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January 7th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Simon Heffer
Last updated at 11:18 PM on 6th January 2012
Precisely because the two most boring words in the English language are ‘constitutional reform’, people tend to ignore the subject. This is a pity, because such reforms normally have huge implications that are very far from boring.
For example, until a few weeks ago, if the Prime Minister chose to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament and call a General Election, he could easily do so.
This was a vital power — particularly at times (like now) when the country was ruled by an unstable coalition, with Cabinet members at each other’s throats to some degree or other.
Vital power: Before this change in constitutional law, a Prime Minister could choose to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament and call a General Election
However, as a result of the new 2011 Fixed-term Parliaments Act, a prime minister has lost that device. For this most offensive and self-serving law of modern times has removed the Queen’s prerogative power to dissolve Parliament. Instead, the power has been placed in the hands of Parliament itself.
Parliamentary terms are now fixed at five years. This means that the next General Election is scheduled to be held in May 2015. Of course, there are circumstances in which an election could be called earlier, but they are dependent on a complex set of events.
For example, Parliament can be dissolved if two-thirds of the House of Commons votes to do so on a no-confidence motion. But unless 434 of the 650 MPs currently in the House vote for the end of the Government, that won’t happen. Even the Blair government, after its landslide in 1997, did not have support on that scale.
Alternatively, the government may resign at any time: but an election is triggered only if, after 14 days, no one else can form an administration.
This could be a means of David Cameron getting an immediate election. However, the process would be messy. It might accidentally put a lame-duck, unelected Miliband government into power.
What’s more, trying to engineer an election in this way would be construed as an act of cynicism and would damage the Conservative Party hugely.
Mistake: This wretched reform could see ‘Red Ed’ end up in No. 10
The truth is that very few people seem to be aware of this new Act, and that a major constitutional change has happened. Certainly, no one voted for it.
The new law — which can keep a government in power long after it has passed its sell-by date — has put a sizeable hole in the hull of the glorious ship that used to be called British democracy.
It could, one day, mean this country is ruled — and I use that term advisedly — by a succession of rocky minority governments, or coalitions, that try to stagger on to complete the requisite five-year term. That would be a travesty of democracy.
However, lumbered as we are with five-year Parliaments, we must get used to the notion that when a government runs out of steam it cannot be removed by a simple Commons vote of confidence (as happened to Jim Callaghan’s decrepit Labour government in 1979).
Nor can it resign and ask the country for a new mandate (as Edward Heath did in February 1974). Instead, Britain can become saddled with incompetent, and unrepresentative, governments until the five-year term elapses.
Democratic: Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan was removed by a simple Commons vote of confidence in 1979
Tragically, the Fixed-term Parliaments Act is but the latest example of the inevitable problem that comes with any attempt to change, or rig, the British constitution: that such changes, or riggings, always have serious unintended consequences.
Often, these are plain to see; but another feature of constitutional reform is that the politicians who legislate for such changes are usually acting out of cynical motives and care little about the effects.
Take another example: devolution. When the first elections to the dissolved assemblies were under way in 1999, I wrote a book called Nor Shall My Sword: The Reinvention Of England.
It argued that devolution would create an irresistible momentum towards Scottish nationalism and separatism. I also warned England should prepare for a future after the break-up of the Union.
I was told by almost everyone (apart from Scottish Nationalist Alex Salmond, who reviewed the book handsomely) that I was away with the fairies.
One of the main reasons Labour wanted devolution was to ingratiate itself with Scottish voters, many of whom had grown tired of the cronyist, corrupt and utterly ineffectual way the party ran its fiefdom north of the border.
However, its attempt to woo them with its pro-devolution policy has had the opposite result from what was intended.
Despite the absurd spectacle of Gordon Brown (whom history will come to regard as an unintentional architect of British separatism) going around chuntering about the importance of ‘Britishness’, Mr Salmond is on his way to creating a one-party state in Scotland. He may even achieve independence. Labour is plummeting in the polls in Scotland where voters, having had a taste of autonomy, now want the whole meal.
It may turn out to be disastrous for them: but however it plays, it is the unintentional result of Labour’s constitutional change.
Damaged: Recent Prime Ministers have devalued the Lords by appointing their friends and financial donors in ‘cash for honours’ scandals
Then there is the House of Lords. As part of its constitutional vandalism, Labour threw out most hereditary peers in 1999, as a first instalment of reform, without having the slightest idea what sort of second chamber it eventually wanted. The squabbling continues to this day.
The Coalition says it would like a House of Lords containing 300 peers. Peers say they would like 450. The number is irrelevant: it is the basis upon which the Upper House is formed that matters.
A largely elected House, which we are told is the Coalition’s aim, would simply be a tool of the whips in the Commons. All independence would be beaten out of it.
The quality that some peers of distinction still manage to bring to their work of revising legislation would be lost. Meanwhile, they would be replaced in many cases by people of too low a calibre to be elected even to the Commons.
History will judge that Tony Blair, and then David Cameron in a subsequent act of retaliation, devalued the Lords by appointing their friends, financial backers and lobby-fodder politicians. Some reform is necessary to the Lords, but electing members is not the answer.
I dearly hope that those peers who value our constitution, and who can see clearly the dreadful consequences to our democracy of an elected second chamber, will do all they can to block the proposed reforms.
They should set a size for the Lords — say 500 peers — and until either death or requests for permanent leave of absence by existing peers reduces the number to below that figure, there should be no more appointments.
This sensible course would stop prime ministers putting any old fool into the Lords and guarantee that places are reserved for those who would make the very best contribution. It would also prevent the Lords from challenging the legitimacy of the Commons.
For an elected second chamber would claim such democratic legitimacy and contest whether the Commons should have the final say — and why shouldn’t it? And who would referee that fight?
But there is one major reason why the recent, damaging record of governments fiddling with our constitution should stop. The public simply don’t want change.
What voters do want are politicians who address the many grave issues affecting our country. What really matters is that we have a government that tackles our crumbling public services, improves the woeful state of many of our schools and, above all, sets us on the path to economic recovery, not tinkers with our constitution.
George Osborne is said to be planning a crackdown on the small number of people who manage to evade the crippling levels of stamp duty imposed on house purchases. Has he not thought, instead, of cutting this punitive tax in order to encourage the housing market to get moving?
The Treasury would get much more money if he did, but I bet the Lib Dems, who run our country, won’t let him.
Row: If Diane Abbott wishes to expose herself as ignorant, then she has the right to do so
I believe in free speech and think that if someone wishes to expose herself as ignorant and unpleasant by saying white people are divisive, as Diane Abbott did, then she has a right to do so. But since we have decided to make uttering ‘racist’ remarks a crime almost on a par with armed robbery, I can’t see why Miss Abbott is still in her shadow minister post.
A white MP who said blacks were natural slaves, and explained this away by saying he was referring to 19th-century colonial times, would be humiliated and hounded out of public life. So why hasn’t she been?
Could it be that we are not all equal after all? What does the increasingly pathetic Ed Miliband intend to do about this rampant hypocrisy?
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Simon Heffer’s argument against the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act is strong and unanswerable. So why not repeal the act?
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The uppers houses in Australian parliaments are elected by proportional representation. This is in contrast to the lower houses where individual parliamentarians are elected on the basis of the most votes after preferences have been allocated. If you are going to throw away hereditary appointments, this is not a bad means of representing the views of all the constituents.
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Doesn’t make any difference if you’re English as whichever party wins the UK government always gets in. And the UK government always denies the English recognition, representation and fair funding.
Perhaps one day the UK establishment journalists will start telling the truth about England’s raw deal – then we’ll see some change.
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“What does the increasingly pathetic Ed Miliband intend to do about this rampant hypocrisy?”
What does he intend to do? Why, he has sent a tweet about it! That’ll show her!
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There has been a lot of constitutional damage done since 1997, and I really believe that people have no idea what that means in principle, let alone in practice. So much has been done that is wrong, but instead of rescission what we get are more and more equally unhelpful ‘patches’ stuck on to try and make the best of things. In the run up to the last election I was seriously worried that it would be our last one. The EU superstate does not ‘do’ electoral uncertainty, as we have since witnessed in Greece and Italy. Of course, the Tories’ clumsy Bill can be repealled and probably will be, but I find it reassuring that they at least are trying to protect us in that way. The regional break up was perfectly intentional by Labour, as was the forthcoming split of England itself into districts. Together we are strong, divided into12/13 parts we’re utterly, utterly helpless.
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