of the UK electorate) of some 45 million individual souls (source: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/elections/electoralregistration/bulletins/electoralstatisticsforuk/2018), each of whom will have their own individual view of life, the universe and everything.

[runs as required]

My reaction to all this is to metaphorically 'stay in bed and pull the sheets over my head'.

That being so I tried using the search slot (top right of this thread) to search for 'Charles Piazzi Smyth' . It came up with nothing.

However I'm sure his name came up a year or so ago in all the posts about pyramids multiplying across CA WNR territory and the (unfinished) Chronicles of The Third Policeman Theo O'dolite" (Surveyor).

 

A great comfort to me was the Wiki list of Smyth's 'unfulfilled predictions'. Check also his 'fold out maps' for pyramids in North West Norfolk.

[And the BIWF's current HQ in Bishop Aukland, Land of the Prince Bishops] 

dh

 

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by runs as required

[Compound2632]

31 minutes ago, Donw said:

 

So those who wanted a cleaner break will be denied a choice.

 

The fundamental problem is that people were given the impression that there was something on offer that is in practice not attainable. There are many things that people want that they can't have, not because they are being wilfully denied them but because they are not physically possible.

[St Enodoc]

6 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The fundamental problem is that people were given the impression that there was something on offer that is in practice not attainable. There are many things that people want that they can't have, not because they are being wilfully denied them but because they are not physically possible.

Which part of "Leave the EU" is not attainable?

[runs as required]

Trying to be 'grown up' in reaction to yesterday's televised chaos - didn't I read somewhere a suggestion that the 'temporary' location for Parliament might be fitted out as a pair of modern auditoria for the two Chambers?  They would have individual seats (equipped with currently expected digital audio visual kit) around a focus of a Chair and the furnishings for Clerks and the Tabling of Regulations etc.

It might also be governed by an accepted degree of verbal behaviour that also proscribes racial and gender abuse and bullying that is generally adopted outside the Palace of Westminster*.

 

Does anyone else remember the days of "New Society"? It had an issue in the early 1960s proposing the relocation of Parliament to Stoke-on-Trent. It included a plan for the project by visionary architect Cedric Price - of London Zoo Aviary and the 'Fun Palace' fame with Joan Littlewood (still to be seen at Kentish Town West in the 1990s).

dh

 

* would this cut across MPs rights under  'Parliamentary Privilege'?

Edited September 26, 2019 by runs as required
an asterisked afterthought

[Donw]

1 hour ago, Edwardian said:

Sovereignty is key. Sovereignty is the font of power and authority in any political system. Sovereignty = legitimacy because that which has sovereignty has it as a result of the consent of the politically enfranchised portion of the population.  

 

In my small-c conservative view of such matters, constitutional change is best achieved gradually and incrementally.  The reason for this is that radical breaks from the past that supplant one source of sovereignty with another essentially and necessarily sacrifice the legitimacy that was conferred by consent upon the previous source of sovereignty.  it has, thus, proved very difficult for an alternative source of sovereignty (typically from the Age of Reason, sovereignty resides in a written constitution) to take root, because universal consent is difficult to establish.

 

The exception that proves the rule is the USA forming a republic and adopting a new, sovereign, constitution. In Europe, fresh starts tend to miscarry giving rise to a series of "what ever happened to ...." new constitutional settlements, many of which were models of liberality, democracy and reason: 1793 French Constitution, 1812 Spanish Constitution, 1906 Russian Constitution, 1919 Weimar German Constitution, to name just those that spring immediately to mind.       

 

At the risk of seeming to be a smug Whig Historian, England-Britain's experience was different and probably unique.  As a rule, we did not tend to chuck-out the existing source of sovereignty, but modified it.  Originally sovereignty was conferred by God upon a King, but we pretty soon start refining that to mean the King's right to rule according to the laws and customs of the land, so it's never an exercise in arbitrary power.  We end up with the classic Nineteenth Century statement of sovereignty, which is, by then "the Queen in Parliament", i.e. constitutional monarchy.  Conventions develop to result in the role of the monarch being further reduced until the monarch is insulated from political decisions, and the House of Commons becomes ascendant, with the Lords essentially advisory and with a limited ability to oblige the Commons to 'pause for thought'.  This is because the consent necessary for legitimacy has become increasingly based upon democracy, with universal suffrage achieved in the Twentieth Century and power reserved to the elected elements of the constitution. 

 

All this has relied upon there always being as much continuity as change; it has been a process of evolution, not revolution, and that is why our internal politics have been relatively settled compared with those of Continental Europe (see, I told you this could get smug).  We had a bit of a hick-up in the 1640s and 1650s, but ultimately we realised that we should return to our established system and pretend it never happened, but, even then, we had evolved, making a new improved settlement with the returning Stuarts. The second of these monarchs  led to further adjustment by the 'Glorious Revolution'. 

 

It hasn't always been plain sailing.  Where changes in dynasty have occurred, that essential consent and legitimacy has been absent, requiring periodic fights until the last man standing can continue.  Examples that spring to mind readily would be Stephen and Matilda's civil war of 1139-53 , the Fifteenth Century Wars of the Roses, and the various Jacobite rebellions. 

 

The latter reflects the failure of fundamental changes in state-sponsored religion to gain universal consent, a major factor for the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, and the fact that the constituents of the Union have not always been there by consent, still a live and unresolved point today.

 

That's enough to douse the Anglo-centric Whig smugness, but it remains the case that, on balance, an evolving unwritten constitution has proved both flexible and robust and has allowed the definition of sovereignty to develop and change and, therefore, to retain sufficient consent to avoid frequent and bloody chaos.

 

I see current constitutional developments in this context, Historian David Starkey has suggested that sovereignty has now shifted, from Parliament to the People, and that our Parliament is now on the Wrong Side of History. This is a curiously directly democratic stance for a right leaning Historian, but again shows the extreme and extremely ironic lengths to which one can go to seek a justification for present pro-BREXIT policies.

 

If Starkey is right, we can expect a lot of division and chaos before the relationship between Parliament and the People is re-set, and that will surely change forever how our indirect representative democracy works. Will, as Peter Henessy suggests, there need to be more of our unwritten constitution written down?  Perhaps, yes, if we need to draw up rules about how referenda and Parliament must interact.  Perhaps this will come hand-in-hand with some electoral reform in an attempt to allow the composition of Parliament to better reflect the views of the electorate.  That argues for some form of proportional representation, but probably one retaining territorial constituencies. Whereas the results could be dysfunctionally catastrophic, I suspect that a traditional British fudge will result; balancing, toning-down and preserving a good measure of continuity. It's what we always do and why we have relatively so seldom broken off from our daily pursuits to slaughter each other in droves (smug Whig again).  

 

Many voters have lost faith in Parliament, indeed, are being actively encouraged to do so.  This argues that some change may be inevitable, because that vital consent has been eroded.  It is being purposefully eroded, in my view, by those who ought to know better, simply in order to carry through a political agenda over which that have long been obsessive.   

 

Perhaps, however, we should pause to consider whether we need to abandon our current system of representative democracy and replace it with .... well, with what?  We cannot know.  What would the triumph of the People actually mean? Who knows, but, so-far, those championing the People's right to decide based on a plebiscite are most unwilling to repeat the experiment and contemplate another such vote.  Perhaps unfairly, but inevitably, this reminds me of all those blood-bathed revolutionaries who have done what they have done in the name of "the People".  In other words, for several months now, but intensifying by the day, Parliament has been repeatedly beaten by a big stick labelled "the People", more as an abstract concept than as a reflection of democratic reality.  

 

The point is, it is not known what would follow from a battle for sovereignty between Parliament and the People, therefore the outcome represents a considerable risk to the stability and legitimacy of government. Again this shows the apparent preparedness to throw the baby out with the bath-water if only this results in departure from the EU.  That does make me uneasy. That is, however, inevitably what the Prime Minister will risk if he fights an election on a People versus Parliament platform. Rather, I say, if we leave, we should leave by constitutional means and without taking down the institutions and conventions of government in the process or, worse, causing in the electorate long-term alienation from our democratic system. 

 

Returning to sovereignty; any fundamental shift in the relationship between the people and Parliament affects where sovereignty lies. If that shift is too radical, the risk is that a new constitutional settlement is imposed that settles nothing, because it will simply lack consent and be fought over for decades.  I'm not sure we'd want that.      

 

 

 

 

 

Very good . In my view any change would be unnecessary if the Political parties and MPs would be more honest, the public to take the trouble to be better informed and the media to be impartial. This current crisis arose because a new party  (UKIP) was gaining public support against EU membership and this was encouraging Conservtive MPs who felt the same. The descision to offer a referendum in order to close down public demand to leave was a bad mistake as it showed a gulf between the voters and Parliament. Nothing since has to me shown any attempt to bridge that gulf instead it has become a major divide.

 

I have a fear that we will end up with rule by social media in that whatever view gets the most likes and spreads fastest will become unstoppable. 

 

Don

[Donw]

9 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

The fundamental problem is that people were given the impression that there was something on offer that is in practice not attainable. There are many things that people want that they can't have, not because they are being wilfully denied them but because they are not physically possible.

 

May I suggest that that should be explained carefully and the public consulted on whether thay wish to continue or scrap the idea. Preferably by a General Election where each candidates view can be discussed. They my not get what they wanted but they have the right to say which way they would prefer to go. The range of options is in my view unsuited to  simple referendum

 

Don

[Regularity]

9 minutes ago, Malcolm 0-6-0 said:

that silly Electoral College gerrymander

Works the same way as the UK "decides" on the next Prime Minister via the House of Commons effectively choosing the party with the largest number of MPs, not necessarily the largest number of votes, and usually a clear Parliamentary majority results from about 42% of a 73% (or so) vote, or roughly 30% of the electorate.

[NCB]

59 minutes ago, Donw said:

 

The big problem with the proposals for another referendum is the choice will be restricted to between Remain or a bad so called Deal.  So those who wanted a cleaner break will be denied a choice. It is one thing for MPs to make descisions on our behalf but to pretend this is an opportunity to see if we have changed our minds will not be true.

 

Don 

 

I deliberately didn't specify the options. A so-called "clean break" could be an option. In fact, in order to determine the "will of the British people" (which is the whole point of the exercise) it ought to be an option. But it does highlight the major argument against referenda, that it puts Parliament in the position of implementing something which it may not agree with.

 

Me, I voted Remain in 1975 and am totally p*ss*d off which the fact that that referendum isn't being respected.

 

Nigel