The Professors passion for "The Science of Deceit" started here...

Employed by the Ministry (in a covert capacity) to help introduce the law ending dishonest politics, you can see his hand all over the posts of past.

Current political circumstances have forced him to reveal himself and as we speak, MPs are signing up to re-introduce The Elected Representatives (Prohibition of Deception) Bill for debate with over 80,000 voters supporting them.

Posts before Jan '08 are purely for the record (with hindsight they make fascinating reading). Posts after May 13th mark the Professor's return.


Meet the Professor

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

The end of the road ?

It was all too depressingly clearly laid out by Professor Gearty. Basically ...

  • Parliamentary sovereignty originally protected the elected representatives of the people (MPs) from the King.
  • Currently - despite sovereignty and all power flowing from the electorate - the only legal way of holding an MP/Minister/Government to account if they've lied to us is once every 4 or 5 years at the ballot box.
  • There are no other legal routes of enforcing an MPs obligation to be honest, transparent and accountable.
We took some comfort from the Professors observation that MPs "can't go about machine-gunning people they don't like". There's some folks in various distant parts of the world who may disagree.

Outside of the ballot box, our alternatives are ;

  1. The Press/Media
  2. Report the offender to the Police if the lie/misrepresentation/misleading statement happens to be covered by a statute. Then, if the Crown Prosecution Service decides there's been a breach of the statute they may or may not prosecute (see George Bathurst v. John Prescott for how this can pan out).
  3. Complaining to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards - Sir Philip Mawer.
  4. Revolution (see Guy Fawkes etc.)
Despite the fact that the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards - Sir Philip Mawer ultimately reports to Parliament (judge, jury and defendent in your own courtroom does seem very convenient) we figured given the choice between options 3 and 4, we should give Sir Philip a call.

Amazingly, he called back and agreed to a filmed interview. We'll be posting it ASAP.

4 comments:

  1. forget option 4 - maybe we should go a step further and 'go about machine gunning MP's who lie'. That might make them think twice!

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  2. Torytottie sounds in dire need of a shag. Either that or she's been malhandled in Parliament. Simmer down girl, simmer down.

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  3. Love the Bathurst v. Prescott stuff, presumably all the rozzers are busy with TB and his cash for honours - still, keeps them off my back. Anyone want an E ?

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  4. yea I say we take to the streets. What's this Mawer bloke going to do for you? Viva la revolution.

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