It's been a while since I last posted to the Telegraph's original blogs, now called "Staff Blogs". That's because of a huge diversion called My Telegraph from which I decided to withdraw some two weeks ago (see previous post). I've since begun to recognise myself again in the shaving mirror.
Daniel Hannan MEP, who blogs under the Telegraph's "Politics" category has always impressed me, as someone with that rare combination of an analytical mind who can also write in a light upbeat style.
His most recent blog was entitled "Labour's Constitutional Contortionists", to which I sent the following comment, which finally appeared after a 6 hour hiatus under my wife's "My Tel " log-in (don't ask, it would take too long to explain).
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/june07/laboursconstitutioncontortionists.htm
As it happens, I read off my draft to her, before submitting, as is my wont, so when I announced that it had gone up under her name she was unfazed, saying it represented her own viewpoint entirely. Which is just as well, since the techies at the Telegraph would have got a smoking email by now if she had been asssociated with views that were not her own .....
Title: Playing with fire
Once the immediate threat of being Blair-bounced into the Mark 2 constitution, sorry, Treaty, has passed, the next item on the agenda ought to be that notorious unwritten UK Constitution.
I refer to the one that allowed the Granita deal to land us with a French style cohabitation, between right-wing President Blair, largely responsible for foreign affairs, and leftish "Premier" Brown, largely in charge of home affairs.It gave the President, aka de facto Head of State, the power to sign us up for the toppling of Saddam Hussein, with ne'er a thought to the aftermath.
It allowed the President to swan off to Singapore to sign us up for the 2012 Olympics - a menu without prices, whose current £9 billion estimated cost represents some three quarters of a million pounds for each of the 11,000 or so competing athletes.
It now allows the President to pitchfork us into a revived EU Constitution which he knows full well would be thrown out if put to a referendum in the UK, not because we are anti-Europe per se, but because we see it for what it is - yet another power grab by anti-democratic apparachniks in Brussels.
How come President Blair, with 10 years experience as de facto Head of State, cannot see that he is playing with fire?
It's not just his legacy he stands to lose in the next few days. It's the entire plot. He won't be able to show his face in the street if he tries stitching up the entire UK in his feverish eleventh-hour dealings with Merckel and Sarkozy.
Far be it from me to divine what the real UK Head of State is saying to him right now in those Wednesday meetings at the Palace. I just hope Her Majesty is not being tight-lipped.
How oddly appropriate that it takes the EU Constitution to bring home the glaring inadequacies of our own. We scrutinise, quite rightly, every word in the new draft. Yet for the last 10 years, our unwritten Constitution has been the plaything of a silver-tongued chancer, still in thrall to his own reflection.
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