In the early hours of Friday morning (7 May) as the counting was revealing that Parliament had been strung up good and proper by the British people, the constitutional expert Peter Hennessy (Queen Mary University of London) mentioned that there was some clarity over what should happen in the event of a hung parliament... in other words someone (in this case the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell) had bothered to write it down.
This is quite remarkable for the Brits as we prefer our constitution set out on the back of an envelope or better still passed on through a carefully regimented game off Chinese whispers. And when I say Gus O'D had written it down... erm I mean he almost had. To make completer finishers proud, there was a nice and well advanced draft of a Cabinet manual which helped explain what should happen in a range of circumstances. I can't find the finished document. Anyway final drafts are what the civil service runs on so here it is in evidence presented to the Justice Committee and in PDF which sets out what happens. It's just for reference really.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment