constitution Britain 

Goodbye British constitution

Well that’s it then. Goodbye, British constitution. It was lovely while it lasted. The importance of the Supreme Court judgment – and it is seismic – rendering the prorogation of parliament null and void is not about any effect it will have on the prospects for Brexit. This remains no more or less opaque as a result of the fresh chaos that the ruling has now inflicted upon the political system. Of infinitely greater importance is the axe the Supreme Court judges have taken to the delicate but hitherto sacrosanct…

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judges Britain Israel 

Whoever becomes Israel’s prime minister, judges should be put back in their box

Israel’s electoral crisis has put politics on hold. One important casualty is the attempt to curb the power of Israel’s Supreme Court and legal establishment. This was the policy single-mindedly pursued by outgoing justice minister Ayelet Shaked, who Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sacked from her post this week after she lost her Knesset seat in last month’s election. The controversy over judicial activism has echoes beyond Israel, particularly in Britain: who in a democracy should have the ultimate whip hand, politicians or the judiciary? Israel has been transfixed by the…

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gay cake Britain Culture wars 

Gay cake crumbles in rare win for real liberal values

I have often criticised Britain’s senior judges in general, and the president of the Supreme Court Lady Hale in particular, for “liberal” partisanship and allowing ideology to influence their rulings. Today, however, Lady Hale and her Supreme Court colleagues have bravely gone against fashionable ideology in a ruling which actually upholds liberalism, rationality and law. The judges have ruled unanimously that the Christian owners of Ashers bakery in Belfast did not act in a discriminatory manner when they refused to bake a cake iced with the message “Support Gay Marriage”.…

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banana republic Culture wars USA 

The Democrats’ proposed banana republic

I wrote here that the American Democratic party had become the party of hate. Subsequent events have not only amply confirmed that view but further suggest that the Democrats now pose a real threat to America, in terms of both physical violence and a threat to due process and the US constitution. Two days after the Senate confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told a press conference that GOP senators were “literally under assault” during the confirmation process. “These demonstrators, I’m sure some…

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revolutionary Culture wars USA 

America’s revolutionary moment

Finally – finally! – a Republican has expressed appropriate fury, disgust and contempt for the way in which the Democratic Party turned Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court into a political lynching. Christine Blasey Ford had accused Kavanaugh of having sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers in high school. She had taken her allegation, made for the first time after 36 years, to Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Feinstein sat on it for six weeks until virtually the last moment…

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