OMG, another numpty who doesn’t understand the difference between dismissing a government and dissolving a parliament
Oh good grief. This time it is David Davis. How many times does this have to be explained?
The requirement for a 55 per cent majority to dissolve parliament, and thereby dismiss a government,
No! No! No! No!
50 per cent + 1 to dismiss the government.
55 per cent to dissolve the parliament.
…dramatically reduces the ability of Parliament to hold the executive to account.
Unmitigated bolderdash. It is quite the opposite. It increases the power of parliament over the Prime Minister, preventing the PM from calling an election when it suits him and enabling the formation of an alternative government if the existing one fails a no confidence vote.
Consider what the reaction would have been if, say, the Lib-Lab coalition of the 1970s had introduced such a measure. It would have caused public uproar, and rightly so. Such a change would have allowed the failing Callaghan government to stay in office despite losing the confidence vote in 1979.
Complete and utter undiluted drivel! The Callaghan government would still have had to resign but Parliament could have attempted to form another government if it so wished.
Imagine a future government that loses its absolute majority. Under these rules it could lose decisions in the House time after time by as much as 60 votes, and still stay in office.
Absolute crudzilla! A no confidence vote of 50%+1 would still cause the fall of that government and allow parliament to form an alternative government.
By contrast, altering the circumstances under which a Parliament can dismiss a failing government is a massive constitutional change.
You’ve just completely and utterly misunderstood this, dear man! It’s 55% for dissolution of parliament. 50%+1 remains for the dismissal of a government.
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4 Responses to “OMG, another numpty who doesn’t understand the difference between dismissing a government and dissolving a parliament”
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Burbler-in-chief
Somehow I’m having trouble resisting the thought that a lot of these people are actually perfectly well aware of the reality of the situation, but are wilfully misconstruing it for their own purposes.
I know David Davis is a Tory but the biggest crocodile outrage on this has come from Labour.
We already have very successful fixed term parliaments in Scotland and Wales where the threshold for dissolution is 67%. I’m willing to lay bets that if Labour had got back in and made good its manifesto promise for fixed term parliaments that the threshold would have been based on the Scottish model.
And they have the nerve to call us opportunists.
Andy Hinton
Somehow I’m having trouble resisting the thought that a lot of these people are actually perfectly well aware of the reality of the situation, but are wilfully misconstruing it for their own purposes.
Lord Falconer joins in with the numptiness in today’s Guardian.
Now, I used to be one who thought a lot of things were all conspiracy because people couldn’t possibly be so stupid to say them and really believe them, could they?
It was the recent economic crash which liberated me from that thought pattern. It was stark-staringly obvious that the crash would come in much the form it did come, indeed I myself had carefully reorganised my financial resources as best I could to make myself crash proof when I looked at the pattern in 2005 and thought “right, this is it, crash next year” (I was a year early). Yet it seemed people paid millions to get this right hadn’t thought it through. We had a government even which really like all the rest thought an economy based on everyone selling their houses to everyone would generate real wealth forever.
So, in general now, when I see Labour and Tory people saying something stupid, I don’t think they’re pretending. They really are stupid.
Er…… isn’t the point that in our unwritten gentleman’s fudge of a constitution, there has been a convention that dismissing a government by confidence vote leads directly to a general election. This change ends that convention and leads to the situation you describe. Parliament therefore, loses the power to threaten a general election with 50%.