Anyone who studied real law in the last 70 years has heard of Lord Hewart's " The New Despotism" in which he belabours the pusillanimity of Parliament and the tendency of the executive to the accretion of legislative power. Nothing has changed ; I bet that the Coalition will end up in the same place as all othe rgovernments , greedy for legal authority , afraid of debate , achieving the end through dubious means. I have a first edition ; Hewart is right and a good read

Henry VIII: Stalin without technology.

A written, secular, egalitarian, human-rights enshrining constitution for the UK could very well lead to the codification of democratic principles and the socialization of power, which would never do would it. Many parties and politicians are reluctant to even contemplate the UK having a modern democratic constitution, never mind a representative electoral system that counts rather than weighs votes.

All elected governments pull up the drawbridge as they enter office, it is the very nature of the seige mentality; that constant preparation for the final year in power and the inevitable election. Whatever means can be found to extend the stay of an unpopular regime is fair game... if you can get away with it?.. more fool 'them' (us)
That, of course, is the issue. We allow interlopers like Cameron to alter ( at the drop of a hat ) the majority of members required to force a vote of no confidence. Did you vote for that? Was it ever raised as a point prior to the election... by anyone? Nah, the spirit of that old bugger lives on in the hearts of (choke)... I'm finding it difficult to find the words ( that will pass moderation )... com'on folks , help me out!

It's ridiculous that the executive is able to make laws that completely bypass parliament. I think that overarching constutional reform is required to banish these "clauses" along with other undemocratic aspects of the British political system, most notably unelected members in the upper chamber.

If we're going to consider changing the voying system then why not overhaul the whole lot?

The great thing about Henry VIII is that he took no nonsense from coin clippers, counterfeiters or those who threatened the stability of his funds. Quantitative easing? Billion groat bailouts? I don't think so.

Heads would be on spikes, the bodies having been torn apart on the rack to be boiled alive for public entertainment. Bankers, consultants and dodgy accountants would be rounded up to be fed to wild animals.

Henry VIII. Rest In Peace. Sadly missed.

It would certainly help prevent the forcing through of poorly thought out legislature in response to the latest tabloid outrage. I was almost amazed that a law banning offensive phone calls to ex-cast members of much-loved Britsh sitcoms wasn't rushed through....

Getting a bit bloody obscure aren't you?

At least move onto 1660 and the abolition of English democracy.

In passing, the perfectly named Lord Judge pointed out that the last government introduced 2,492 laws in 2009 alone. His real target was the executive's tendency to award itself sweeping powers to rip up and rewrite acts of parliament it dislikes, under the guise of greater efficiency.

Anyone still care to defend Labour from the charge of crafting a nascent police state?

Even the old king must be turning in his grave.

Given how fat he was someone should warn the servants in Windsor castle before they're scared shitless by the noise.

Oh and 'Lord Igor Judge'....indescribably priceless.

Can't remember him in "2000 A.D" though.

What a laughable suggestion. You need to go back way further to the Norman conquest if you want to see who really holds the power. Hell even "Norman Lamont's" parents couldn't think of a more original name from the past 900+ years of history.

Henry VIII by modern standards was certainly not a pleasant chap. However the discord he sowed during his reign opened society up to more "randomness"i.e. new ideas, new movements and new political ideas. It was a chaotic period by any sense of the word, and unfortunately we lost a lot of historical texts in the process, but society made a large stumble forward which was really starting to be felt by Elizabeth.

The period set England on a path none of us can change and nobody could foresee at the time,..

there is a theory that Henry 8 suffered brain damage in a fall at some famous knightly Tournament. The Cloth of Gold? It does seem consistent with the facts.

the late Robert Shaw was a brilliant Henry in A Man For All Seasons, FWIW.

There is a comment somewhere about the famous last, teriffying sketch of him by a Dutchman. He was fat by then od course. And his face was a distortion of ego.

having said all that, he did things that contributed to the modern world and he bred your greatest monarch.

ketts Oak.

Indeed."... Who are the Lords but William's Colonels?...", as the Levellers pertinently asked in 1648. And got hanged for it.

If I was King of the World I would not allow my parliament to make a new law without repealing an old one. We are infested with new laws. No-one knows them all. The presumption that a citizen knows the law has become nonsensical.

Its not just new law either. There is a river of subsidiary legislation pouring out of Whitehall that completely by-passes parliament. Off with their heads.

On a trite note, you say “The Tudor rogue was buried in Windsor in 1547 and by all reports he remains there.” Not quite.

The stone coffin of Henry VIII is in Cardinal Wolsey's tombhouse. It was opened in 1813 in the presence of the Prince Regent and found to contain only the skull and limbs. The body is somewhere else.

Its the curse of the Statutory Instrument. The Henry V111 clauses allow governments to do things that should properly require primary legislation. SI's were never intended to allow ministers to make wholesale legislative changes without parliamentary approval, but it is parliament itself which has allowed the relevant clauses into bills so must take its share of the blame.

If I was King of the World I would not allow my parliament to make a new law without repealing an old one

What if there was only one law - though shalt not kill. One day a peasant steals your crown. Will you repeal the anti-killing law to make a new law that states 'thou shalt not steal'?

I'm only asking as I have a feeling in my water that one day you will be King of the World.

@Scrutator

Considering how grossly corpulent the old rogue was when he shuffled off this mortal coil then shut in a stone coffin the body likely exploded shattering the ribs and scattering the vertebrae, none of which are particularly substantial bones, unlike the skull, pelvis and limb bones.

englishhermit
17 Jul 2010, 1:07AM

The great thing about Henry VIII is that he took no nonsense from coin clippers, counterfeiters or those who threatened the stability of his funds. Quantitative easing? Billion groat bailouts? I don't think so.

Heads would be on spikes, the bodies having been torn apart on the rack to be boiled alive for public entertainment. Bankers, consultants and dodgy accountants would be rounded up to be fed to wild animals.

Henry VIII. Rest In Peace. Sadly missed.

Exactly, he would have chopped the banksters bastard heads off; sometimes affairs get into such a dire state the Gordian knot needs chopping, there is no hope of unpicking it

muscleguy

Considering how grossly corpulent the old rogue was when he shuffled off this mortal coil then shut in a stone coffin the body likely exploded

William the Conqueror reputedly exploded when the lid was forced down on his undersize coffin - or oversize body

Then something even more macabre happened. The monk of Caen writes that William was "great in body and strong, tall in stature but not ungainly." When it came time to bury the heavy body, it was discovered that the stone sarcophagus had been made too short. There was an attempt to force the corpse and, says Orderic, "the swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd." Even the frankincense and spices of the censers was not enough to mask the smell, and the rites were hurriedly concluded.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/hastings/williamdeath.html

MartynInEurope - trouble with a written constitution is the 'law of unintended consequences'. Look at the complaints regarding guns in the US. Their Constitution guarantees the right to carry a gun - may have been a good idea at the time but not so later on. Or look at the European Constitution (or Lisbon Treaty - call it what you will) - so long as to be unreadable and virtually impossible to understand.

Change is not always for the better - what we currently have works more or less and has the benefit that people tend to understand it. I am not against change but it has to be very carefully thought out and with a long consultation and education period for the public.

under the guise of greater efficiency. These are known as Henry VIII clauses

Hitler used similar terminology when he passed the enabling act as far as I understand. The ability to vote governments in and more importantly out was effected by this legislation.

Is a comparison with the Third Reich more politically incorrect than one with Henry VIII? Probably. Though as regards disregard for the law and political will of a "supreme leader" of sorts who wanted to hang on power. The ends and ideals of both Hitler and Henry VIII were to stay in power and to distort religion.

I wonder if they knew what swastikas were in Henry VIII's time? Turned crosses is one I've heard. There are quite a few interpretations to read about.

Just to say. I'm not against people changing the law. It's just that totalitarianism scares me.

Under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty Brussels may enact any new edicts they care to and our Parliament is required by law to pass them.

There's something else that Nick Clegg seems very much in favour of. Still, considering the £98,000 a year pension he gets from the EU I don't suppose I'm surprised.

the real question is why has it taken a judge to note the growth of these type of clauses in our legislation, what have the MPs and journalists been doing for the last ten years ?

law is complicated (trust me on this i am a barrister) however it is the job of our political journalists to be sufficiently knowledgable about how parliament legislates to have spotted this development earlier without having to have it pointed out to them by the lord chief.

Not in person, of course

He'd be a bit on the strong side.

yepandthattoo

Hitler used similar terminology when he passed the enabling act as far as I understand.

The Hitlerisation of the history curriculum once again exerts its malign influence

The ends and ideals of both Hitler and Henry VIII were to stay in power and to distort religion.

When Henry's Commissioners arrived at Hailes Abbey they found that a phial of "holy" blood contained ducks blood - it was regularly renewed. But it had drawn pilgrims from far and wide - and as such was a very cunning scam. Is that the undistorted religion you had in mind?

On the dictatorial point it really depends on whether the alternative is complete breakdown and anarchy; Henry was probably an improvement on the Wars of the Roses. Leviathan is better than anarchy. It's hard to look on the likes of Brown, Blair and Mandy without wishing they had gone to the block before they had done so much damage

@MartyninEurope above details neatly just how backward "the mother of democracies" is. Especially when seen from continental Europe - I write from Denmark. Without the protection of a written constitution and dis-enfranchised by FPTP, UKanian subjects are at the mercy of serial oligarchs - aka the 'Cabinet of the Day'.

Wake up ! Rise up! And somehow try to join the modern world !

Swan17:

17 Jul 2010, 9:29AM

MartynInEurope - trouble with a written constitution is the 'law of unintended consequences'. Look at the complaints regarding guns in the US. Their Constitution guarantees the right to carry a gun - may have been a good idea at the time but not so later on.

A number of people seem to think that the US Constitution is ready for an overhaul.

Or look at the European Constitution (or Lisbon Treaty - call it what you will) - so long as to be unreadable and virtually impossible to understand.

But it isn't really a reason for not having a written constitution for the UK.

Change is not always for the better - what we currently have works more or less and has the benefit that people tend to understand it.

I see very little evidence that many people actually understand it, which is not so surprising, given that constitutional law is not an easy subject.

I am not against change but it has to be very carefully thought out and with a long consultation and education period for the public.

Education for everyone, of course, including the politicians, judges, police, etc. etc.

As a truism 'ignorance of the law is no defence' is looking more and more threadbare.

2,492 laws passed in a single year? Ministers signing new orders into effect? How is anyone with an ordinary day job meant to keep up?

Martyn- Our (USA) Constitution is unlikely to be overhauled or even changed. The country is far too divided to cobble together the requisite super- majority of States needed to ratify any Amendment.

>Anyone still care to defend Labour from the charge of crafting a nascent police state?

I will. Its a huge mistake to assume that changing the party in power will change the basic power structure. The traditional Labour party has always been in an awarkward place as its power base is invariably at odds with the power structure. This is what made in "unelectable" and why its always a failure in power -- to gain power, to become electable, it has to compromise itself to the power structure which invariably results in it selling out and turning on its base.

The police state isn't a Labour invention, it comes about by ministers being advised by reasonable people such as the ACPO, people who we know we can trust to carry the Torch of Liberty for us. They may have over done things a bit with their harassing tourists taking pictures but it was done with the best of intentions. Obviously with the workload involved in keeping you safe we've had to hive off some of our powers to secondary groups but its really for the common good (and if you think we're going to accede to anything that effectively requires us to commit professional suicide -- that's sedition, pal, and we've got laws to deal with people like you).

@MartynInEurope

"Swan17:

(The) trouble with a written constitution is the 'law of unintended consequences'. Look at the complaints regarding guns in the US. Their Constitution guarantees the right to carry a gun - may have been a good idea at the time but not so later on.

A number of people seem to think that the US Constitution is ready for an overhaul."

Said with a sneer -- a number of people have ALWAYS thought that. And they have turned out to bigger idiots than the original writers on those occasions their ideas have been put into action.

As planetary dictator, I promulgate the following rules:
1) constitutions may only be amended to increase *individual* liberty.
2) people who don't like the "antiquated" US Bill of Rights should show us how it is done -- WRITE ONE OF YER OWN. Then over time, we can see how things go...

I close by noting the significant irony of people nattering about the 2nd Amendment on a thread engendered by nervousness over the increasing autonomy of the executive branch in the UK.

When Henry dissolved the religious houses, he also in effect closed down the free hospitals (because the religious houses were then the only source of public health-care), leaving the sick with nowhere to go. With reference to the Tories' plans to disestablish the NHS, this makes Cameron a contemporary Henry VIII.

Its not unthinkable, its everyday life. The idea of a Catholic becoming prime minister evokes shrieks of 'constitutional crisis' from every neck of the media anytime such an event is in any way possible.
Why? Aside from the anti-catholic bias of the state establishment, there's the fact that the prime minister advises the queen on the appointment of Church of England bishops. And Henry VIII certainly didn't want any romanist having any say in who runs his church. And there doesn't appear to be any desire to get rid of such sectarian idiocies 450 years later - from any corner of the political spectrum.

Laws switch off common sense.

I'm fairly sure that Alan Johnson had slipped the beefing up of the Anti-Socal/Drink Order Bans under the radar of a Henry Vlll clause. They were overly heavy handed, going beyond their remit and open to moving people on for no good reason.

The Lord Chief Justice used his speech to attack – as a “matter of great seriousness” – the use of “Henry VIII” clauses in legislation that allow ministers to alter laws without proper Parliamentary scrutiny.

Lord Judge added that the judiciary could not – and would not – ignore national fiscal realities when considering how best to respond to proposals to save money. “These realities will be hitting the system of justice at just the time when the demands on it are increasing,” he warned.

I'm not sure whether these two paragraphs from the same drafted speech were edited together or if the Lord Chief Justice is saying 'when did we pass this, Who failed to spot it and how dear will the price be for justice?'
http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2943%3Alcj-criticises-powers-for-council-officers-to-enter-homes-questions-adversarial-system-in-children-cases&catid=55%3Acommunity-safety-articles&q=&Itemid=23

Good old Henry! off with their heads.

Without Henry and his falling out with the Catholic Church this Country would not have had the frequent wars with France and Spain, and still being being a Catholic Country and in effect being governed from Rome we would have probably suffered the poverty so evident up to a few years ago across Catholic Europe.

Henry changed the religious and political direction of England and we were the richest nation on Earth as a result.

Look on the obverse of a penny. The portcullis, the very symbol of parliament, was originaly Henry's personal tag. As the goddess Eostre giggles over our Easter egg habbits, I'd like to thinj of Henry, looking up at us from the pit, thinking, 'Every red cent, still mine.'

Re: TomHarrison

My understanding is as below.

I'd say that understanding Hitler is no malign on society as long as it is appropriated by people who use their understanding positively. Otherwise, yes. It is a malign. Ignoring the way Hitler came to power is a little like saying that when totalitarianism occurs people are not discriminated against and that they don't die.
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Henry the VIII inherited a corrupt regime from his father Henry the VII who had been so tormented by the Catholic clergy (lying about their celibacy and dedication to works) that he had burnt down many of the English monasteries. I am not surprised that Henry the VIII hated the Catholic church and wanted to ruin it. Though the way he went about it set a precedent to many other people in a way could be interpreted as being more than just unhelpful.
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As far as I can gather from your point with respect the previous government. I would say that past process is unlikely to be the same as more recent reality. It is something to be aware of all the same.
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Something else I try to convey to others is that ethnic cleansing and genocide are both forms of extreme racism. I would say more so than using expletives which I'm not sure is always mirrored by some individuals in society. Though this is just my perception.