
Johnson should be deeply wary of opening Pandora’s Box with a constitutional commission
Advocates of every hoary old reform would immediately set to work arguing that the Union could be saved by their One Weird Trick.
Advocates of every hoary old reform would immediately set to work arguing that the Union could be saved by their One Weird Trick.
There may be a good case for changes, but they will only stick if the Government takes care that they are brought in for the right reasons.
Constantly circulating officials around Whitehall has its downsides – but might the alternative be deeper departmental biases?
The Chancellor should use his statement on Wednesday to announce a comprehensive and ambitious plan to counter the threat.
The big picture is that Johnson is dashing for growth. We devoutly hope it works but the precedents aren’t promising.
Johnson’s election manifesto promised to remove the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, among other pledges.
Some of its problems can be fixed. Others won’t be. And one perhaps can’t be: namely, that this Parliament seems to be incapable of saying No.
If, that is, interest rates carry on at rock bottom rates. But we have to take a chance on growing our way out of this crisis.
It may be necessary, given the Coronavirus, and could even work. But Britain has a long, long record of state spending failing to turbo-charge growth.
There were plenty of Yes Minister routines and scripts to live through then as now. Much of the system did not like the privatisation programme.
We’ve been through all this before with the Gove education reforms – which he co-worked on and which have helped to improve lives.
We cheer the mission. But government needs more compromise, art, tact and accomodation than campaigning alone allows.
Over a third of patients who attend A&E do so for non-urgent, minor injuries. They are unable to get GP appointments.
Collecting statistics on people’s self-identified racial background is one thing. Having ringfenced funding for one racial group is quite another.
Johnson is a self-described “Brexity Hezza” and now has the chance to mould a Party and country in his own romantic image.