Thursday, 7 February 2008
The Brown defence
The lovely Trixy (I now accept that she's not, in fact, "appalling" at all) has something of a scoop today and her site traffic will currently being going through the roof...
Gordon Brown finds himself defending a court action taken by a UKIP member and former Labour activist who is suing the government for breach of contract, by denying us a referendum on the EU
Now, the doctrine of "legitimate expectation" has a very precise meaning in administrative law, the details of which are - due to my alma mater's crazy 10am scheduling of Public Law lectures - slightly hazy in my recollection. Suffice it to say that there are strict tests to establish when a public body's promise to act in a particular way can be said to give rise to a legitimate expectation, and even then the plaintiff would have to demonstrate that the body's U-turn was "unfair" (again, in the strict legal sense of being improperly arrived at or irrational). (If anyone was actually able to stay awake through such lectures, perhaps they might enlighten us in the comments.)
Brown's barrister is therefore, almost certainly, correct in law to say that 'mere' manifesto commitments cannot be considered to set up a legitimate expectation as to future conduct. UKIP are flying a kite here, and it's going to hit the ground fairly quickly. Still, it's nice to see it confirmed judicially that political manifestos are not reliable guides to future action and that our Prime Minister is a lying cunt.
To adapt the point that PDF made yesterday in a rather different context; you know something's gone wrong with politics when... (1) you tell a court "I'm a liar and my promises cannot be relied on", and (2) that's your defence...
Comments:
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So, in effect, this means that any thing ever said by a party, or its members, to persuade voters to vote for it is just a worthless puff. (and there are few of those about).
Under these circumstances one could question the entire notion of democratic government by representation.
Since the Palace of Westminster is stuffed to the gun'als with lawyers it begs the question how long this has been ackowledged and practised behind closed doors.
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Under these circumstances one could question the entire notion of democratic government by representation.
Since the Palace of Westminster is stuffed to the gun'als with lawyers it begs the question how long this has been ackowledged and practised behind closed doors.
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