Filed under: Parliament
There is an excoriating piece in The Guardian on Russell Brand’s testimony to the Home Affairs Select Committee suggesting that it was nothing but a publicity stunt on the part of the Committee members to get themselves on TV. It’s a useful angle for arguing questions on the reform of Parliament or the ineffectiveness of scrutiny given the parallels that Marina Hyde draws with the US committee system where in 1985, the House agriculture committee tabled a hearing called “The Plight of the Family Farmer”, and promptly called Jane Fonda, Sissy Spacek and Sally Field to testify on the basis that they had all played farm wives in movies. Not to mention the fact that Elmo from Sesame Street has also testified in the US. To be fair however there is a long line of muppets being involved at all levels of US Politics.
Filed under: Parliament
Russell Brand has appeared at the Home Affairs Select Committee on the topic of drug addiction and treatment, the clip below from ITV news is suitably brief and, as you would expect, entertaining but for AS Politics students the brief cameo should give a useful example of how Select Committees can call ‘experts’ to help them inform their deliberations.
Filed under: Parliament
The coalition’s plans for reform of the House of Lords, one of the key things the Lib Dems want out of their time in power, look to be in disarray after a series of conservative ministerial aides threatened to resign over the issue. The Guardian has the full story here and it makes excellent reading for AS students looking at Parliament or Political Parties.
Filed under: Constitution, Judiciary / Civil Liberties, Parliament, The Executive
Every AS Politics students favourite radical cleric is in the news again and it’s a great BBC story that covers the problems with the European Court of Human Rights as the coalition sees it with a particular focus on the Qatada extradition case. Useful for the Judiciary, Parliament, the Constitution and erosion of the power of the Executive.
There’s a good article in The Guardian discussing the proposals by the Law Commission to clean up the statute book and remove some of the laws that are now considered outdated. This fits in with the questions on the Constitution as you can make an interesting and pertinent case that without a codified constitution there are a host of acts that can be misused, the article uses the example of the Public Order Act of 1936 being employed in 1976. The article also makes the point that vast numbers of laws are made by regulations rather than acts, thus increasing the power of the Executive at the expense of Parliament.
George Galloway’s surprise victory in the Bradford West by-election has plenty of useful repercussions for AS Politics students. The BBC has an interesting analysis on whether the result means that asian voters are deserting Labour. However Unit 2 students could argue that the power of the PM has been increased by the disarray of the opposition and that representation has been strengthened by the success of a minority party.
Filed under: Constitution
Student’s sometimes struggle with the idea of ‘common law’ as part of the constitution but this Guardian article on the concept of a ‘citizen’s arrest’ is a good example of how common law works. To quote the article,
‘A civilian also has a broader (if somewhat vaguer) common law (i.e. judge-made) power of arrest where there is a “breach of the peace”, which itself is not really a crime, but can be said to occur whenever harm is actually done or is likely to be done to a person or, in his presence, to his property, or where a person is in fear of being harmed through an assault, affray, riot, unlawful assembly or other disturbance.’
Filed under: Judiciary / Civil Liberties
The Guardian has an article from Lord Neuberger warning the judiciary that their increased engagement with public life jeopardises judicial independence. This timely piece lays out numerous good examples for AS students focusing on the Judiciary.
Filed under: Parliament
The Guardian is reporting on the outrage caused by the Boundary Commission’s proposed restructuring. This is part of the coalitions decision to reduce the number of English constituencies down to 502 from the current 533. Though the outrage of Conservative MP Nadine Dorries seems a little outlandish, “To place part of Bedfordshire with Hertfordshire is frankly as big an anathema to the local population as though they had been grouped with Mars.” The former Conservative Home Secretary David Davis’ quote, “Given the decline of civic society generally, and the political parties in particular, this process is highly corrosive of effective representation.” makes this a useful topic for AS students.
Amid the controversy of the Health and Welfare Bills the coalition’s proposals to alter the House of Lords have almost passed unnoticed. Yet for AS students this is an important topic as it will be part of both the Constitution and Parliament part of the course. Here’s a good BBC piece on Nick Clegg’s defence of the proposals and a wider look, also from the BBC, at all the coalition’s proposed constitutional reforms.
