This is an excerpt from the Commons debate two days ago on the Letwin/Benn proposal to have a series of indicative votes on Brexit.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is wearing an extremely expensive suit and sporting his plummiest accent. He quotes history from the Tudor era, but subsequent events seem to have slipped his mind. He seems to have forgotten a little thing called “The Civil War”.
Fortunately, the self-deprecating, avuncular Oliver Letwin is on hand to give him a history lesson.
My own MP has a substantial supporting role in this video as the twinkly eyes behind JRM.
It is worth getting a cuppa and your favourite dunking biscuit with which to enjoy this priceless exchange….
* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
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14 Comments
I have great respect for Nigel Farage. It’s possible now for some exciting changes. Leave means leave!
It’s good that Oliver Letwin can, at the moment, engage in discussions of constitutional niceties about the House of Commons setting its own agenda and being, if I understand him correctly, sovereign over the executive.
That won’t last much longer if we stay in. Parliament soon won’t even be able to decide that we should set the clocks forward in summer and back in winter!
Not strictly true Mr Martin. If this gets through it will be up to this parliament to decide if they want to have summertime or GMT all year. This is not the first time we have had this debate, and it depends if you live at John o Groats or Lands End as to what you would prefer. Hopefully it will go out to consultation and we could be rid of this confusing process. But do not hold your breath.
Well now we know, there can be no doubt now as to the UK Mogg and his Brexit allies want us to return to namely to the Tudors…
@ David Becket,
What’s “not strictly true” ?
Will we we TOLD by the EU that we can’t keep moving the clocks forwards to B.S.T. in summer and back again to G.M.T. in winter as we have been used to doing?
Yes or No please.
It may seem a relatively trivial matter and there may well be good reasons for not moving the clocks, but I can see that this will become a totem issue if we end up staying in and aren’t allowed to decide for ourselves.
Bless Peter you have got the wrong end of the stick again.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said “there is no applause when EU law dictates that Europeans have to change the clocks twice a year.
“Clock-changing must stop. Member states should themselves decide whether their citizens live in summer or winter time.”
Under the new legislation, governments opting to make summer time permanent would adjust their clocks for the last time on the last Sunday
of March 2021.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47704345
So from the article we can see that since 2001 the EU mandated we should all change our clocks twice a year. Going forward we wouldn’t. It is being forced on us your paranoia cries, actually the parliament voted for it but it has to get through the council if ministers. Now we get a vote in that, but when we have gone we don’t. So we leave and keep daylight saving at last a Brexut bonus, but in reality we wouldn’t we would tagalong because deviation would just not be worth the effort. All your fears are coming true, ruled by an economic superpower because we need them more than they need us and we have no say. Enjoy your Brexit what a mess it is.
@Peter Martin
I appreciate the point and it may be viewed as being imposed on us. But we are not really told to do anything by the EU – nation states come together to agree things.
Now I appreciate that that individual national states did used to have a veto on everything. Britain encouraged the move to qualified majority voting to hasten the single market which has been of major benefit to the UK, particularly in areas we are strong in such as financial services. It means no doubt that “British” ideas have been imposed on the Germans
If this followed the normal procedure. It would have been agreed by the 28 national ministers by qualified majority voting (QMV) (a few items are by simple majority). QMV means that nations representing 65% of the population. The UK has more than 10% of the EU population. This means that 75% of other countries have to agree something if the UK doesn’t for it to go through. Now I am sure that sometimes 75% of my fellow Europeans have bad ideas but not often and something I am prepared to put up with for the benefits.
An extra hour to admire our blue passports?
I enjoyed the exchange between Mogg and Letwin, but I cannot help but be struck on the similarity in voice tone between Sir Oliver Letwin and Sir Humphrey Appleby (Appleton?) in “Yes, Minister” .
Or, as Jake or Bozza might have said; “Iure suo servienti sibi!”- or something like that. (Check it out on Google translate).
I missed this previously, although I have reached a previously unknown admiration for Letwin, it confirms me in my being a Lib Dem.
A Tory Constitutionalist is probably preferable to a Tory Reactionary, but I’d rather we had a written constitution than one based on precedent and custom.
I can’t believe we are about to bumble our way out of the EU with no safety net and no plan, and the cliques and factions around the leaderships of both Labour and Conservative parties – who all clearly hate each other and are a significant reason for the awful paralysis and circular debate which is bringing this about – continue the pretence that a two-party system is tenable.
We are now in a debate on whether Parliament is sovereign or whether it’s giving up that sovereignty to the “Will of the People”. We’ve fallen into this debate by accident through what was legally an advisory referendum being treated as an instruction, especially by Theresa May who seems to be emulating Charles I’s obstinacy and narrow mindedness.
Brilliant so what problem do the Brexiteers have with parliament taking back control of the order paper from the political elite ?
Before tackling the hour lost for BST what about the eleven days lost which were subject of the Calendar Riots of 1752?