To think Liz Truss MUST call a general election to make “unpopular” and “difficult” decisions that deviate from the last GE manifesto?

[CurseOfBigness]

I get that Liz Truss is a keen new prime minister full of beans and ideas. I just don’t think she has the mandate to push through decisions that are “unpopular” and “difficult” if it deviates from the last general election’s manifesto.

Liz Truss plans radical shift in economic policy: New UK prime minister readies tax-cutting mini-Budget and says she is prepared to be unpopular.

This new prime minister has not gained her position by winning a general election. If she wants to radically change things and be “unpopular” then she needs to put the vote to the people.

Truss talked the talk about promoting “freedom” and not being dictated by “instructions”. But Freedom is not for free. The rule of law applies as “instructions” to help keep society civilised. Checks and balances.

Removing the cap on bankers’ bonuses is a poor PR move. Trickle down economics is problematic and already being criticised as ineffective.

Truss thinks she can do what she wants because she’s party leader and by default became prime minister. But Truss can’t afford to be “unpopular” because she needs to win a general election in her own right first.

AIBU to think Liz Truss must call a general election to make “unpopular” and “difficult” decisions that deviate from the last GE manifesto? Isn’t that how democracy works?!

Godwins Law. 🤦‍♂️

The various parts of Parliament itself is a check. The MPs in the Commons can restrict the power of Government as we've seen since 2016. The Lords can restrict the Government by rejecting bills with a view to amend with a maximum of three blocks which Labour brought in, IIRC. The Supreme Court is another check in relation to existing law as we've seen, e.g. progue of Parliament was deemed unconstitutional based on misrepresentations to the Monarch hence reversed.

As for the Monarch, the Restoration of the Monarchy was on the basis that Parliament is the Supreme Legislator and Authority. Not the Monarch.

If any Monarchy encroaches upon Parliament's power, then Parliament is well within its right to remove the Monarch from the throne.

Simply put, it is Parliament that allows a Monarch to sit on the throne.

Agree with your first paragraph.

Vis a vis a single codified constitution, Lord Norton is regarded as the leading expert on our constitution:

nortonview.wordpress.com/2019/09/20/do-we-need-a-written-constitution/

I agree with his view.

Reminds me of what they used to say about the Titanic being unsinkable: "Not even God himself could sink this ship." Asking for trouble…

If any Monarchy encroaches upon Parliament's power, then Parliament is well within its right to remove the Monarch from the throne.

Simply put, it is Parliament that allows a Monarch to sit on the throne.

You’re saying it’s stage managed.

But what happens if God saves the monarch in the situation you describe?

Hypothetical (playful) situation based on the one you described:

Parliament: who saved the monarch we removed from the throne?

God: [sends 12 days of continuous thunder and lightning to communicate a message]

Parliament: God if that’s you doing this we want you to know that Parliament have Sovereignty here. You have no right saving the monarch.

God: [Plays parliament singing the national anthem ‘God Save The [monarch]’ from the heavens].

Parliament: That was just symbolic. Not literal! God doesn’t exist!

God: [smites parliamentary hubris]

Moral: Do not use the Lords Name in Vain. Bad things can happen. Such as sinking unsinkable Titanic ships, plagues, pandemics and all the other scary things warned about in the monarch’s bible.

Remember Parliament held a kangaroo court that led to King Charles 1st being sentenced to death because he believed in the divine right of monarchs.

King Charles 1st faced his execution with courage and dignity. “January 30, 1649 was a bitterly cold day. Charles went to his execution wearing two heavy shirts so that he might not shiver in the cold and appear to be afraid.” Can’t imagine parliamentarians facing death with such bravery and fortitude.

To say a monarch is subject to the whims of mere mortals in Parliament rather than an immortal God, is to undermine the very nature of monarchy. To say monarchy is powerless is synonymous with ‘God is powerless’.

Agreed.what she is doing right now is not democracy.

Bloody hell.

No, the Monarchy hasn't literally been Divine Right for centuries and this was settled by the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

Not only is Parliament Supreme, but it IS Parliament who literally keeps the Monarch on the throne. Not even anti-Monarchists dispute this fact.

Hence why the door is slammed shut in the face of Black Rod every year and why the Monarch is NOT allowed into the Commons.

You would have a point if we had an Absolute Monarchy, but since we have a Constitutional Monarchy.....you don't actually have much of a point there.

Less hyperbolic rhetoric and more focus on how things are actually done in terms of Constitutional Law.

As for your Titanic reference, nobody at White Star Line or Haarland & Wolf actually said anything close to that. That is a phrase that first appeared in newspapers AFTER the sinking. And has been attributed to several people without evidence too.

Elaborate.

No, the Monarchy hasn't literally been Divine Right for centuries and this was settled by the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

I’m saying Glorious Revolution of 1689 settled amongst non-divine people means very little because the whole idea of Divine Right is that it comes from God (or something divine), not people. Divine right is not granted by Parliament (because they are not the givers of divine right… ).

Black Rod can slam the door on the monarch… but not the divine (divine can probably walk through doors like a ghost, you know, Holy Spirit ghost… 😝).

So how can parliament (or people or anyone not divine) claim to have removed the monarchy’s Divine Right to anything? It’s not their place.

Divine Right is not Parliament’s jurisdiction. To suggest so is ludicrous…

And even if Glorious Revolution of 1689 claimed to have settled the Divine Right matter then, you don’t know if God decided to reinstate divine right. That’s God’s prerogative with divine right…

My point is. You don’t know. No one knows Divine Righty things. That’s a spiritual matter and above Parliamentary sovereignty.

Well, whether any deity has taken a view on what countries should have monarchs and who those monarchs should be is pretty debatable given that divine right was claimed by anyone with vague ties and/or a good army.

However, where power lies in the country in practice is neither a spiritual nor theological matter, it's a constitutional matter. It was after all the Convention Parliament that enabled the Restoration, and it was under the Stuarts that the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty was firmly established in law (the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement are two key laws) and has been tested a number of times.

Whether or not a deity put monarchs there in the first place is highly debatable, but what isn't up for debate is that modern British monarchs reign not through divine will but at the will of the people, as expressed through Parliament, even through such seemingly minor matters as the government of the day backing the King's proposed radio address during the abdication crisis to 'put his side'. Parliament (via the elected government) put limits on what the monarch could do when it clashed with constitutional principle or convention (and of course ultimately led to the abdication.)

If all these monarchs did indeed reign by divine right and said deity is narked about those who have been murdered, had their monarchies abolished or merely had them democratically neutered, he or she is taking a fine old time to show his or her displeasure over the dwindling number of absolute monarchies in the world...

(Sorry that was incredibly lengthy. In short - it doesn't matter what the deity wants. Parliament decides.)

Deities tend to intervene through creating ‘events’ rather than policy and political decisions. Events outside human control too, which reminds parliament of their limitations (and that’s actually healthy for checks and balances).

Parliament deciding to do something that upsets a deity is more likely to result in creating an opposition of events.

Events are an opposition to be reckoned with.

So whilst Parliament may may political policy decisions, the deity can respond through events. Good way of keeping Parliament in check.

Modern day Example. Conservatives got in with a major victory in 2019. The Labour and other opposition is weak. All looked great for conservatives until… pandemic struck. The ideologues of Downing St now face the opposition of events

Pandemic was also worldwide and impacted other politics too. Partly because pandemic impacted economy and economy influences how people vote etc. For example, many think Trump would have won a 2nd term had the pandemic not happened… there’s a domino effect.

Deities tend to intervene through creating ‘events’ rather than policy and political decisions. Events outside human control too, which reminds parliament of their limitations (and that’s actually healthy for checks and balances).

Parliament deciding to do something that upsets a deity is more likely to result in creating an opposition of events.

The deity in question has been pretty lax over the last few centuries then, haven't they?

(I am taking a massive leap here by appearing to condone the concept of interventionist deities or deities at all; in fact I don't. But even if deities existed, the evidence seems to be against them having decided a millennium ago that groups of families should be in charge, with small amounts of change based on handiness with a sword.)

Doesn't recent evidence instead support the idea that the divine right actually sits with Parliaments?

(anyway I suspect you're actually on the wind-up now, because that second sentence I quoted is such pure nonsense that you could only have typed it for fun.)

@JassyRadlett ”divine right was claimed by anyone with vague ties and/or a good army.”

Like how the British monarch is Commander in Chief of the Army, Navy and Air Force?

Traditionally, the link was that divine right came with having God on their side. Parliamentary sovereignty is a bit useless on the battlefield…

As above. Deities tend to intervene by creating events.Success is also down to luck and events outside human control. The theory is that a god favours a person with divine rights and that’s where monarchy ideas come in.

@JassyRadlett ”Doesn't recent evidence instead support the idea that the divine right actually sits with Parliaments?”

Maybe that’s God’s way of recognising that the British monarchy don’t serve a real purpose if they have no power in the constitution.

So, maybe the divine right does sit with parliament now (after reviewing how little the Monarchy serves God’s purposes if they’ve got such little power).

Traditionally, the link was that divine right came with having God on their side.

So God always backed the winner? Therefore the divine right transferred to Parliamentary systems when they beat the kings. Thanks, God!

Parliamentary sovereignty is a bit useless on the battlefield…

Tell that to Charles I.

Or James II, or Bonnie Prince Charlie, or Louis XVI...Wilhelm II, Karl I, the divine right didn't do any of them much good against various Parliamentary systems.

(Also traditionally, going back to the biblical origin, that's not what divine right meant, but I know you're on the wind up so let's pretend that that's not the case!)

Ah good. We agree that the divine right of kings is basically bollocks invented to give authority to whoever's in charge during periods of greater religiosity and superstition. Hurrah!

@JassyRadlett “Deities tend to intervene through creating ‘events’ rather than policy and political decisions. Events outside human control too, which reminds parliament of their limitations (and that’s actually healthy for checks and balances).

“Parliament deciding to do something that upsets a deity is more likely to result in creating an opposition of events.

“The deity in question has been pretty lax over the last few centuries then, haven't they?”

The events of the last few centuries includes two world wars. God tends to be linked to war memorial stuff for a reason…

The British monarchy were on the winning side in both major events. That’s part of the reason they survived whilst other monarchies disappeared.

Nope.

Because I said Maybe.

This is a discussion. Not an agreement.

I also said maybe to suggest God might shift attention from the British monarch to parliament… go where the power to influence really is.

@JassyRadlett traditionally, going back to the biblical origin, that's not what divine right meant

That’s interesting. What did the biblical origin of divine right mean?

The events of the last few centuries includes two world wars. God tends to be linked to war memorial stuff for a reason…

The events of the last few centuries have also included the swiftest improvements in technology, life expectancy, health and standards of living in human existence and the longest uninterrupted periods of peace on the European continent; the peak of the divine right era had endless wars, a whole bunch of plague, famine, short life expectancy, horrible infant mortality rates... I don't know, seems to me that God might be up for a bit of constitutional moderation.

The British monarchy were on the winning side in both major events. That’s part of the reason they survived whilst other monarchies disappeared.

Oh so it's only the British monarchs who have the divine right thing? (They lost a fair few other wars over the years, by the way...)

We seem to be back on the 'you can tell who God favours because they're the winners'.

Could it be they survived because they realised they didn't have divine right and they reign by consent, and that constitutional systems overall do better in armed conflict than autocracies? That does seem to be borne out by evidence; you have to really stretch the argument to fit your 'God was on the side of the winning kings' argument.

Thanks for this OP, you're brightening up my sick day...

You need to read your 1 Samuel!

And then Romans, which popularised the concept that whoever's in charge was put there by God - so according to Paul, it's not the divine right of kings, it's the divine right of whoever's in charge right now. And Jesus of course told Pilate that his power was 'given from above.'

Of course all this is at odds with Enlightenment values, on which most modern western systems are based, which champion the principles of equality and of governments representing the people and governing by their consent.

(Why do I often know more scripture and church history than Christians when it comes to theological debate?)

@JassyRadlett ”The events of the last few centuries have also included the swiftest improvements in technology, life expectancy, health and standards of living in human existence and the longest uninterrupted periods of peace on the European continent”

All those improvements were impacted by the world wars… Wars tend to drive advancements in technology (such as Turing’s machine). Health standards improve through wars and caring for soldiers (Florence Nightingale and the Crimea War).

The longest uninterrupted periods of peace was a consequence of the world wars in Europe. One of the Remainer points was that leaving the EU risked destabilising the peace in Europe (which too many forget is a recent thing post-world-wars).

If you want to think about God in terms of recent events and a domino effect: Brexit (potentially risking the peace in Europe), then pandemic crisis and now war in Europe.

Why do I often know more scripture and church history than Christians when it comes to theological debate

I’m not a Christian… But your pointers are useful, so thanks. I’ll check it out.

Also, wasn’t St Paul saying that about ‘divine right’ to end Christian persecution? Christians were being viewed as revels and that’s what was leading them to persecution. By telling his fellow Christians to accept their leader, then he was encouraging peace in society to allow Christianity to flourish and seem less threatening to the political authority. That’s what I recall…

Of course all this is at odds with Enlightenment values, on which most modern western systems are based, which champion the principles of equality and of governments representing the people and governing by their consent.

That’s interesting because academic theologian Karen Armstrong argues that the Enlightenment is exactly when religious people got the idea that God was reducible to a knowable thing ie. a fact. So the Enlightenment perverted the ‘God’ project. Which is based faith and spirituality not fact.

“For millennia religion was not seen primarily as a series of propositions to which one was required to assent ("God exists", etc). Instead, it was a commitment to a particular way of living. At its heart lay a sense of ineffable divinity - an ultimate transcendence that was beyond understanding, beyond words, beyond even such concepts as existence or omnipotence. This ultimate transcendence was called "God" in the monotheistic religions. Although beyond knowing, some degree of contact with divinity was possible through ritual, symbolism and a variety of meditative practices (not just straightforward meditation as in Buddhism, but also theological reflection, philosophy or even the constant practice of humility and generosity). Contact with the ineffable helped people rise above worldly suffering and adopt a more compassionate way of life; it enabled them to become human in a fuller, richer sense.”

Karen Armstrong’s work is very detailed. She’s written a load of books “History of God” etc.

Work checking them out if you’re interested.

^ Crimean

The more likely it looks that she will lose an election then the less likely she is too call one. Face it we're stuck with her for the next 2 years unless the economy crashes and she resigns.

^rebels, not revels

Sorry about typos

Or she’s no confidenced. Rumour has it that the 1922 committee is already receiving letters.