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Who owns Parliament?

whoownsengland.org

31–40 of 210 posts

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#31

Here in the UK we're one day into a two day extra 'bank holiday' for the Queen's jubilee (70 years). Seems a good time to remind people of great sites like these, places that take the time to gather the evidence that reveals the truth behind royalty - descendants of thieves and murderers still profiting off the proceeds of their ancestral crimes, with their only 'qualification' being an accident of birth . We've neve…

> We've never been a democracy I’ve definitely heard it argued that the brief commonwealth between Charles I and II was the first modern democracy, where ‘modern’ means a system somewhat like current democracies rather than ‘after 1500’.

May be of interest in relation to the opaque nature of British history -

The City of London’s strange history Lord Glasman on what the Romans did for the Square Mile

https://www.ft.com/content/7c8f24fa-3aa5-11e4-bd08-00144feab...

Alway interesting to try to read the tea leaves on the relationship between the two UK entities who run the two sovereign states - the palace and the city of London

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#32
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

You could allocate only "software update" capability to one group, "execution" to another, and have a permission system for deciding who can do what.

But what if the execution program took on a conscience of its own and decided to appropriate software update permissions for itself?

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#33
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some republics in Europe that did indeed overthrow their royalty/aristocracy...

And others that thought they did, only to find that they were the arms and legs of an even more brutal and incomprehensible regime.

And eventually those nations got rid of those too.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#34

Here in the UK we're one day into a two day extra 'bank holiday' for the Queen's jubilee (70 years). Seems a good time to remind people of great sites like these, places that take the time to gather the evidence that reveals the truth behind royalty - descendants of thieves and murderers still profiting off the proceeds of their ancestral crimes, with their only 'qualification' being an accident of birth . We've neve…

Of course it's underserved. But the person of the sovereign in the British system can be a unifying figure impossible with an elected Head of State. Don't agree? Just look at how the red half of the US talk about Obama and the Blue half talk about Trump.

I really don't care about that.

I also don't care about how dutiful the Queen is and what she's sacrificed to the role - though to be clear I do believe both those things at a personal level.

It doesn't matter what incidental good it accomplishes if it goes against the fundamental principles of equality.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#35
post #17

It might be nice for Parliament to own their own building but England more generally has a real problem where normal humans have a hard time owning the property their homes are built on, with all sorts of fun fun fun fun fun ground-rent renewal politics. Reforming those is more impactful and urgent.

Good news. Ground rent is going to be banned from the end of this month on new leases. It'll take a while for it to be eliminated completely but it's firmly on the way out. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/future-homebuyers-to-be-f...

Except the government has only done the bare minimum for leasehold reform, and has seemingly abandoned the more ambitious plans it had promised for this session of parliament[0]. As for the Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Act 2022, it's worth reading the small print:

"Certain types of leases are also excepted by the LRGRA 2022 such as business leases, statutory lease extensions of houses and flats, community housing leases and home finance plan leases. The LRGRA 2022 will not apply to leases granted under contracts entered into prior to the commencement of the Act, unless in accordance with an option or right of first refusal."[1]

[0] https://nationalleaseholdcampaign.org/leasehold-reform-broke...

[1] https://www.keystonelaw.com/keynotes/the-end-of-residential-...

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#36

Here in the UK we're one day into a two day extra 'bank holiday' for the Queen's jubilee (70 years). Seems a good time to remind people of great sites like these, places that take the time to gather the evidence that reveals the truth behind royalty - descendants of thieves and murderers still profiting off the proceeds of their ancestral crimes, with their only 'qualification' being an accident of birth . We've neve…

Today is a regular bank holiday. Only the Friday bank holiday is extra.

I thank you for the correction.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#37
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…

> They are politically irrelevant, a few completely peripheral procedural and technical issues aside that make no real difference in the grand scheme of things. At the very least they own huge parts of the country, and the Queen has (and exercises as per recent Guardian stories) vetos and opt-outs of the laws the rest of us must follow. Regardless of that, even as a basic principle our country reeks of deference and…

They get 25% of crown estate profits, but I’m not sure they really ‘own’ that land per se. And in general, the elite own a huge amount of the UK (most notably Oxbridge colleges with incredible land ownership). We can make a case to take ‘back’ the Queen’s private or crown estate land, but why just them? IMO, casting judgement on what historic ownership is ‘rightful’ is really hard.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#38
post #22

We’re a constitutional monarchy AND a democracy. The monarch is the disabled root account of the nation. The government is the sudoers

Sounds like the system would be simpler if we removed root and gave capabilities to the sudoers instead. Edit: why does the disabled root account allocate so much RAM?

The root account was written when it was fashionable to be object-oriented, so its resource allocation is all due to inheritance.

Scotland in particular is upset because of certain issues due to multiple inheritance.

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#39

We’re a constitutional monarchy AND a democracy. The monarch is the disabled root account of the nation. The government is the sudoers

Love this analogy. As a Canadian...we have the same monarch, but our own Constitution / elected officials. So...we are ourselves in the sudoers file...but surely we are different under this analogy than our UK brethren? What are we a VM with sudo root?

Re: Who owns Parliament?

#40

We’re a constitutional monarchy AND a democracy. The monarch is the disabled root account of the nation. The government is the sudoers

>The monarch is the disabled root account of the nation. The government is the sudoers

except, even with "disabled root account", you can do "sudo su" to get a root shell. What's the equivalent of that in uk?

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