I’ve been rather silent the past few months, for reasons clearly stated. I have, at several points, considered shutting this blog down, but overall I still want to write for it, so I’m not going to.
To deal with the generally-insane (albeit interesting and enjoyable) workload that my new masters at BPP like to provide me with, I’ve started to work out something of a strategy to deal with this, and the brave/foolhardy decision to set up a second blog.
I’m going to be commenting a lot less within the news cycle. I simply don’t have enough free time to even attempt to stay on top of it, and it’s not actually that fulfilling to write about. A bit more commenting on what I want to, and a little less chasing readers and headlines. The pace is also going to be a good deal slower than before.
My other blog will be growing to deal with legal issues and commentary. There may be some crossover between the blogs, but the latter is going to stay confined to that topic. On that same issue, this blog is going to expand its focus a bit (one hopes) to not just domestic politics, but history, war and foreign policy.
Finally, I’m going to need a few gimmicks to help pad this out and deal with the slack in writing. Guest posters are always welcome, although hopefully this time round their posts won’t get destroyed by a massive hacking attempt on my host. Anyone interested in podcasting should also get in touch.
I’ve started up a new blog on legal issues. You can find it below:
Garrulous Law.
I’m probably going to be blogging more there at the moment as I don’t have much of a life outside the law at the moment.
No better way to return to blogging than to turn around, face your party and tell them they’re wrong!
As I am currently en route to a constitutional law tutorial, it only seems appropriate to talk about the constitutional issue running through the blogosphere this week: Cameron and Hague’s proposed Sovereignty Act. This act, we are told, will assert UK supremacy in the area of EC law.
The problem with this legislation is that it is a pile of logically absurd and constitutionally dangerous nonsense.
First, look at the underlying logic of the act. The only time you need to pass an act declaring you are a sovereign body is when you are, in fact, not sovereign. Yet, if you are not sovereign, you do not have the authority to pass such an act. A sovereignty act is, perforce, ultra vires. The only time such measures do not self-contradict is when they are accompanied by revolutionary violence. Somehow, I don’t think this is what David Cameron is promising.
Fair enough l, you might say, but this is politics; academic legal and logical purism should be subordinated to the realities of power; the logical conundrum will have little practical relevance.
Except that it will.
The problem is that what the Sovereignty Bill proposes is already the legal status in the UK. Parliament is sovereign, and the EU’s authority in this country derives solely from an act of the same: the European Communities Act. The danger comes in that creating a redundant piece of legislation that states the bleedin’ obvious will impose on the courts a duty to interpret it as somehow altering the constitutional order. The courts cannot simply disregard the act on the grounds of it being a grandstanding gesture. This risks driving a steamroller through a delicate area of jurisprudence on the sovereignty of Parliament and its limits. Worse, a challenge to the Bill could even further muddy the waters even further, and this is all before interests in Parliament attempt to amend the Bill to the point that the whole constitution is destabilised.
Conservatives should not support such a potentially destabilising and pointless piece of legislation.
I just found this about me on politics.co.uk. Suffice to say I am flattered (even if they did misspell my name).
I feel sufficiently motivated and will try and find a way to keep this updated, but expect a bit of a change in tone as this moves in a more legally-oriented direction, as well as a degree of GDL-induced irregularity.
Earlier this month I started a Postgraduate Diploma in Law.
This is an eight-month intensive course that gives non-law graduates an academic qualification of similar standing to an LL.B.
As a result I am rather short of the free time needed to maintain this blog. After quite a bit of agonising, I have decided to, effectively, suspend it.
In practice this means that I will be posting on a much less frequent basis, and only where I happen to have something to write about, as opposed to just chasing topics. I may also start a law blog if I can find a way to integrate it into my studies.
I don’t want to turn this into a long farewell post, as I do hope to restore this blog to regular activity at some point. Nonetheless I would like to take a brief moment to thank everyone who helped me with this through advice, criticism, drinks, links, parties and contacts. You know who you are and I am very grateful. Thanks also, again, to those who voted for me in the Total Politics poll.
I shall return, and occasionally haunt this place from time to time. You can still find me on Twitter @benjaminfgray
Was it really a good idea to rip up the Sun and insult its readership?
I am sure it played well with the crowds and pleased many of the demoralised delegates.
That, however, is the problem.
Peter Mandelson, in a more lucid time, said that one should act not as if addressing the conference, but the country az a whole. Tony Woodley ripping up The Sun marked the moment when Labour leaders stopped talking to the country and started talking to itself, complete with telegenic action.
If talking to oneself personally is a sign of insanity, in political terms it is a sign of a loss of mandate.
Astute political leaders understand that to govern, one needs a broad church of support. Parties must be diverse in membership, and votes courted beyond the core. Blair understood this with his talk of Big Tent politics, and The Cameron project has the same understanding.
Yesterday, however, Labour turned its back on big tent politics in favour of pleasing the crowd.
That may help a post-defeat leadership contest, but it won’t reduce the chances of defeat.
There is still reverberation about whether Andrew Marr was right to ask Gordon Brown “THAT question” about prescription painkillers. I don’t think he was.
This is not, as Guido suggests, a double-standard. The question of whether David Cameron took drugs at university at least has the different quality of being related to law-breaking. Nonetheless, it does little to serve the public interest to ask either of these questions.
The stigma attached to mental health issues in Britain is staggering. One need look no further than the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter to see the prejudice still alive. People with depression and other psychiatric illnesses face prejudices that bear little resemblance to the realities of their conditions.
In asking the Prime Minister that question, Marr continued to propagate a series of stereotypes about mental health. Properly prescribed and used, anti-depressant and anti-psychotic medication can allow patients to live normal lives. By asking the question, he ensured the rumour gained more publicity and apparent credibility, in the manner of a “have you stopped beating your wife” question. This is straight out of the Damian McBride playbook. The implication of the question was that all users of anti-depressants are perforce unfit for public office, ignoring the contributions of the bipolar Winston Churchill and depressive former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.
Use of MAOI anti-depressants is essentially a private matter and may only be of public interest if there is clear evidence that their use seriously impairs the conduct of a public official. At best the evidence is tenuous that Brown is on anti-depressants, and even more flimsy that these have an impact on his behaviour where it matters. Yes, Brown may have depression, yes, he may be taking MAOIs, yes, he may be unfit to govern as a result. But quite equally he may not. We simply do not have the evidence to suggest that he is. Given the cultural hostility to mental illness in this country, he should therefore have been given the benefit of the doubt. It may be frustrating, but it is vastly preferable to a society where accusation automatically assumes guilt.
![davidwright[1]](http://benjamin-gray.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/davidwright1.png "davidwright[1]")
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