Posted on 06/13/2003 6:46:53 PM PDT by The Hon. Galahad Threepwood
[Poster's note: Telegraph news story and leading editorial on the subject.]
Modern isn't the same as good, Prime Minister
By Tom Utley
(Filed: 14/06/2003)
You can tell a lot about the sort of person you are from your reaction to the news that Tony Blair is to brush away the 1,400-year-old office of Lord Chancellor, with a flick of his wrist. Did you, like the Guardian, rub your hands together and think: "Yippee! That's one in the eye for the old fogeys! At last Britain will be able to hold up its head in the modern world"?
Or did you, like me, feel a sudden weight on your heart and think: "What does this jetsetting piece of Eurotrash think he's doing to our country?"?
Whatever you felt (and perhaps you felt nothing), you must surely agree that Mr Blair goes about his constitutional changes in an extraordinary way. The sensible, the rational approach to reform is first to ask what, if anything, is wrong with the present arrangements. The next step should be to assess the public demand for change, and to consider what adjustments should be made to put right what is wrong. Only then should a government begin to think about implementing its reforms.
Mr Blair sets about these things in quite a different way. First, he decides that he doesn't like the look or the sound of something - the Lord Chancellorship, the House of Lords, fox-hunting, the pound - without bothering to inquire whether it works, or whether people like it. Next, he announces that he is going to abolish it. Only then does he start to turn his mind to what might be put in its place and what might work better.
It hardly seems to occur to the Prime Minister to ask what should be the first questions - the ones about whether anything is wrong with the present arrangements and whether they work. When it does occur to him, he just trots out his favourite words: what is wrong with the constitution as it stands, he will tell us, is that it is not sufficiently modern.
Somebody really ought to try to cure Mr Blair of his habit of speaking of modernity and modernising as virtues in themselves. It is as if he thinks that a Cadbury's Creme Egg McFlurry is more delicious than a gin and tonic, simply because it was invented more recently. Damien Hirst's bisected cows, Mother and Child Divided, are certainly more modern than the Madonna of the Pinks. But only Mr Blair would argue that this makes Hirst a greater artist than Raphael.
"Modern" is an adjective that describes anything that is happening now. So any innovation that Mr Blair chooses to make is by definition modern. That is not to say that it is necessarily either good or bad. At my children's insistence, we have recently acquired a huge, digital, widescreen television, an amazing machine that gives a much better picture than the old one and does a dozen things that the old one couldn't. It is decidedly modern, and good. On the other hand, Charlie Falconer's Millennium Dome was also very modern. Enough said. (All right, it wasn't his Dome - but he couldn't think of anything to put into that empty shell that anybody wanted to see.)
When Mr Blair goes on insisting that whatever is modern must be good, all he is really saying is: "Anything that I do must be good." That is patent rubbish. Almost everything that he has done so far in the field of constitutional reform has been ill-thought-out and disastrous, from the establishment of the vastly expensive Scottish and Welsh assemblies to the cock-up over Lords reform and the incorporation into British law of the European Convention on Human Rights.
If only the Prime Minister had applied the proper test to the Lord Chancellorship - does it work well? - he would have realised that it passed. He tells us now, trying to rationalise his dislike of any institution with a long history, that he is getting rid of it because he is concerned about the independence of the judiciary. He says, through his spokesmen, that he thinks it wrong and anomalous that a member of the Cabinet should be responsible for appointing judges.
Ask him, however, if he thinks that the Lord Chancellor's powers have in fact politicised the judiciary, and he would have to answer no. For the truth is that British judges are among the least politicised in the world. They are not chosen for their politics, as judges are in many other countries where the separation of the powers is more obvious, but only for their distinction as lawyers.
This is one of the great paradoxes of the British constitution, as it has evolved over the ages: where the scope for abuse has apparently been enormous, there has been almost no abuse at all. Successive lord chancellors have always been on their best behaviour when they have appointed judges, knowing what an outcry there would be if they chose the cronies of the governments in which they served. Far from seeing themselves as the political masters of the judiciary, they have behaved like shop stewards for the judges in the counsels of the Cabinet.
The independence of the judiciary may be much more at risk from a system that seems to divide politics more cleanly from the Bench. I can see a future Constitutional Affairs Secretary bullying the judiciary in a way that a Lord Chancellor would never dare. In the same way, the powers of the monarchy under the present constitution are theoretically enormous. In fact, of course, no monarch would ever exercise them fully, because that would be the end of the monarchy. It may sound irrational, or even daft. But it works, as it has worked for many centuries.
No doubt the Prime Minister rejoiced to read yesterday's leader in the Guardian: "Fourteen centuries swept away in a day. Bravo for such boldness". My own sympathies lie with the Bishop of London, the Rt Rev Richard Chartres, in his sermon at this week's annual service of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor.
"What we celebrate is ancient," he said, thinking of the 50th anniversary of the Coronation. "[It] stands for deep continuities and rituals without which people become disoriented and cannot change purposefully, but are doomed to directionless and exhausting flirtation with novelty.'' He's got Tony to a T.
Just to remind people that Tony Blair, for all his help on Iraq, is still fundamentally a radical left-wing wrecker.
[I really hope this wasn't posted already. I made a serious effort to find it, assuming that someone else would have posted it.]
I'm no expert on the British public, but I suspect they won't care. I'd love it if a Brit could reassure me on the matter (where's MadIvan when you need him?).
The Lord Chancellor is responsible for the fair and efficient administration of justice in England and Wales. He also presides over the House of Lords (like the Speaker in the House of Commons). However unlike the Speaker, he is not responsible for maintaining order during debates nor does he call upon Lords to speak as the order of speaking is pre-arranged.
His department appoints or advises on the appointment of judges and magistrates. It is responsible for the impartial and efficient operation of the Crown, County and Appeals courts through the Courts Service. It is also responsible for many tribunals, including employment tribunals. Magistrates Courts are still locally managed, though the Lord Chancellor's Department sets their policy and legislative framework.
The Lord Chancellor's Department is also responsible for legal aid and legal services to improve access to justice, which are administered through the Legal Services Commission. It also promotes the reform and revision of English civil law. This department is the lead department on human rights, freedom of information, data protection, House of Lords reform and other constitutional issues. It is also responsible for electoral law, including the funding of political parties and the sharing of electoral data.
Om the other hand, I am no fan of the British royal family, and wouldn't mind seeing Blair and his party kick out the dysfunctional Windsors and turn the country into a republic (keeping the House of Lords for now with its current reduced powers).
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