How Westminster Works . . . and Why It Doesn't

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If no one party has absolute power then all parties need to co-operate with each other, and that makes for better government. This system fulfils the basic purpose of democracy, currently absent at Westminster, which is to ensure parliament represents the broad spectrum of political opinion across the country.

This deeply personal and supportive series offers listeners an honest and relatable insight into how some the UK's best-known celebrities have coped with mental health difficulties, ranging from OCD to insomnia, addiction to grief, and depression to anxiety.He is a columnist for the i newspaper, host on the Oh God What Now and Origin Story podcasts, and regularly appears as a political pundit on TV and radio. The consequence of Grayling’s privatisation was a breakdown in the capacity of the probation service to keep tab on probationers, resulting in a spike in reoffending. We have prime ministers who detonate the economy, secretaries of state who are intellectually incapable of doing the job and MPs who seem temperamentally unsuited to the role. When Billy can’t find the informant, he wonders if Kate is secretly harboring her, since the two grew close during Kate's weeks undercover.

Dunt describes how it appears to be a department with intellectual depth, providing independent monitoring of other departments without party political interference, able to challenge over-centralized government, providing effective scrutiny of ministerial failings. Such powers are rare in most other countries: in coalitions, ministerial appointments are normally part of coalition agreements. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with.A highly recommended read for those with an interest in finding out why the British political system appears so reactive to current events, having lost focus on building Britain for a great future. His final sentence is: “Change will not come from the generosity of those who benefit from the existing state of affairs.

PMs should no longer overrule the Appointments Committee, which should identify gaps in expertise and make appointments to fill them. This was the domain of the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, the man who didn’t realise Dover was important for trade with Europe. A highly engaging book that ultimately spells out one single morbid fact : there's no game plan, no cabal of bankers, freemasons or oligarchs secretly running the show- there is in fact nobody in the cockpit. This has long been known to be heavily biased, notably against women which has been exposed in detail over time but is not discussed here.The Commons being dictated by arcane and hard to understand rules and conventions, most of which enhance Government control and wither away scrutiny. Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself. Dunt notes that when the House of Commons was prevented from meeting in person by the COVID-19 lockdown rules, it met, and voted, on-line. The House of Lords should be allowed to scrutinize Treasury business and its civil servants need greater financial and economic expertise. The general theme is the dominance of machismo (exacerbated by winner takes all nature of the first-past-the-post system) and unnecessary rush in everything - from legislation to ministerial tenure that results in bad policy and terrible decision-making.

Within departments, a permanent public bill committee should establish a culture of cooperative work to improve legislation. One outcome Dunt describes was the poorly designed, expensive, inefficient disaster of Universal Credit, introduced in 2012. Its actions are normally cautious because the House of Commons could overhaul it, and there are limits to its powers: it can’t kill a bill, just delay it for one session. Now Caine delves into the real stories behind the gangs we think we know so well, revealing the hidden realities behind the myths. In The Coldest Case: A Black Book Audio Drama, homicide detective Billy Harney sends his new partner, Kate, deep undercover in a notorious Chicago drug ring.

Main Hi Kahaani Hoon”, an Audible Original is a weekly storytelling show of 20 episode from Audible, written-created-performed by Major Akhill Pratap; an ex-Army Officer popularly known as The Soldier and The Storyteller. However, Dunt argues that they have long had the potential to wield more power than leaders in many other countries because Britain’s first-past-the-post election system enables them to gain substantial majorities unlike states with Proportional Representational (PR) systems in which coalition governments are frequent, leading to compromise decisions rather than authoritarian power. There follows an “Interlude” in which he discusses the British withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, slower and less organized than that of other countries, as a “case study in incompetence” under Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab. They make them at the dinner table, or in a meeting room, where personal history, your own unique view of the world, ego, pride, marketing, and odd incentives are scrambled together. Things that work are the House of Lords and Select Committees, imperfectly, but they “encourage the best behaviour rather than the worst” (p.