[Happies] to aca

May your day include cake. And beer. Or beer. And cake. Dude.

[Meme] The Music Nerd Test

While I'm waiting for girfan and zotz to go off the scale on this one, my score was:

48.3% - Super Music Nerd

Test is here, ganked from black_marx. It's a leetle bit US-centric, but ...

Edit: Current high scorer is freeqboi, but you'll need to see the comments to know what it is ...

[Politics] Stand up, be counted. And reload. It's time to shout.

Yep, it's more about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, one of the most pernicious suggestions that I've read for a long time. It's also suspiciously short. I trained as a solicitor, and studied Politics at university. I have a suspicion of brief legislation - it's usually very wide-ranging.

Basically, while it sounds like something purely procedural, it's a nice cunning plan to enable the circumvention of Parliament when desired by the Government. The development of parliamentary democracy was a nice historical excursion, but you can forget about it. The Bill allows for the amendment (sorry, "reform") of any law (including, recursively, itself, so the few limitations included can soon be removed) by an "Order" from a Cabinet minister. Indeed, new legislation may be implemented, should it be recommended by one or more of the UK Law Commissions - and those recommendations may be amended during the implementation - and there is no definition of exactly how far "amendment" can go. And, incidentally, one doesn't have to be an MP to be a Cabinet minister, so executive order by crony would be a possibility, or, indeed, a probability. There are some limitation as to what can be put in place (no increasing taxation, no new powers of forced entry unless "similar" to existing powers), but these themselves could be "amended" by use of the powers in the Bill ...

This is apparently already being discussed in Committee, so the next phase would be going before the HofC once more, before it gets sent to the HofL. Who, remember, can no longer stop legislation, only fight a delaying action (as with ID cards). If they keep getting "in the way", they get circumvented, by way of the Parliament Act.

The Royal Assent? Well, it hasn't been denied in ages, and once this Bill is passed, it will be an irrelevance, anyway. It was once said that the power of the constitutional monarchy is not the result of the powers retained by the crown, but those that are denied to others - the prevention of absolute power being gathered into other hands. Oh well ...

Would you want any present or future Cabinet to be given those powers? There's a bit more info here, some more blogging on it here, and FaxYourMP.com and WriteToThem.com which allow you to e-mail or fax your elected representative.

"People should not be afraid of their governments ..."

[Politics] And, in a side-bar note ...

With regard to the previously mentioned Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, it doesn't appear to have received much notice from the broadcast media ...

Edit: It seems it might have have, but I must have missed it (due to being en route to work or whatever). OK, my bad.