Archive for jack straw
Votes for (some) prisoners to get a vote in Parliament
The House of Commons is set to vote on a motion from David Davis and Jack Straw opposing the government's planned response to judicial rulings about votes for prisoners.
Fixed-term Parliaments: better by standing orders?
Last week Malcolm Jack, the Clerk of the House of Commons, got a little flurry of media coverage for his evidence before a Parliamentary committee considering the proposed legislation for fixed-term Parliaments. “Parts of the government’s plans to bring in fixed-term parliaments are vulnerable to legal challenge” was how the BBC reported it. It is [...]
Blackburn Conservative leaflet stirs up controversy
The Guardian reports:
The Conservatives last night withdrew a leaflet targeted at Muslims that claimed Labour was complicit in “a whole saga of atrocities” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon.
The leaflet, published by Tories in Blackburn, where their candidate, Michael Law-Riding, is up against the justice secretary, Jack Straw, also predicted Straw would be likely to [...]
Lords reform: cynicism wins the day
In March, the House of Commons voted in favour of reforming the House of Lords making it either wholly or 80% elected.
In March too, Justice Secretary Jack Straw announced the a draft bill to reform the Lords would be published within weeks.
Only one problem. The first March was in 2007 and the second 2010. Three [...]
Was the Iraq war illegal?
STV reports:
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg says that the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War has provided enough information to suggest that the war was illegal.
Speaking on Radio Tay on Friday morning at the same time Prime Minister Gordon Brown was facing questions at the inquiry in London, he said: “I’m not a lawyer, but [...]
Ooops, Jack Straw gets it wrong on Parliamentary Privilege
The current fuss over whether Parliamentary Privilege will prevent three Labour MPs and one Conservative peer from conviction on charges of fiddling their expenses makes this comment from Jack Straw, made as recently as December 2008, look rather complacent: The interaction between the judicial system and parliamentary privilege is well settled. Not quite.
It’s Brown vs Brown on electoral reform
In a weird display of the mutual weakness at the top of the Labour Party, the Prime Minister and Chief Whip are in disagreement over Gordon Brown’s plans to legislate for a referendum on AV (which would be held after the general election).
Earlier this week the Parliamentary Labour Party debated the proposal and ended up [...]
More provisions of the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009 kick in
In a written answer in Parliament this week, Jack Straw confirmed that several more parts of the Polities Parties and Elections Act 2009 are now kicking in or will do so soon. There don’t look to be any surprises in the list and dates he’s given. Most importantly, the new election expense provisions with a [...]
The plans to cut election expenses may be dead but there are still lessons to learn
Blink and you might have missed it: first details of a discussion about ways to cut the costs of running elections are leaked and then Jack Straw promptly disowns them and kills off the discussion.
Given how weak the proposals were – and the relatively small sums involved – I think that was the right decision [...]
Daily View 2×2: 6 September 2009
Welcome to the Sunday edition of The Voice’s Daily View. And as it’s a Sunday, it’s also time for a multimedia chocolate extra. But first…
Big Stories
Straw admits Lockerbie trade link
Trade and oil played a part in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer deal, Jack Straw has admitted.
Speaking to [...]
