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Who owns Parliament?

whoownsengland.org

201–210 of 210 posts

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#201
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason for the Queen to prorogue parliament when Boris was clearly lying about it --he was avoiding democratic dissent against him-- is to avoid making a kerfuffle that risked setting Tories against Royalists (these groups being largely coterminous). Basically, I felt she might be a person of upright morals and firm beliefs right up until that point; then she proved she's just doing everything to keep the mo…

One wonders who the Queen's "advisors" are. They surely hold enormous power for how unknown they are.

The "deep state" nature of the Queen's advisers[0] is the second dirtiest secret of the British monarchical system, after Queen's/Prince's Consent.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privy_Council_of_the_United_Ki...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen's_Consent#Vetting_of_bil...

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#202
post #122
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could get rid of the monarchy tomorrow and ordinary britons would notice zero change in our political and democratic freedoms. They are politically irrelevant, a few completely peripheral procedural and technical issues aside that make no real difference in the grand scheme of things. I'm not sure if that's an argument for or against keeping the monarchy to be honest. They're a historical vestigial appendage of th…

If I were prime minister I think having to have a private in-person chat with the monarch every week would probably have a profound impact on how I went about running the country on her behalf. It's like a schoolchild having to explain themselves to the headmaster.

The relevant observation here is that you, and most schoolchildren, and most prime ministers, have a capacity for self-awareness and a sense of shame.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#203
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s true of the US but ignores the fact only 3 countries in the world don’t have written constitutions - the UK, New Zealand, and Israel. I’m not being sarcastic when I say a lot of this is managed in the form of strange old traditions that, if stopped, would render the country fairly useless till they’re all codified somewhere.

Don't Canada and Sweden also lack written constitutions?

"According to ... the Constitution Act, 1982, the Canadian Constitution consists of the Canada Act 1982 (which includes the Constitution Act, 1982), acts and orders referred to in its schedule (including in particular the Constitution Act, 1867...), and any amendments to these documents."[0]

"The Basic Laws of Sweden (Swedish: Sveriges grundlagar) are the four constitutional laws of the Kingdom of Sweden that regulate the Swedish political system, acting in a similar manner to the constitutions of most countries. ... Together, they constitute a basic framework that stands above other laws and regulation, and also define which agreements are themselves above normal Swedish law."[1]

You're right, though, that sounds a lot like the arrangement that Israel has, and the Wikipedia article for the "Basic Laws of Israel"[2] says (without citation):

"Israel is one of 6 countries (along with Canada, New Zealand, San Marino, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom) that operates entirely or in part according to an uncodified constitution..."

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Canada

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Laws_of_Sweden

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Laws_of_Israel

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There in the UK you've had a republic for some six or seven centuries, your kings are mere entertainers hired and fired at will, as Charles I found out. You do have a ruling class, but monarchy is not your problem. The Roman senators hated the Caesars with good reason, they gave the people too good a deal.

England has had a de facto republic for about 350 years - since the end of the English Civil War.

Meh, I'd set it at the Magna Carta, but OK, sold, I know when I'm getting a good deal ;-)

This "constitutional monarchy" thingie has to be the most bare-faced ... ah, "truth" since comrade Augustus informed the Senate that the Republic was working normally.

Must be "turn-about is fair play" at work.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#205

> The Crown Estate Commissioners have done this under the terms of the Land Registration Act 2002, which allows the Crown to register an interest in otherwise unregistered land. This is wild to me. What do you mean "unregistered land" ? How the hell can you have been a nation for centuries and still have land that no-one owns? How can you be uncertain about who owns a piece of land? How can you have disputes? Every s…

So the Govt doesnt always know who owns bits of land, there are companies who make it their business like this website to find out who owns what and they are used by supermarkets and other property related businesses for land bank purposes. One of the biggest databases of who owns what in this country belongs to a company not far from Swindon! If you are a landowner, one of the ways to reduce your tax bill is to work…

> So the Govt doesnt always know who owns bits of land

This is completely bonkers to me.

Isn't this the main purpose of government? Of a nation? How can you defend property rights without having some kind of authority that knows who owns a certain property?

And from some kind of IT perspective, keeping a national computer database of property ownership is trivial, has been trivial for decades, and a paper-based database has been trivial for centuries?

> One of the biggest databases of who owns what in this country belongs to a company not far from Swindon!

And you're not nationalizing this because...?

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the Govt doesnt always know who owns bits of land, there are companies who make it their business like this website to find out who owns what and they are used by supermarkets and other property related businesses for land bank purposes. One of the biggest databases of who owns what in this country belongs to a company not far from Swindon! If you are a landowner, one of the ways to reduce your tax bill is to work…

> So the Govt doesnt always know who owns bits of land This is completely bonkers to me. Isn't this the main purpose of government? Of a nation? How can you defend property rights without having some kind of authority that knows who owns a certain property? And from some kind of IT perspective, keeping a national computer database of property ownership is trivial, has been trivial for decades, and a paper-based datab…

> This is completely bonkers to me.

So you need to look into the City of London, the Magna Carta, the Remembrancer and realise that the UK is the only parliament where an unelected body can veto everything Parliament votes on! That is the power of the City of London, but it doesnt advertise this fact for obvious reasons, but its why this country holds onto to its ceremonies so much.

> How can you defend property rights without having some kind of authority that knows who owns a certain property?

So the City & Guilds is a City of London thing, and tradespeople have been used for hundreds of years to act like a secret army. Well its the tradespeople who do the City of London's bidding because a master tradesman can introduce planned obsolescence into pretty much any work carried out. For example, a plumber could leave some flux on a copper pipe and over the years this will corrode into a tiny pinhole where water drips out and slowly ruins a part of the property. Now are you going to inspect every inch of copper pipping in your house?

The plumber will have had their money and long since gone. You get another plumber in, they identify the problem and repair it typically without explaining how or why it happened. These are tricks of the trade which get used for repeat business. The best one's are listed on the stock markets!

Some renters may be more familiar with saturated animal fats left down the sink when leaving, pretty much everyone who is good at their job has some sort of malicious compliance, and you can read about that on Reddit.

Now the beauty of all this is, some problems are actually red flags but you wont always know they are a red flag. Its like a form of stealth communication in plain sight and free speech is a licence to gossip and gossiping involves rumours which can be used to inflict psychological harm on their victims. Its surprising what the law does not allow as evidence in court.

>And you're not nationalizing this because...?

You obviously dont know how whistle-blowers get treated. I'm sure you are familiar with the phrase "accidents happen"?

One of my first lessons as a kid given to me was keep my mouth shut by pain of death.

However it would be remiss of me to not point out that Govt NHS, Military & Police are not engaged in their own forms of criminality as well.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately not politically irrelevant at all. The Queen has directly interfered in legislation, and she also has a weekly chat with the PM every week. It's unlikely they talk about tea and biscuits. But the real issue is that the Queen legitimises hierarchy and privilege. Instead of modelling democratic authority and meritocracy, she models the opposite - vast inherited wealth and land ownership, without accountab…

"She is also the head of the armed forces, who swear an oath of loyalty to her personally - not to Parliament, and certainly not to the people of the UK." Speaking as someone who was just such a person (although at the time I did it, in the service I was in, there was no loyalty oath at all), while I can see the issue with this, I would really not have felt comfortable going on record as loyal to parliament or the th…

[deleted]

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#208
post #20
post #3

Super interesting article but nearly unreadable font for me.

That is a problem you can easily fix yourself in a variety of ways. The easiest is to use your browser's reader mode.

Yeah I scaled it up about 10x and then I could read it. Just figured I'd post the critique in case the author read it here.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have a non political head of state. I’m not sure I see any benefit in us switch to a system like Italy or Germany.

I am not British, so I have no skin in the game. But the issue in general is not the fact that there is a head of state with a mostly-ceremonial role, it’s all the baggage that comes with the monarchy (detailed by others in this thread).

I find the general feeling here is that the system isn't perfect, but none are really and what we have has worked for a long time and there isn't much desire to change it.

We'd just be switching for the baggage of an elected head of state and I'm not sure there is any stomach here for another issue that divides so deeply after going through the Brexit campaign/process.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Constitution has been regularly amended since the beginning. Your claim that it would be heresy falls flat here. 2nd amendment ruined society, exactly how? The US still enjoys the largest economy and military in the world respectively. Religious and personal freedoms are codified in law. What is in ruins?

I didn't claim that amending the constitution was heresy. I claimed that removing the second amendment is heresy. And I stand by that. [edit: on re-reading, the above is not true. I meant to claim that removing the 2A was heresy. My bad] Look, this is just an opinion, but from the outside looking in, your society is frankly awful at looking after its people , and the everyone-gets-a-gun made sense a few hundred years…

You claimed American society was in ruins. You have failed to support that claim.
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