“Dignity, kindness, authority rather than bossiness, and I do believe that those things could be brought to the Chair by a woman.”
Remainer lawfare and Brexiteer backlash expose the judiciary to public and press scrutiny in unprecedented and possibly dangerous ways.
The ruling makes it much less clear which side the Supreme Court will take on Tuesday – and drags the judiciary deeper into political controversy.
If Benn and others seek to bind the Prime Minister to the letter of their Surrender Bill, then he should oblige – by following it in exacting detail.
Two different conceptions of it are widely held in the UK, representative and direct. In 2019, they collide.
The Party’s rules – and the history of legal challenges to them – make for grim reading for the former Chancellor.
But the odds of an early general election are shortening as each minute passes.
Ultimately, all these questions are intensely political questions on which only the electorate can make a judgement – and now probably only in retrospect.
Nor are they being entirely straight with us when they pretend they only want to stop ‘No Deal’, when in reality they want Brexit repealed entirely.
Some campaigners and commentators, particularly those who oppose Brexit, appear to have forgotten that this is a negotiation between the Government and the EU.
Davidson’s successors must not let recognition of her extraordinary achievements to turn into counter-productive myth-making and a counsel of despair.
Downing Street has spent the summer months diligently working through the mathematics of how to eat up as much time as possible.
Only yesterday they rejected a confidence vote. Today, in characteristically Cummings style, they are compelled to contemplate one.
Also: Labour’s civil war on Scottish independence deepens; Scottish Government pays Salmond half a million pounds in damages; and more.
Over the past few decades our constitution has been so corroded that the likes of Powell, Benn, Crossman, and Foot would struggle to recognise it.