Quotulatiousness

September 21, 2019

Sexton Tank Chat | Operation Market Garden 75 | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Tank Museum
Published on 20 Sep 2019

Here we have a Tank Chat special from the commemorative XXX Corps convoy for Operation Market Garden 75. See David Willey discuss the a Sexton from the Historic Collection of the Royal Netherlands Army, on location in the Netherlands.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ► https://tankmuseumshop.org/

Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Instagram: ► https://www.instagram.com/tankmuseum/
Tiger Tank Blog: ► http://blog.tiger-tank.com/
Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/

September 20, 2019

“Cliffs of Gallipoli” Part 2 – The Great War – Sabaton History 033 [Official]

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Middle East, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Sabaton History
Published on 19 September 2019

The second part of our coverage of the Sabaton song “Cliffs of Gallipoli” is about the brutal fighting that took place once the landings had come to a standstill. A stalemate similar to the Western Front caused thousands of Ottoman and Allied soldiers to have to endure endless charges, barrages, sniper fire in addition to the hot summer climate of South-Eastern Europe.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Watch Part 1 of Cliffs of Gallipoli here: https://youtu.be/oDac6Oswyns

Listen to The Art of War (where “Cliffs of Gallipoli” is featured):
CD: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarStore
Spotify: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarSpotify
Apple Music: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarAppleMusic
iTunes: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWariTunes
Amazon: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarAmz
Google Play: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarGooglePlay

Watch the Official Lyric Video of Cliffs of Gallipoli here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCe2…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Sourses:
– IWM: Q 13450, 2509-07, Q 13324, Q 13249, Q 13219, HU 57426, Q 13585, Q 13676, Q 13667, Q 13637, Q 13714, Q 13663, Q 13680, Q 13709, Q 13335, Q 13285, Q 13447, Q 56637, HU 105641, Q 13622, Q 13633, Q 13647, Q 13689, Q 13677, Q14394, Q 13625
– Australian War Memorial
– A soldier of the Indian Labour Corps courtesy of National Army Museum of New Zealand

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

September 19, 2019

Ancient technology: Saxon glass-working experiment

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Lindybeige
Published on 9 Aug 2019

Many thanks to Victoria Lucas for inviting me along to see her experiments in medieval glass-working. Fire! Craft! Mud!
Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige

Picture credits:

Natron deposit image
By Stefan Thüngen – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index…

Glass slab of BETH SHE’ARIM
Hanay [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)]

Palm cup
Reptonix free Creative Commons licensed photos [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)]

Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.

▼ Follow me…

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.

websites:
http://www.Lindybeige.uk
http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk

QotD: Parliament and democracy

Filed under: Britain, Government, History, Politics, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

In legal theory, the members of the Commons are representatives and they have the role that was enunciated in the famous letter to the electors of Bristol by Edmund Burke. “I owe you my discretion; I don’t merely owe you my vote.” That was nearly 250 years ago when there was no democracy and politics was run by a handful of families like the Marquess of Rockingham to whom he was the paid lackey (and by the way the electors of Bristol threw him out). There is a very vague relationship between Parliament and democracy. We have had Parliament for 800 years. We’ve had democracy for less than a century. And the great issue was: how do you reconcile the previous tradition of representative in a non-democratic Parliament with the position of delegate in a democratic Parliament. And the way it was dealt with — this is what all the fuss, all the things that we are talking about: Erskine May, A V Dicey, they all appear at a particular moment of time. They appear in the middle of the 1880s because it’s the 1884 reform act that introduces something like democracy.

But you see we’ve never worked out the relationship between the fact that we’ve got two sovereigns. There is the legal sovereign which is the Crown in Parliament and there is the real, political sovereign which is the sovereign people behind them. But what we did, and this is why Bercow’s behaviour is so disastrous; it’s why Theresa May’s behaviour has been so catastrophic: what we developed thanks to Erskine May and the Parliamentary Handbook and endorsed by Dicey, we developed a whole series of devices. They were conventions that turned MPs from more or less representatives into more or less delegates. And what are these things? They’re party affiliation. They are manifestos. They’re standing on a ticket and they’re being whipped when they’re in the house. That is the thing that binds them to the popular vote. No MP; Dominic Grieve was not elected in a personal capacity. He was elected because he stood as a Tory on a Tory manifesto which promised Brexit. That man did not dissent at the time. His claims to dignity, his claims to acting honourably, are totally false.

There are other rules in Erskine May about the procedures of Commons business which gives the government the basic control of the parliamentary timetable. Otherwise what happens is the house just dissolves into a talking shop. Becuase MPs have refused to vote for any deal: they’re strong in the negative but they’re hopelessly weak in the positive. They can’t agree on anything. We developed a series of conventions in the 1880s that turn MPs into something like the representatives of the people and what has systematically happened in this Parliament: we have broken those conventions.

Theresa May’s loss of the election and her absurd notion that you can keep people with completely contradictory opinions on a main platform of government policy in the same party broke down the whipping system. Bercow broke down the government’s control of legislation. And you’re left with this chaotic mess.

David Starkey talking to Brendan O’Neill on the Brendan O’Neill Show, 2019-09-15. (Transcription from The Great Realignment)

September 17, 2019

The Curator’s Dingo | The Tank Museum

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

The Tank Museum
Published on 16 Sep 2019

Most Curators don’t own armoured cars… David Willey, Tank Museum Curator, has owned his Daimler Dingo Scout Car for over 20 years. Find out how he came to own it and what he uses it for.

As part of the 75th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden, David will be driving his Dingo in a 200 vehicle convoy retracing the route.

Support the work of The Tank Museum on Patreon: ► https://www.patreon.com/tankmuseum

Visit The Tank Museum SHOP: ► https://tankmuseumshop.org/

Twitter: ► https://twitter.com/TankMuseum
Instagram: ► https://www.instagram.com/tankmuseum/
Tiger Tank Blog: ► http://blog.tiger-tank.com/
Tank 100 First World War Centenary Blog: ► http://tank100.com/

September 16, 2019

This is York – British Transport Film

Filed under: Britain, History, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 02:00

LMS4767
Published on 30 May 2019

September 15, 2019

The Nazi Invasion of Britain?! – WW2 – 055 – September 14 1940

Filed under: Britain, China, Europe, Germany, History, Italy, Japan, Middle East, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published on 14 Sep 2019

The Blitz continues as the German army seems close to the execution of Operation Sea Lion: the invasion of Britain.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN.
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Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory

Colorisations by Norman Stewart and Julius Jääskeläinen https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

Sources:
– IWM: E 7304, E 1400, CH 4972, E 12789
– Italian poster – James Vaughan on Flickr
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
3 days ago
What if the Germans had invaded Britain this week? We will probably never know, but we get asked to give our views on counterfactual history questions like this all the time. Many did that during our first Q&A session on Instagram last week. We had a great time answering many questions about the war, about TimeGhost and about the production process, and we’ll certainly do similar Instagram Q&A sessions again. If you don’t already, you can follow us by looking up @world_war_two_realtime or https://www.instagram.com/world_war_two_realtime/

Cheers,
Joram

Explaining Brexit to liberal Americans

Filed under: Britain, Europe, History, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

Andrew Sullivan tries to put the Brexit debate into terms that coastal, urban Americans can understand:

One of the frustrating aspects of reading the U.S. media’s coverage of Brexit is that you’d never get any idea why it happened in the first place. Brexit is treated, automatically, as some kind of pathology, a populist act of wanton self-harm, an absurd idea, etc etc. And from the perspective of an upstanding member of the left-liberal media establishment, that’s all true. If your idea of Britain is formed by jetting in and out of London, a multicultural, global metropolis that is as lively and European as any city on the Continent, you’d think that E.U. membership is a no-brainer. Now that the full hellish economic consequences of exit are in full view, what could possibly be the impulse to stick with it?

I get this. I would have voted Remain. I find London to be far more fun now than it was when I left the place. But allow me to suggest a parallel version of Britain’s situation — but with the U.S. The U.S. negotiated with Canada and Mexico to create a free trade zone called NAFTA, just as the U.K. negotiated entry to what was then a free trade zone called the “European Economic Community” in 1973. Now imagine further that NAFTA required complete freedom of movement for people across all three countries. Any Mexican or Canadian citizen would have the automatic right to live and work in the U.S., including access to public assistance, and every American could live and work in Mexico and Canada on the same grounds. This three-country grouping then establishes its own Supreme Court, which has a veto over the U.S. Supreme Court. And then there’s a new currency to replace the dollar, governed by a new central bank, located in Ottawa.

How many Americans would support this? How many votes would a candidate for president get if he or she proposed it? The questions answer themselves. It would be unimaginable for the U.S. to allow itself to be governed by an entity more authoritative than its own government. It would signify the end of the American experiment, because it would effectively be the end of the American nation-state. But this is precisely the position the U.K. has been in for most of my lifetime. The U.K. has no control over immigration from 27 other countries in Europe, and its less regulated economy has attracted hundreds of thousands of foreigners to work in the country, transforming its culture and stressing its hospitals, schools and transportation system. Its courts ultimately have to answer to the European Court. Most aspects of its economy are governed by rules set in Brussels. It cannot independently negotiate any aspect of its own trade agreements. I think the cost-benefit analysis still favors being a member of the E.U. But it is not crazy to come to the opposite conclusion.

More to the point, the European Economic Community has evolved over the years into something far more ambitious. Through various treaties — Maastricht and Lisbon, for example — what is now called the European Union (note the shift in language) has embarked on a process of ever-greater integration: a common currency, a common foreign policy and now, if Macron has his way, a common central bank. It is requiring the surrender and pooling of more and more national sovereignty from its members. And in this series of surrenders, Britain is unique in its history and identity. In the last century, every other European country has experienced the most severe loss of sovereignty a nation can experience: the occupation of a foreign army on its soil. Britain hasn’t. Its government has retained control of its own island territory now for a thousand years. More salient: this very resistance has come to define the character of the country, idealized by Churchill in the country’s darkest hour. Britain was always going to have more trouble pooling sovereignty than others. And the more ambitious the E.U. became, the more trouble the U.K. had.

QotD: “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my Browning”

Filed under: Books, Britain, Humour, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

This, attributed to Goering but rather indited by some other nutjob mediocrity, is among my favourite phrases. Often I cite it with glee. I know just what he meant; rarely has one the chance to empathize with Nazis. Monsters they were, but also human, and if we lose the means to recall what made them tick, we are disadvantaged against their successors.

Ditto with Islamic terrorists, incidentally. Unless we can see them, sometimes, from the angle that makes them most attractive, we miss the whole picture. Know the enemy, I say. The worst psychopath may offer to share some droll humour. It is my firm belief that even liberals and progressives can be charming, sometimes.

I wonder which part of Mr Browning’s works Herr Goering would reach for? Would it be an earlier work, as Paracelsus or Sordello? A later, such as Jocoseria or Asolando? Me, I think I would start with a dilatory romp through the Dramatic Idylls, then hunker down with The Ring and the Book.

David Warren, “Include me in”, Essays in Idleness, 2017-08-30.

September 13, 2019

“Cliffs of Gallipoli” Part 1 – The Great War – Sabaton History 032 [Official]

Filed under: Britain, History, Media, Middle East, Military, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

Sabaton History
Published on 12 Sep 2019

While the British were already dying by the thousands in the trenches in Western Europe, their high command decided to try to break the stalemate with an attack on the Ottoman Empire in the Dardanelles. This is the first episode on the Sabaton song “Cliffs of Gallipoli” about the Allied landings on the shores off Gallipoli.

Support Sabaton History on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Listen to The Art of War (where “Cliffs of Gallipoli” is featured):
CD: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarStore
Spotify: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarSpotify
Apple Music: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarAppleMusic
iTunes: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWariTunes
Amazon: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarAmz
Google Play: http://bit.ly/TheArtOfWarGooglePlay

Watch the Official Lyric Video of “Cliffs of Gallipoli” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCe2…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Markus Linke and Indy Neidell
Directed by: Astrid Deinhard and Wieke Kapteijns
Produced by: Pär Sundström, Astrid Deinhard and Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Executive Producers: Pär Sundström, Joakim Broden, Tomas Sunmo, Indy Neidell, Astrid Deinhard, and Spartacus Olsson
Maps by: Eastory
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Sound Editing by: Marek Kaminski

Eastory YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by: Reuters/Screenocean https://www.screenocean.com
Music by Sabaton.

Sources:
– IWM: Q 57165, Q 1309, Q 515124, Q 13550, Q 13411, Q 53319, Q 13297, Art. IWM ART 4279, Q 112876, IWM ART 2452
– Photos of Ottoman Cavalry courtesy of the National Library of Israel
– Archives New Zealand
– New Zealand troops landing at Gallipoli taken by Joseph McBride

An OnLion Entertainment GmbH and Raging Beaver Publishing AB co-Production.

© Raging Beaver Publishing AB, 2019 – all rights reserved.

From the comments:

Sabaton History
2 days ago (edited)
Thats right, “Cliffs of Gallipoli” will be featured in not one but two Sabaton History episodes! The next episode will dive into a different but equally perspective of the battle.

Joakim already mentions it in the call to action of this episode, but we’re making Sabaton History Special Editions of all the older Sabaton albums, just like we did with The Great War. Those who support us at a certain level on Patreon before the end of November will be rewarded with the Sabaton History Edition of the Sabaton album Heroes. Check out our Patreon page to find out more! -> https://www.patreon.com/sabatonhistory

Cheers!

Why You Wouldn’t Want to Fly The First Jet Airliner: De Havilland Comet Story

Filed under: Britain, History, Technology — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Mustard
Published on 1 Dec 2017

Air travel before the Jet Age wasn’t always glamorous. The relentless noise and vibration from a piston powered propeller aircraft often made long flights even more exhausting. Most aircraft also couldn’t fly high enough to avoid bad weather, so air sickness was more common.

After World War Two, as part of an effort to develop its civil aviation industry, Britain stunned the world by unveiling the world’s first jet airliner. The de Havilland Comet was sleek, quiet, and flew higher and faster than any airliner of the day. As piston propeller technology was reaching its limits, the conventional thinking was that jet engines were too unreliable and produced too little power relative to their fuel consumption. But the de Havilland Comet proved that jet travel was the future. When the Comet entered service in 1952, it immediately began breaking travel time records and became a point of national pride for Britain.

The de Havilland Comet was perhaps little too ahead of its time. With such a clean sheet design, there were still lessons to learn. When early Comets suffered from catastrophic depressurization incidents, the entire fleet was grounded and their Certificate of Airworthiness was revoked. Flaws in the design of the aircraft’s fuselage were resolved in later Comet versions. However, the rest of the world was now catching up, and manufacturers including Boeing and Douglas began to offer their own jet airliners. While later version Comets served airlines reliably, they were outsold by competing aircraft. There’s no question However, that the comet paved the way. The British had taken a massive risk and brought the world into the jet age. #DeHavilland #CometAirliner #Airplane

Want to help Mustard grow? Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/MustardChannel

QotD: Orwell’s campaign against the jackboot

Filed under: Britain, Education, History, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Orwell’s press card portrait, 1943

In spite of my campaign against the jackboot — in which I am not operating single-handed — I notice that jackboots are as common as ever in the columns of the newspapers. Even in the leading articles in the Evening Standard, I have come upon several of them lately. But I am still without any clear information as to what a jackboot is. It is a kind of boot that you put on when you want to behave tyrannically: that is as much as anyone seems to know.

Others besides myself have noted that war, when it gets into the leading articles, is apt to be waged with remarkably old-fashioned weapons. Planes and tanks do make occasional appearances, but as soon as an heroic attitude has to be struck, the only armaments mentioned are the sword (“We shall not sheathe the sword until”, etc., etc.), the spear, the shield, the buckler, the trident, the chariot and the clarion. All of these are hopelessly out of date (the chariot, for instance, has not been in effective use since about A.D. 50), and even the purpose of some of them has been forgotten. What is a buckler, for instance? One school of thought holds that it is a small round shield, but another school believes it to be a kind of belt. A clarion, I believe, is a trumpet, but most people imagine that a “clarion call” merely means a loud noise. One of the early Mass Observation reports, dealing with the coronation of George VI, pointed out that what are called “national occasions” always seem to cause a lapse into archaic language. The “ship of state”, for instance, when it makes one of its official appearances, has a prow and a helm instead of having a bow and a wheel, like modern ships. So far as it is applied to war, the motive for using this kind of language is probably a desire for euphemism. “We will not sheathe the sword” sounds a lot more gentlemanly than “We will keep on dropping block-busters”, though in effect it means the same.

One argument for Basic English is that by existing side by side with Standard English it can act as a sort of corrective to the oratory of statesmen and publicists. High-sounding phrases, when translated into Basic, are often deflated in a surprising way. For example, I presented to a Basic expert the sentence, “He little knew the fate that lay in store for him” — to be told that in Basic this would become “He was far from certain what was going to happen”. It sounds decidedly less impressive, but it means the same. In Basic, I am told, you cannot make a meaningless statement without its being apparent that it is meaningless — which is quite enough to explain why so many schoolmasters, editors, politicians and literary critics object to it.

George Orwell, “As I Please” Tribune, 1944-08-04.

September 12, 2019

QotD: Canadians and Europeans

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Europe, Humour, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: — Nicholas @ 01:00

In the current issue of The Spectator, Niall Ferguson argues that the Anglo-American “special relationship” is doomed.

“The typical British family,” he writes, “looks much more like the typical German family than the typical American family. We eat Italian food. We watch Spanish soccer. We drive German cars. We work Belgian hours. And we buy second homes in France. Above all, we bow before central government as only true Europeans can.”

He has a point, though cultural similarities are not always determinative: Canadians eat American food, watch American sports, drive American cars, work American hours (more or less), and buy second homes in Florida. But they still bow down before central government as only true Europeans can.

Mark Steyn, Telegraph, originally posted to the old blog (no longer online), 2004-09-30.

September 8, 2019

Burn London, Burn it’s the Blitz – WW2 – 054 – September 07 1940

Filed under: Britain, China, Germany, History, Japan, Military, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:37

World War Two
Published on 7 Sep 2019

This week, the battle in the skies of Britain enters a new, even deadlier phase, as the crowded streets of London turn into a war zone. It is the start of the Blitz.

Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TimeGhostHistory
Or join The TimeGhost Army directly at: https://timeghost.tv

Follow WW2 day by day on Instagram @World_war_two_realtime https://www.instagram.com/world_war_t…
Join our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/D6D2aYN.
Between 2 Wars: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
Source list: http://bit.ly/WW2sources

Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory

Colorisations by Norman Stewart and Julius Jääskeläinen https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

Sources:
– IWM: SP 2553, FL 5186, H 23836, HU 93069, CH 19
– Colorization of Hugo Sperrle by Ruffneck88
– Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

Boris may have a viable escape hatch after all

Filed under: Britain, Government, Law, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

It could not only untangle the current mess in Parliament but have the almost equally attractive feature of sending his opponents into paroxysms of rage:

The consensus is that the Government is trapped in an iron vice that will now be tightened till it cracks. The truth, however, is that this vice is less of iron than of hot air.

The Civil Contingencies Act 2004 is a constitutional outrage. It allows a government to declare an emergency, and then to rule by decree. It should never have been made. But it was made; and it can now be used as an instrument of liberation.

The Act defines “emergency” as just about anything the authorities may dislike. One possible definition is “an event or situation which threatens serious damage to human welfare in a place in the United Kingdom.” (s.1(1)) This sounds a promising excuse. It seems to cover what the Opposition claims would be the effect of a No-Deal Brexit.

Triggering the Act requires no more than “a senior Minister of the Crown” – that is, Boris Johnson – to announce an Emergency. This done, he can make, alter or suspend almost any law he likes. (s.22) He can do this for a period of thirty days. (s.26) All he has to do is preface his decree with a statement that he “is satisfied that the regulations contain only provision which is appropriate for the purpose of preventing, controlling or mitigating an aspect or effect of the emergency in respect of which the regulations are made.” (s.20(5)(b)(ii))

He cannot change the Act itself, or the Human Rights Act. He cannot set up concentration camps for his opponents, or put them before a firing squad. But the Fixed Term Parliament Act is fair game. He could suspend that. Then he could dissolve Parliament in the traditional way.

He must, “as soon as is reasonably practicable,” lay his decrees before Parliament. (s.27(1)(a)) No doubt, the Parliament we have would punish him with an Act of Attainder. But this Parliament would no sooner reassemble after the prorogation than it would be dissolved. The Speaker would barely have time to open his mouth. Assuming the general election went as hoped, the next Parliament would not be inclined to dispute the circumstances of its birth.

All the opposition parties would go screaming mad. But, as said, we are not talking about concentration camps and firing squads. The only use of the Emergency would be to give a voice to the people. Who could legitimately deny that? As for sharp practice in general, the opposition parties have spent this year turning the Constitution upside down. Who could complain if the Government now joined in the fun?

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