Jeremy Hunt lobbied the Prime Minister in favour of the Sky takeover, a month before the PM appointed him as an impartial, quasi-judicial adjudicator, to decide whether it would be allowed to go ahead

JB_UK · 2012-05-24T20:52:16.757685+00:00

To be fair, the legal case is actually quite clear. According to some fairly prestigious legal bloggers, you're allowed to have a predisposition (which both Cable and Hunt had thanks to their comments/memo) but you must act fairly when deciding the bid. Cable and his office, according to current evidence, never gave either side an advantage. Hunt and his office did, and that's why he should be sacked, not his comments before.

EDIT: in fact, there's no legal reason Cable should have been shoved off the bid. His comments were a predisposition not a unfair treatment. There would have been a judicial review, but that wouldn't have changed anything on his comments alone.

EDIT 2: I highly recommend the guy's blog. If a legal issue comes up in politics, he's generally much more informed than the media.

VictorEagleman · 1 day

Oh, Adrian... if you'd kept your mouth shut, you might have kept a little dignity. Calling people names isn't going to help anyone.

Breznak · 3 days

sigh My northern friends always take the piss out of me when I mention going on the lash. Strange, strange people. :P

Breznak · 3 days

For the first two points: I generally drink lager and cider casually, but if I want to get drunk for a night out then I'm likely to drink spirits such as vodka, gin, or a whisk(e)y too.

Third point: I rarely, if ever, drink spirits without a mixer. I just don't enjoy it. It probably is because I buy only cheap spirits, being a student and all.

Fourth point: Drink casually with friends if we're watching football, sitting outside on a sunny day, that sort of thing. That's slow drinking, for taste. Nights where we're trying to get quite drunk (once every two, maybe three weeks now) we do drinking games punctuated with periods of drinking excessively.

I can only speak for those that I know, but older people have a slightly healthier attitude to drinking, and it gets healthier the older you get. Casual drinking for taste, usually confined to certain evenings and weekends or with dinner for the over fifties. There are, as always, exceptions especially on the poorer end of the spectrum who seem to spend their evenings in local pubs drinking cheap ales but it's a good rule of thumb I find.

Younger people are much more up for binge drinking (the cheap, fun and probably unremembered nights), which seems to peak at age 19-20 and falls massively in the mid-20s, generally petering off into the mid to late 30s. As I said, my experience. Not sure if that stacks up with everyone else's.

jonnybarnes · 4 days

As a principle you're right, but in this case I presume it's implying equality between LGBT people and straight people rather than the principle behind it.

As JonnyBarnes said, the criteria are here: basically it's about ensuring that the legal system counts LGBT concerns as a basis that you can't be discriminated against, whether in criminal terms, institutional terms, or civil protections.

Applemacbookpro · 4 days

They've never been at 40% support so far as I can tell. Even during the Diana years it was consistently in the mid-70s for support. The lowest poll was in 2005 (on 65% support), and for all we know that was a rogue poll. It's entirely possible that this one is too.

Also, what exactly has been whitewashed post Diana? What have they been getting up to since that's so awful since 1998?

wirplit · 9 days

Ah, ok. Thanks!

wirplit · 9 days

I have to ask, what powers do the states have over the internet?

I ask as a supporter of the principles behind the Pirate Party who's genuinely interested. I know successful parties need an organised grassroots base, whether it be in local or state elections, but I do wonder if they gave enough thought to the local issues at hand.

dorfsmay · 15 days

Yeah... don't bet on that.

bibs · 16 days

Well the counter argument would be that just because something looks good on paper doesn't mean it works. An elected House of Lords would work, if everyone in the country paid attention, didn't vote along party lines and overall just had a better political understanding. But they don't. While people remain completely ignorant to the world around them, it makes no sense for an elected Lords because it'll be far too easy to abuse then we break our own democratic system even more than it already is.

Oh, agreed.

Well there we have it. Lords reform is required, but it's not to do with the people in the Lords (although I'd happily remove several..) it's to do with how the Lords operates. On top of that, the government should not be allowed to appoint people, it's obviously going to be abused to flood the Lords with yes men and fundamentally ruin it. The lords should, in theory, be there to keep the commons in check, but if it is to remain unelected then an independant body needs to be set up to evaulte and appoint Lords, allowing the PM or anyone who has an affiliation to do so is just outright wrong.

I agree there should be an independent and non-partisan appointments commission to do all the appointing, but I would point out that the Lords is still quite powerful compared to most second chambers.

They have the power of control over time where minorities can delay, sometimes significantly, a government's programme. The Commons also had that power until 2001. About 80% of the Lords amendments are accepted straight away, and 40% of the rest are at compromises in the Lords' favour. I don't know if I'd get rid of the Parliament Acts, but I might consider altering them.

bibs · 16 days

Haha, it's a fair point!

From what I've read, they tend to come under two key arguments: that all legislators should be elected for the system to be democratic and that there needs to be a more powerful check-and-balance chamber in our system.

The first argument is true for a given value of democratic, but given that the Commons gets the final say after a year (thanks to the Parliament Acts) I'm not entirely convinced by the argument the system is undemocratic.

The second argument is possibly true, but under our current system the Lords, quite simply, cannot be a check-and-balance chamber like the US or Australian Senates. The Parliament Acts prevent it. And no government will let those be bypassed. There would also have to be some well-thought-through plans to ensure the upper chamber doesn't become pointlessly obstructive if they are removed.

I think the Lords does good work now and that electing wouldn't make it's work any better, and probably would make it worse.

bibs · 18 days

I've only really heard that many Tories (and, to be fair, Labourites) think Lords reform is a bad idea in general, and that because it would take so long to get anything through that they would lose quite a few other, possibly popular, Tory bills for lack of time.

TBH I doubt there's any votes in Lords reform either way. Growth and general economic competence, yes, but eclectic issues like this? Nah.

Hollack · 18 days

Strange thing is, the Lords want that too, after a fashion. If the government fails here (as they probably will unless Labour changes its mind), the Lords may propose the Steel proposals as a reform for the government to tout.

They want to get a statutory appointments commission to remove the prime minister's patronage entirely, stop hereditary by-elections, the ability to retire, and the ability to exclude criminals. The proposals were supported by the just-under half of the joint committee that dissented from the final report.

geekchic · 20 days

That woman loves her coins.

kch618 · 22 days

Oh, I see! That makes sense. The latest PMQs, as I say, is here. It's not representative of parliamentary proceedings to be honest. At departmental question times, or debates on bills or topics they're much less annoying and there's much less braying, heckling and general childishness. Saying that, some of them do dress up every so often and doff hats or and wear wigs. Not sure what that says about them.

kch618 · 22 days

Parliament was prorogued yesterday so there wasn't a PMQ's today and I can't see any repeated on BBC parliament. Where did it air? Last week's was here if that helps. Unless you want the Scottish First Minister's Questions?

EDIT, hang on, May 5? It's only the 2nd.

clogic11 · 29 days

What about the people who select the crossbenchers now? They're doing a good job.

M2Ys4U · 1 month

True, which is why I'm in favour of making it a parliamentary appointment rather than a government one. Like, say, the Electoral Commissioners. Appointed by parliament after an open merit-based process.

M2Ys4U · 1 month

An appointments commission staffed identically to the one that does the crossbenchers now except it is statutory and appoints all peers on merit, including party ones.

M2Ys4U · 1 month

There's an alternative report out by just under half of the joint committee which dissented from the report.

Basically, it proposes to stop the government's plans and instead take away prime ministerial patronage, kick out criminals, allow retirement, reduce the size in 5-10 years rather than 15, have terms limits for peers, revamp procedures in the Lords to increase effectiveness, and end the hereditaries.

ripitupandstartagain · 1 month

And here's the Alternative Report by just under half the original committee who disagreed with the proposals.

Essentially, stop the government's plans and instead take away prime ministerial patronage, kick out criminals, allow retirement, reduce the size in 5-10 years rather than 15, have terms limits for peers, revamp procedures in the Lords to increase effectiveness, end the hereditaries. Nothing on the Bishops though.

Oh, and they kick election into the long grass with a potentially unending constitutional convention.

Bemuzed · 1 month

He's pretty cool, although otherwise engaged until 2015.

Hollack

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