86 thoughts on “A SCOTTISH LEGAL VIEW”

  1. We should all be very grateful to the doris and his exceptional crew.
    They just tell the englanders anything and can change their statements t will.
    Just get back in your wee box, they are in charge, can write any law to suit their agenda.
    Get it into your wee mind, you don’t matter in their scheme, you are just a wee colony.
    You were taken over 300 years ago, bought and paid for and your own fault if your fellow wee colny dwellers ran away with all the gold.

    Surely our fellow countrymen and women must see the destruction of our nationality, law system, religious system, education system or maybe not

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  2. Well said, Ms. Cherry.

    Yet again, asinine Little Englanders contrive to destroy that which they claim to treasure. They already lost most of Ireland that way, and before it, America. The writing is on the wall for the Precious Union…

    It occurred to me yesterday that the argumentum ad absurdum of the bonkers, top-down Westminster notion of English sovereignty – i.e., the monarch-in-Parliament or some such nonsense – would be satisfied if Her Majesty, a sprinkling of MPs and a lord or two went for a private meeting in a bunker below the House of Commons basement and at the same time as Weapons of Mass Destruction eliminated every other person in the United Kingdom of GB & NI. If we Scots, on the other hand, with our (relatively modern, i.e., post-1707) appreciation of our national sovereignty as reposing in us the people, were to be wiped out, then our sovereignty would be gone too, which seems only right and proper.

    I noted that Ms. Cherry rebuked the Lord Advocate of Scotland for talking about breaking laws in unacceptable ways. I too would like to know how to break laws in a manner which the Lord Advocate would find acceptable… well, apart from tax evasion on a massive scale as practised by so many of the Great and Good of the land, we all know that that’s not so much perfectly fine among the British Establishment these days as de rigueur.

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    1. Ed, you’ll get an idea of how the lord advocate operates from this article.
      https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/lord-keen-qc-in-breach-of-core-duty-but-cleared-of-misconduct/5101978.article
      A fire arms offence…found guilty…convicted…fined… a subsequent tribunal into professional misconduct:

      “Earlier this afternoon the tribunal heard that Lord Keen did not commit a ‘truly criminal act’ when he forgot to lock up his shotgun and therefore has not diminished public trust. Addressing a three-man panel, Tom Richards, of Blackstone Chambers, said Lord Keen’s firearms offence was an ‘entirely inadvertent and one-off lapse’ which ‘was not a serious offence’. He stressed it was a regulatory offence as opposed to a ‘truly criminal’ one. “

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      1. Well done, Jake.

        I wonder if it would have been such an unimportant matter, had it been a lower and lesser being?

        And while we are on the subject, has there been any outcome of the sexual assault allegations against a Tory MP in the Strangers’ Bar and associated toilet facilities beforte the last election.

        And what of the case of the Tory Mp accused of sexual assault on a member of staff in the commons?

        Why one rule for Alex Salmond and one rule for Tories?

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        1. Nothing so far about the former MP for Aberdeen South not about the technically unnamed recent case though many have pointed out he appears to have voted for the Infernal Market Bill (as I insist on calling it). However a different former Tory MP has been been jailed for 2 years for sex offences.

          https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-54161766

          I’ll be expecting Kirsty Wark’s exclusive any time now, NOT.

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      2. I lifted this quote below from from an article by Graham Ogilvy in “Scottish Legal News”.
        He refers to the US political scientist Frank Wilhoit, who said: “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: there must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

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    2. Well, Ed, I’m trying to work out how I can do a bit of shop lifting… and maybe garage lifting and get myself a new car along with plenty of new clothes … all acceptably, of course!

      Munguin says, don’t forget the champagne.

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    3. Sorry to be pedantic ed, and please correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Joanna Cherry was talking about The Lord Keen of Elie Q.C, Her Majestys Government Advocate General in Scotland, not James Wolff, Q.C, Scotland’s Lord Advocate. Hope I’m correct. No offence intended.

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      1. I expect you’re right, Alex – no, I’m sure you’re right, I stand corrected, and I neglected my due diligence in accordance with my sworn oath as a former UN translator and editor. My apologies to Mr. James Wolff, QC! My mistake, and no offence intended. Any offence was committed by Lord Keen of Elie. Inadvertently.

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  4. Last week , handcock had a go at the naysayers complaining about his boss’s 10 million a day moonshot testing programme. The were laughing at him.
    Today he tells us that 100,000 a day is a challenge.They’re not even doing that number.
    Now it seems that the Lab staff are in the main Uni students working of short contracts and are now going back to their studies.
    They need hundreds of new qualified lab staff, oh yes lots have returned to Europe.
    The media give them an easy time.
    Anybody have any info on what happened to ross the trouser hand jiver?

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    1. Maybe Mr Ross is working on Covid Tests…

      From day one we have heard about how fabulous their test and trace system was… world beating… the one that drained your battery and wouldn’t talk across the Android/iPhone divide.

      Everything they have done has been…excuse the language… shit.

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  5. I hadn’t seen this before I wrote to John Lamont (I have the misfortune to be a constituent of his) asking pretty similar questions.

    Needless to say his reply was a piece of puff about how important it was to protect Northern Ireland and save the union. Evasive to say the least, I don’t believe he read my questions at all, he certainly never tried to answer them.

    Great stuff from Joanna Cherry, I wasn’t a fan but her knack of getting to the important parts of an argument have been growing on me rapidly of late.

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    1. Oh dear… you have my sympathies on that one. Still, it cold be worse, it could have been Andrew Bowie, surely the dimmest of all Tory MPs, quite a challenge!

      I’m still unsure how it will protect Northern Ireland (presumably the same Northern Ireland that no one in the Tory Party gave a second thought to when they were taking back control of their borders and sealing up well against all these dreadful foreign people.

      Actually, there were some Tories who thought that Ireland was a part of the UK so, I guess, it’s more lack of brain than lack of thought!

      I imagine their staff have been issues with a template by Cummings’ people. I doubt that John Lamont (I nearly typed Joanne Lamont there) sees such dull things as mere constituents’ letters!

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      1. Somewhat tangentially, Tris, and I can’t remember who I heard it from or where, which is shocking because it was only a day or two ago, Garret FitzGerald reportedly says in his 1991 autobiography “All in a Life” that when the talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement began, the UK side would keep coming up with something new every time they met. Initially, the Irish thought that this was (I paraphrase, because I haven’t read FitzGerald’s book) a devilish wheeze by Perfidious Albion to keep them on their toes or bamboozle them, but pretty quickly they realized that it was because the Brits didn’t have a clue what they were doing. Cock-up rather than conspiracy, basically.

        Oddly enough (well, not very oddly, really), I used to know one of the Irish diplomats from the Permanent Mission to the UN in New York – a lovely man, I thought a great deal of him – who had been involved in those talks and said exactly the same thing to me. That was back when the talks were still ongoing.

        All a bit like these Brexit negotiations, really.

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        1. Interesting, Ed.

          They play at being big boys in the playground… important… Empire and all that.

          But in fact, they are a pile of amateurs who have a mixture of ego and pure and simple thickness.

          These ‘good’ schools possibly spend too much time Classics and too little on what’s actually going on.

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  7. In news you might have missed Barbados has voted to become a republic by November 2021. I guess it’s good preparation to get Betty used to losing the far away countries before the nearer ones “retire” her and dispense with her family’s services…

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    2. Ha ha ha ha ha…

      No apology needed. It was hilarious. Scotland is a land of free speech. She’s quite entitled to write her opinions, however ill informed they be.

      I’ve seen her tweets and usually they are good for a laugh, but I didn’t know she did a blog.

      If I were not so busy today, I’d go through the whole thing and pick flies off it. Most of what she wrote was palin wrong.

      Unfortunately I am up to my ears in work.

      However, the thing that amused me most about the blog was that bang smack in the middle I got an advertisement on how to retain your EU membership…

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    3. Batshit is right. The same Effie Deans recently complained that she spent hours trying to find Fort William because the Gaelic (An Gearasdan) on the bilingual road signs made it so difficult. People have pointed out that the name of the place in English is on those same bilingual road signs, there are only two roads in and out of Fort William, and it’s got a stonking great mountain right beside it, so if she still couldn’t find it she really ought not to be driving.

      I would add that the Scottish Government has no power over any of those things except the road signs, and even then the bilingual road sign thing was not brought in by the Scottish Government under the SNP but by Blair in response to a European directive about recognition of minority languages.

      I wonder if the anti-Gaelic types such as Effie Deans and Stu Campbell know that they’re associating themselves with Fragrant Arlene and her Marching Dinosaur-Deniers in the DUP over in Norniron, who are resisting all attempts to promote or use Irish there.

      I simply do not understand how other people speaking a language you do not know is any kind of threat to one’s “culture”: the process of acquainting myself with other languages, societies and cultures hasn’t affected my Scottishness at all, though it’s certainly made me a better person.

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      1. Well said, Ed.

        I noticed the sign (and Ive seen them myself) reminding people in several languages, to drive on the left. Given that a more normal place to drive is on the
        right.

        I wonder if the dafty thinks that that sign should be in English only.

        Imagine the conversation in the visitors’ car:

        Ich weiß nicht, was dieses Schild sagt … Lass uns gehen. Oh … dieser Lastwagen fährt links … ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh BOOM!

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  9. A twitter user claims to have inside info that the Daily Record deliberately kept the power grab off the front pages in case it increased support for indy!

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    1. LOL. Aye we’re not going to know because it wasn’t on the front page of the Daily Vow?

      Some interesting comments though, including one from Mike Russell that the UK has become far more hostile to Scotland since Mr Cummings was in charge.

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  11. OT
    Reports this morning that the rate of inflation has been calculated as ZERO POINT TWO %.
    Nothing to do with September being the month that the cost of living increases for next year’s benefits and pensions are based upon.
    The new nuclear plant in Wales is not being funded by the Japanese.
    Don’t go asking for a covid test, handcock has them on the ration book, to be released next year.
    Aren’t you glad that the doris team are looking after all you Scots who are getting £2000 a year more than the englanders?
    The streets of Scotland are truly paved with potholes.

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    1. Oh, that’s convenient, Dave.

      I wonder if they will have the nerve to up pensions by 0.2%.

      Imagine all the pensioners rushing to vote for a government that did that. It could be said that the next election, according to law, is over 4 years away… but according to Tory president is probably a matter of months away.

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  12. Remember the Triple Lock Tris,
    The lock that’s about to be broken.
    Already the media are saying it’s unfair on the rest of the population and that a less restrictive lock should be in order.
    Winning the election on oven ready deals and pensions to be protected are now not necessary as it’s 4 years to the next election, remember the rule, do all the nasty stuff early in the parliament and ease near the election.
    Rule number 2 is to leak out really bad information and then have a movement towards the bad.
    One government can’t hamstring a new government by having laws to prevent the changing of the law.
    Remind me what the position of an mp is, isn’t the mp an employee of the country and not an employee of a political party.
    I might just be detecting a very slight movement on the media I come in contact with as losing faith in the doris, his time is about to be up, Time To GO doris is the call. Gove in the driving seat as replacement PM, perhaps.

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    1. Yes, rumours abound that Johnson will go after the New year citing ill-health and will almost surely be replaced with Gove who is also in Cummings’ pocket.

      That should increase dissatisfaction in Scotland where he is roundly hated.. or at least I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t wretch at the mention of his name..

      I see one of Johnson’s newly appointed lords (unlike the Noble Baroness, this fellow has already changed his Twitter account to reflect his up and coming blood transfusion and elevation to the nobility) has tweeted:

      Lord Moylan
      @danielmgmoylan
      Hearing very disturbing rumours that barrister MPs have been receiving calls from heads of chambers and senior legal bods saying they’ll never work in the law again if they support the Internal Market Bill.

      Now why, your gracious elevated nobleness, sire, would that be disturbing news?

      QCs that break the law should be allowed to go practising the law? Is that what you are saying?

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  13. Well spoken Joanna, we notice that no one sniggers in a rowdy manner from the back benches at this lady.
    Perhaps some parts of our legal law can be maintained and respected,
    while Westminster and its cronies act like the mafia, laws are there to be broken and manipulated for them.

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  14. I wonder if we could get a ‘Scottish Label’ made up with “Product Originating in Scotland” and get Scottish businesses to use the label to distinguish their stuff from goods originating elsewhere. Would need Trademark protection and only approved businesses be abke to use it. This would help fcuk their Internal Market Bill as we would know the origin.
    Maybe there is something already out there that could be adapted for this purpose.

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    1. LOL I saw that. Amazed Stuart didn’t…

      But hey, who am I to talk?!

      Well, I’m beginning to think that he has a point. There is little reason for being there. MPs can still look after their constituents’ interests, as SF’s MPs do, without turning up in that jopke of a parliament.

      It’s an insult, for example that the PM gets up and walks out when the SNP leader is called. It’s an insult that the Scottish Affairs Committee is full of English Tories, while Scottish MPs aren’t allowed to vote on English legislation.

      The whole thing is a travesty, but, and I make no apology for saying once again, the whole British parliament thing is a travesty.

      Unelected monarch; House of Aristos including hereditary, semi-hereditary, bishops of one church, a state church, party donors, including rich but thick ones, ex-MPs who lost their seats being compensated, and a house elected by FPTP where a swayth of seats will never change hands… added to the fact that there are ways in which legislation can pass without ever going anywhere near these flawed chambers, by means of Privy Councils… and orders therein or thereof.

      What a 17th century joke. No wonder Rees Mogg feels at home there.

      I wonder what the Scottish public’s’ opinion would be if out MPs stopped going and worked entirely from home.

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      1. Just think how much it would speed up proceedings at Westminster if all the MPs could vote electronically from home, without queuing up to go through one of two doors for a head count! They could even be given the opportunity to vote Abstain, as opposed to not being counted at all.

        What an innovative and progressive step it would be, especially if they could do it from inside the Chamber as well, especially as there isn’t enough room in there for them all to get a seat, even when they’re not socially distancing!

        What a marvellous example that would be for all the Westminster wannabe Alþingis, parlements, parlaments and parlamentos those foreign johnnies go in for, not to mention those silly little regional talking shops in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales which the Sovereign English Parliament graciously allowed those verminous Jocks, Micks and Taffs to set up!

        Oh, wait…

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        1. Nay, Sirra, forsooth, surely t’would be beyond the ken of mankynde to devise such a scheme and likely the work of the very devil in God’s chosen parliament.

          Get ye gone, sir and make not such scurrilous statements again.

          Signed Jacob Rees Mogg.

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  16. Like many others in Scotland, we are all learning at a rapid rate what is the correct and lawful position of Scotland, the treaty, true sovereignty, how we feel as a nation about ourselves, what we were taught at school was not history in its purest form, and how we have all been kept ignorant and in the dark,
    My early school was run by one teacher, in the middle of a forest, on the west coast of Scotland, we obviously were taught her version of history, no other opinion interfered,
    I like many others in Scotland have had to re educate myself on true history, on our financial position, on the crone report,
    How scottish soldiers are put to the front as cannon fodder during wars, but we’re never allowed to hold the highest of ranks,
    How spies were sent to Scotland before and during the treaty of the union,
    And now in the present we are all still re educating ourselves to being aware of the manipulation of politicians, the underhand dealings, to the deviations of the rich,
    How private companies are given contracts behind the scenes, that were not tendered out. The dark monies, and the lies.

    Scotland has a history of great inventors, of great medical men, and great artists and engineers, comedians and actors. It shows that the nation of Scotland is more than capable to face the world in a more outgoing, inspiring and less introvert way,
    I am no leader, I am no orator, I am not a politician, I am not university book learned, but I stand behind and with every one in Scotland whom inspired and helped to educate me through blogs like these.
    The hard work, the contributors and blogs, the hours put in, the research and links to news items often goes unseen,
    It has to be said, I am proud of you all and you should be proud of yourselves.

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    1. That was a moving piece, James.

      Perhaps more people are beginning to understand now that they have elected a government which is so devoid of intelligence, intellect, talent or wit, with an agenda set by Cummings (and they tell me, Gove) with scant regard for or knowledge of, the law.

      I’ve never really understood the people who have believed the “we couldn’t manage without the might of England” garbage.

      Look at them… Johnson, Raab, Gove, Patel , Handcock, Cleverly, the list goes on. Utter jokes.

      I repeat that Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, to mention only the small countries that surround us, seem to manage very well without Eton and Oxford educated posh boys.

      And of course there are many more… Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Malta, Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Switzerland… etc. Not to mention the microstates.

      Of course we can do it on our own, and as members of EEA/EU/EFTA, whichever we decide, we won’t be entirely on our own anyway..

      I do honestly wonder if, out of the EU and probably the Council of Europe, England and Wales will manage. Certainly not with this bunch of utter failures in charge. I’ve read that Wales is starting to look at independence too much more seriously than before

      Anyone on Twitter I’d urge you to give https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire a follow. He is a dab hand at picking up all the nut job messes and frankly illegal awarding of contracts to ex-girlfriends and best buddies and the literally billions of pounds of our money wasted on them.

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        1. Ackshly, a suitable replacement source of income isn’t much of a consideration for his Lordship because his heels are already very well, as far as I know. Mind you, expenditure does have a tendency to exceed income, as Mr. Micawber so trenchantly noted. There’s been no suggestion whatsoever of bone spurs – as I said, the ex-Advocate General’s heels are very well; it’s only American presidents who get bone spurs – so Lord Keen (of Elie – is there any other kind of Lord Keen?) will be spared that particular source of misery.

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          1. Munguin has found that no mater how well your heels may be (and his heels are quite simply splendid) there is always space in the second hand gold storeroom, for a bit more.

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    2. He’s offered his resignation but there is talk that it is about misleading the HoLs rather than the international law bit!

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      1. Oh good, PP: I was off, but not by too much or too long. Jake, thanks for the link to The Herod.

        I’m sure this Brandon Lewis thing wasn’t the only factor behind his resignation, of course, but there’s only so much opprobrium and contumely that your average model of an Advocate General can stand, I suppose.

        I’m seeing reports too that MPs who are also barristers and QCs are receiving calls from their chambers and colleagues that if they vote for the Internal Market Bill they can forget about returning to careers in the law.

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        1. Yeah, some newly appointed Lard was bemoaning this on Twitter

          Lord Moylan
          @danielmgmoylan
          Hearing very disturbing rumours that barrister MPs have been receiving calls from heads of chambers and senior legal bods saying they’ll never work in the law again if they support the Internal Market Bill.

          Seriously, what did he expect? Break the law and come back and practise the law that you broke to make hundreds of thousand a year?

          They can’t be that dim, surely, even if the newly Noble Baron is.

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    3. LOL… Yes, well done Lord Keen.

      I expect they’ll promote some useless erse licker like Muddle, who was a county solicitor and knows a deal about conveyancing and trees overhanging other people’s gardens…

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  19. https://www.ft.com/content/1b448e05-f7b3-4d0a-8048-7400d073c206?accessToken=zwAAAXSXkLvYkc8bRI4F97NNCtOASHQA0HPCBg.MEUCIAiWkw-UxCiYtUMl3ImjQolnt1bo4fqjmU6MXNsMFE_uAiEAxG2o6JSulsy6xrRoly6e_p1Uxnil7WCtHC2BFRQcbvQ&sharetype=gift?token=ba84b6ca-c525-4f3a-90aa-c88029f8bd8c

    John sent me this article from the FT. As it points out the treaty-breaking part may or may not pass into law, but the damage has been done.

    The doubts of trust, the “perfidious Albion” reputation resurrected in all foreign dealings including with the EU (this is a government that reneges on treaties as and when it pleases), and internally, particularly because there have been resignations, people may see their MPs as lawbreakers on a matter that other MPs saw fit to resign or rebel upon…

    I’m looking at you, Dross and the rest of your diminishing group of 4th raters.

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    1. I don’t necessarily agree 100% with Terry on everything, Tris, but as we all know he is one helluva smart cookie, so I shall try to prod my little grey cells into some sort of action for a spot of further analysis

      I did very much appreciate one laugh-out-loud moment from Terry which gave rise to a spontaneous guffaw here at Schloss Freeman: “…appointed Stuart Campbell as Minister of Non-Binary Affairs”.

      Perfect. “Non-Binary Affairs” … I think I’m a bit past it for one of those, but I’m sure Stu isn’t.

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  21. Johnson says UK will impose reciprocal tariffs on EU goods in event of no deal

    So first the UK shoots itself in the foot 🦶 and if the EU dares to challenge the UK they will shoot themselves in the other foot that will show them .

    Not sure 🤔 a majority in the UK
    Want to die on a hill chosen by the Brexiteers .
    They of course are welcome to but don’t drag us along with them

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    1. Smart lad, that Johnson bloke, eh.

      That’s how one did it in the dorms in Eton you know. It another chap put a frog in one’s bed, on put a frog in the chap’s bed… or a pigs head, if one had a scotch name like Cameron, for example….

      Well, Niko. This was what the man won his 80 majority on. Notably, he lost more than half his seats in Scotland.

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    2. I’m sure anyone with proper training in psychology will poke what I’m about to say full of more holes than there are in Scotland’s roads, but please rest assured that I know my limitations!

      So, if political parties were people, and not just made up of people…

      That whole “I’m going to hurt myself and then you’ll be sorry” thing is indicative of deeper psychological issues, dysfunctions, disorders, call them what you will. Some people are simply unable to take responsibility for anything they feel or even do. It’s more common among people with an authoritarian mindset – personal observation, not based on anything scientific and peer-reviewed – and it is dangerous because, among other things, it can provide a cover for real hatefulness. Such a person may, for example, hate black people or gay people, but because of that handy Blame Some Else feature, the person is blind to their own responsibility for their own feelings, and blames the victims for their hatred, not themselves.

      To look at it another way, if that’s the way the person thinks, then trying to get them to really look at their own prejudices rationally and analytically is a real uphill struggle, because they have no real insight into what’s going on in their own mental and emotional processes.

      Trying to get through to such people is a waste of time and energy because they don’t, won’t and can’t hear you: I imagine it’s like trying to explain colour to a person blind from birth who doesn’t want to know anyway. People with personalities like that are toxic and therefore best avoided, in my experience: it takes something quite earth-shattering to force them to rethink themselves, and it’s not something the rest of us can do for them, even if we had the right or the responsibility to, which we don’t.

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      1. Insightful, Ed.

        The thing with politicians or rather political parties is that, if they say “I’m going to hurt myself”, you’d be inclined to say, “well, clean up after you and shut the door with a key on your way out. I’m off to read my book.”

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        1. Thanks, Tris.

          I’m not one to make fun of suicidal ideation – far from it – but sometimes the only correct answer to emotional blackmail / histrionics / attention-seeking shite of the “If you don’t do x, y and z I’ll kill myself” sort is “Ta ta, then”.

          Which is what the EU’s response to the latest shenanigans from the scofflaw BoCum regime will be, alongside completing its contingency plans to assist its own citizens and businesses that will be adversely affect by that regime’s stupidity, incompetence, grandstanding, brinkmanship, mendacity, arrogance and xenophobia.God, I so loathe this post-truth, post-fact political and social environment of propaganda, lies and spin!

          It’s beyond Scotland’s ability and absolutely not its responsibility to fix what ails England, nor should we even try, above and beyond applying moral suasion. Though the EU in general and the Irish in particular do have the ability to compel the regime to change its illegal and unbecoming behaviour through the threat of sanctions of one kind or another, they are bound by the same rules of international law which the regime has declared its willingness and even intention to violate.

          That means that we won’t see the use or threat of force prohibited under the UN Charter – not least because the UK is a Permanent Member of the UN Security Council and that is not likely to change anytime soon. The reason it won’t change is because the status quo suits the other members – the US, Russia, China and France – just fine. The French will certainly not willingly give up their membership while the UK remains a member of the Council, whatever their concerns about the democratic deficit in the Council which itself threatens international peace and security by alienating major players such as India and Brazil.

          The status quo particularly suits Russia, whose regime is happy with anything that sows discord and division both between and within European States in particular and within and between NATO members in general. The Russian regime has no qualms about breaching international law, and Donald Trump… As for the Chinese, just ask an Uyghur, or a freedom-loving native of Hong Kong.

          In the final analysis, the UN is as powerless to impose international law as the old League of Nations was, and the way it is set up gives the Permanent Members of the Security Council carte blanche to do as they will: if you can veto any attempts to impose global sanctions on you through the Security Council, you have nothing to fear from it. Russia most certainly proved that by invading Ukraine and annexing Crimea.

          Law-abiding States are hamstrung by their own commitment to abide by the rule of law, which is still better than the alternative. An international free-for-all is as undesirable as citizens of any polity deciding that they’re all going to forget about obeying the law, even if they intend to do so only in the most specific and limited ways. It could also kill us all.

          The exceptions to our duty to abide by the rule of law arise when the laws themselves are unjust. When that’s the case, we as individuals have a moral obligation to stand against them. The late John Lewis and Elijah Cummings of the civil rights movement in the USA are shining examples of that, and I’m sure Munguinites can think of many others.

          I particularly like John Lewis’s phrase “good trouble, necessary trouble”. Here’s the trailer to a movie / documentary about his life which I hope to see soon: https://youtu.be/z_oEkOdIXdo.

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          1. Thanks Ed.

            THe composition of the UN Security Council Permanent Members is an interesting topic. I’m not sure why there ARE permanent members. Why? Are these countries more important than other countries? Or do they just think they are.

            I can perhaps understand why, if they had to be there, those were chosen back when the UN was set up.

            But the world has changed in 70 odd years, beyond all recognition and it seems to me to be as outdated as royalty and nobility.

            As a person with experience of the UN, what do you feel about that?

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            1. The Permanent Five owe their status to the UN Charter (1945), and were the victors in WWII (in Russia, the Great Patriotic War, and in China the Second Sino-Japanese War). For a long time they were the only nuclear-weapon States, with the exception of China, which started developing nuclear weapons only after the Indians developed theirs.

              I remember the moment when the representative of India at meeting of the UN Disarmament Commission in New York told the meeting in so many words that if the nuclear-weapon States among the Permanent Five did not commit to complete nuclear disarmament, India would develop its own nuclear weapons. I remember it particularly well because I was doing my 10-minute take for the verbatim record of the meeting right at that moment. And so it did, and then Pakistan and China followed, though China has been very strong in trying to prevent further nuclear proliferation.

              The UN reflects the will of its Member States, and if the Member States don’t want to abide by the liberal-democratic consensus that prevailed for decades after WWII, there’s not much we can do about it. When a founder member such as the US or the UK starts dismissing the UN as irrelevant – as Dubya Bush and the neocons did over the Second Gulf War – not only does that threaten international peace and security (a phrase from the Charter), it undermines the whole enterprise. It is a political and moral environment in which criminality and corruption flourish, e.g., Abu Ghraib, children in cages on the US/Mexican border, extraordinary renditions, murder of civilians by indiscriminate bombing, looting of the treasury by cronies, interference in democratic processes, and many other abuses. Worse, it sets not only a bad example to other States but a precedent, and promotes vile behaviour not just by States but by Little Hitlers everywhere. The fish rots from the head…

              The authoritarian regimes which go in for breaching the rule of law internationally really ought to realize that if they do, they lose the right to complain when others do it. Alas, there’s no easy way for the governed to shut down hypocrisy and malfeasance in governments, particularly when those in power control the media to deave people with propaganda to drown out and silence opposition voices using the many tools which the State can call upon, down to the murder of opposition politicians and independent journalists.

              Those who believe in the ultimate, infinite and untrammelled sovereignty of the British Parliament are in fact operating under the delusion that might makes right. The adults among us understand that although there are many things we can do, the fact that we can do them is not in itself a reason to do them. The reasonable Tory MPs who voted with the Opposition against the withdrawal bill a year or so ago were kicked out of the party and replaced by political hacks and Brextremists, who thanks to the FPTP electoral system now have a thumping majority. As a result, the Westminster parliament has been reduced to a tool and a rubber stamp for a foul regime that lacks any moral compass and has only as much care for the effects of its actions on the rest of society, and the consequences of its lies, its lawbreaking and its lack of impulse control, as any truly sociopathic personality. The next step is to stuff the judiciary with supporters and take away its power to put any spokes in the regime’s wheel.

              Donald Trump (cf. cults of personality) is only the most florid example of the type: they come in a variety of flavours, but they’re all still shites.

              This is me shutting up again now.

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              1. Yes, quite…

                I wonder if they thought, back then, that it was impossible for the world to change.

                After all, they may well have decided that only nuclear powers could be on the PMSC, and that these countries would represent others in their sphere of influence: USA, the Americas; Soviet Union, the Communist states; China , Asia; France, Europe and the French Empire and the UK, The British Empire…

                Russia only represents Russia; China only China; France and Britain only France and Britain and the USA, only America.

                Seriously, does Britain, in voting, give a damn what India thinks, or Ghana… Does France care what Luxembourg thinks; Does the USA ever consult Bolivia?

                I don’t see why any nation would be permanent and hold a veto.

                It suggests that for example France in more important than for example, Germany, which is plain nonsense.

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  22. Whoops, I am scrolling through comments and putting likes in some good comments, being left handed and hovering ready to scroll up I ended up liking myself, now that is just bigheaded. Mighty me, hanging ma head in the shame.

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Hey, what’s wrong with liking yourself?

      If you desperately want to unlike yourself, I think reclicking will do it… But don’t feel obliged.

      We’ll just talk about you.

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  23. Hahaa, well you know now, I will just try to be in less of a hurry next time,
    That might be tomorrow, M o t for car, rush to make it liscenced( different town) visitor in afternoon, then got appointment, and official paperwork to do,
    Might be incoherent by that time anyway here,lol

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

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