It has become perceived wisdom that we are heading for a ‘people vs parliament’ election. But that is a false construct. Who gets to sit in parliament is the one matter in our political system over which the people have almost total control. The battle currently underway is to limit the powers that parliament has
Home The Commons voted by 329 to 299 for a Brexit Withdrawal Bill but then stymied progress by defeating a timetable for enacting it by 31 October. Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, immediately favoured a delay for Brexit. Downing Street called for a general election. Sir Oliver Letwin had torpedoed the government’s
In our house, the biggest source of tension is that I think there is an important difference between deferring a decision — ‘Do we need carpet on the stairs?’ — and making one. Charlotte argues that ‘Inaction is a choice; not choosing is a choice.’ One that can have consequences, she insists. Like when the
Today’s funerals, featuring shiny black hearses and top hats, lack (we are assured) ‘emotional intelligence’. Colourful coffins featuring pictures of favourite musicians, leopard print hearses and burials in yurts will apparently correct this sad deficiency. The Romans might well have disagreed. Cremation and interment took place outside the boundaries of Rome (dead bodies were considered
Big Ben protests An Extinction Rebellion protestor climbed to the top of the Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, with a bit of help from the scaffolding. Who has achieved this before? — A Greenpeace protestor scaled the tower in 2004 to protest the Iraq war. — A protestor was arrested in May last year
Cameron’s fatal error Sir: Jo Johnson’s otherwise informative review of David Cameron’s For the Record (Books, 12 October) suggests Cameron’s ‘mistake’ was to not call the referendum earlier, and his ‘fatal error’ was his failure to nail down the Leave campaign on how they ‘would actually deliver Brexit’. Not so. Cameron’s mistake was to assume
