Tag Archives: protocol

Caron Lindsay

Why did Cameron’s and Clegg’s Palace business have to be conducted in secret?

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 1st April 2015 - 12:59 pm

I was pretty grumpy on Monday when I was watching the rolling news coverage. First of all, the BBC had live reporting from Westminster, the only place in the country you wouldn’t find any politicians following the dissolution of Parliament. Ok, so they did find Simon Hughes, but they could have headed a couple of miles down the road to go to him.

Then there were people reporting from Downing Street long after everyone had departed to ht the campaign trail.

But what made my blood boil was the aerial shots of Buckingham Palace broadcast as David Cameron and Nick Clegg made their visits there. We all know what it looks like. The BBC and Sky didn’t really need to spend money on a helicopter to give us pictures of one of the most familiar sites in the country if not the world.

Why on earth were  we not able to see what was going on inside? What’s with the mystery? It wasn’t very exciting, but we weren’t even given a photograph of the occasions. Cameron met first with the Queen, although that was pretty much a waste of time given that the dissolution of Parliament is an automatic process these days. Then Nick Clegg met with the Privy Council he chairs to carry out the necessary formality. When I say chairs, there actually aren’t any as the meetings are traditionally held with everyone standing to make them shorter. 

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , and | 10 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Steve Trevethan
    Thank you for a most relevant article on the vulnerabilities of our alleged "Democracy"! Might ignorance, both passive and imposed/structural, be a signific...
  • Kevin Hawkins
    There has been a lot of discussion on Lib Dem Voice about our party’s performance in different parts of the country with a number of people commenting that we...
  • Ellyott
    My memory from the time of the introduction of the triple lock was in response to the reduction of the state pension's buying power in preceding years and its l...
  • Nonconformistradical
    I agree with Paul Barker at 16th Oct '26 - 3:41pm...
  • David Raw
    @ Paul Barker "Lets leave Authoritarianism to Labour." An interesting observation, Paul, but from an historical point of view very difficult to sustain. It...