6 Comments

• Steve Trevethan 31st Aug '19 - 7:39pm

  Is there also a constitutional problem relating to the Privy Council and the Monarch?
  Of the 702 current members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, only a group of 3 spoke with the Queen.
  They were all leading Conservatives although the Privy Council includes politicians from across the political spectrum and members from the Judiciary, the Clergy the Civil Service, the Commonwealth Judiciary and the Royal Household.
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the_British_Privy_Council
  https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

• Yeovil Yokel 31st Aug '19 - 9:24pm

  Thanks for posting all these photos, Paul, it is heartening and much appreciated.

• Alasdair Brooks 1st Sep '19 - 9:26am

  My wife was in Birmingham on behalf of both of us (I’m currently working in Cairo). She’s so upset she’s seriously thinking of becoming a party member (I already am). Her family are all Russians who left Russia/the Baltic and then Yugoslavia and then the Warsaw Pact (it’s complicated; there were a lot of wars on) in various stages between 1919-1968. So she and her family are deeply suspicious of anything that undermines constitutional norms in the name of promoting a specific ideological vision. As far as they see it, you start off chipping away at the edges, and if you get away with that, then you can launch your full-on assault on the democratic process. We like to think our unwritten constitution and democratic institutions are far too robust to be undermined in that manner. And perhaps they are.

  But as she sees it, why would you want to take the risk?

• Sue Sutherland 1st Sep '19 - 2:48pm

  Steve Trevethan. I agree that when we consider parliamentary reform we should look at the rules affecting the Privy Council. Although membership is for life and there are over 700 members it’s quorate when 3 members are present. If this is the body that can ask the Queen to prorogue parliament and she has no option but to agree, there should be much clearer rules about when it is quorate, for example being representative of the composition of parliament.

• Peter Martin 2nd Sep '19 - 12:38pm

  Yes, the prorogation of Parliament can be controversial at times. Even though most of us were barely aware of the term until recently it’s nothing new. Clement Attlee adopted the tactic in the late 40s. He seems to have been forgiven by history. If he’d actually led a coup against the democratic system he probably wouldn’t have been.

  If Lib Dems want to know what a real coup looks like, I’d suggest reading up on the events of 11th Sept 1973 in Chile. The other 9-11. Anyone using the term about the present storm-in-the-teacup doesn’t know what they are talking about.

  https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-parliament-prorogation-explained

• Steve Trevethan 2nd Sep '19 - 6:59pm

  Is the administrative coup in which an agent of the Crown deposed the elected Prime Minister of Australia in 1975, an instructive example of the democratic process being made subordinate to the power of the Crown?
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis