On procedure and politics

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined

A Parliament, by any other name…

In an earlier post, I vented about the Canadian media’s tendency to declare the results of recent elections “minority governments” even before it emerged what sort of government would be formed. I wrote that it would be preferable to refer to outcomes wherein no party won a majority of seats as a “hung parliament”, as [...]

Australia: Where to From Here?

This will seem very lazy on my part, but I am simply going to link you to an excellent blog post by Antony Green on what might happen next following the hung parliament outcome in Australia. To refresh everyone’s memory, the seat count following last week’s election is 72 Labor (incumbent party), 73 Coalition Party, [...]

Australia’s election and AV opponents

While the vote counting isn’t quite over yet in the recent Australian election, it is certain that the country will have a hung (or if you prefer, balanced) parliament in its lower house, the House of Representatives. Currently, the two main parties each have 72 seats, while one Green party member and four independents have [...]

Musings on rep by pop

In countries with representative democracy, we elect people to a legislative body to represent us. The representatives form an independent ruling body (for an election period) charged with the responsibility of acting in the people’s interest, but not as their proxy representatives, that is not necessarily always according to their wishes, but with enough authority [...]

Thoughts on the monarchy

While campaigning during the course of a general election campaign in Australia, Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Julia Gillard stated: I obviously am a Republican. I believe that this nation should be a republic. I also believe that this nation has got a deep affection for Queen Elizabeth. What I would like to see, [...]

Mr. Wright is wrong

After three consecutive elections that have resulted in minority government in Canada (2004, 2006 and 2008), Ipsos pollster John Wright states in a video interview that nothing will change until legislation to add 32 new seats from the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario is passed and comes into effect two elections from now. [...]

Parliamentary Privilege: Overview

I would like to begin a discussion on the topic of parliamentary privilege. My initial idea is that this will result in a series of posts, with the first, this one, explaining what is meant by parliamentary privilege. The classic definition of parliamentary privilege is found in Erskine May’s Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings [...]

Loose cannon or plain speaker?

In a recent column, Con Coughlin asks if David Cameron becoming  the new Bush because of a series of foreign policy-related gaffes the British prime minister has made in recent weeks: First there was the diplomatic rift with Israel over David Cameron’s description of Gaza as a “prison camp”.  Then there was the outrage in Islamabad [...]

Link sharing

I have a couple of ideas for posts, but not the time to work on them at the moment. In the interim, I thought I would share some interesting links with you. The Spectator’s Alex Massie wrote what I thought was a very interesting piece on the so-called Ground Zero Mosque (“The Ground Zero Mosque? [...]

Clegg’s spending cuts reversal revisited

In a recent BBC documentary about how the UK Coalition government was arrived at, viewers learned that Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat Party leader Nick Clegg told BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson that events “between March and the actual general election” changed his mind on economic thinking, meaning deep and immediate spending cuts are [...]

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