Heather Green

SI postponing 30 English local elections to 2027, pending local gov reorganisation. Hardly best practice to formally cancel elections so close to date of scheduled polls. SI comes into force 27 Feb, less than 10 weeks before May 7 elections.

Screenshot of the cover of the report, 'Justice That Works: Report of the Scottish Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission.'

NEW: the independent Sentencing and Penal Policy Commission 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 final report and recommendations have been published today.

As one of the Commissioners, this year has involved an enormous amount of work. Our report sets out an agenda for change.

🔗 link to report
www.gov.scot/publications...

Fascinating recent debate among the Lords, a question on 'Think Tanks: Funding', by Lord Rennard: "To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the level of transparency required for the funding of think tanks, including in relation to funding from abroad."

Misconduct in public office | Institute for Government What happens if someone holding public office is alleged to have abused their power?

What is “misconduct in public office”?
An “explainer”
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/event/misond...

As @spotlightcorruption.org highlight, the new bill meant to strengthen accountability against misconduct at the highest levels of government, unfortunately introduces an "absurdly wide defence of having a ‘reasonable excuse’". This flaw needs to be addressed before its written into law.

A map of Scotland showing Aberdeen Dyce Airport with a cloudy weather symbol and a text box reading "Longest time with no sunshine on record"

Wondering where the sunshine has gone?

Spare a thought for northeast Scotland; Aberdeen Dyce hasn't recorded any sunshine since 21 January! This is provisionally the longest sunless period here since records began in 1957 ☁️

The ISC has published its letter to the PM regarding how it will handle the Mandelson papers. It is a carefully worded and fascinating document not least because the ISC has a statutory relationship with the executive but has unusually been asked to carry out a job by Parliament.

Local election delays: It’s unacceptable to treat voters like a bureaucratic inconvenience Elections are a crucial part of the democratic process. Citizens have the right to expect a regular opportunity to express a view about who should exercise power in their name, at all le

The government’s reasons for cancelling these elections are not good enough.

Asked 'when Gov is going to issue a new Strategy & Policy Statement for the Electoral Commission', minister answers without confirming expressly any plans to do so. May be a hint that Gov position is shifting to consider repeal of controversial power to direct EC's priorities in Elections Act 2022.

📍Opening of the Judicial Year
📹 Stanislav Kravchenko, President of the Supreme Court of Ukraine

📍 Ouverture de l’année judiciaire
📹 Stanislav Kravchenko, président de la Cour suprême d’Ukraine

📍 Відкриття судового року
📹 Станіслав Кравченко, Голова Верховного Суду України

Twenty-five years of devolution in Scotland: taking the lead on electoral reform? The devolution framework put in place in Scotland and in Wales in the first year of the New Labour government has undoubtedly been one of the most significant legacies of the wide-ranging program o...

Interesting review of devolved law-making on elections in Scotland & Wales, by Annie Thiec, Nantes University

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Green graphic with a photo of Cat Smith MP on the right, and the crowned portcullis logo on the bottom right. Graphic contains white text that reads: Procedure Committee "The flexibility of House of Commons business reassures constituents that they can rely on their MP to perform Parliament's core scrutiny function by holding the Government to account in a timely and effective way. However, this does undoubtedly make it challenging to predict the start time and duration of individual business items. Call lists in isolation will not have the desired impact that has been envisaged. The Committee believes they could have a knock-on effect on dynamic debate on emerging topics of national importance, and on the powers of the Chair in managing the flow of debates." Cat Smith MP, Chair

NEW: We recommend that call lists are not adopted by the House of Commons, as they are not an appropriate tool to improve certainty of timings over the parliamentary day.

📝 Read our report: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cm...

Our chair @catsmithmp.bsky.social comments on our findings ⬇️

How to deal with defecting MPs Voters should be able to force parliamentarians who change parties to face the electorate

Thoughts in the FT on why I don't like the idea of an automatic by election if an MP changes party - but understand why some people do, along with a possible compromise...

How to deal with defecting MPs - giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... via @FT

Automatic voter registration - steps towards it 'to be explored in the coming years', Gov says, 'when parliamentary time allows' for relevant legislation. Reforming the electoral registration regime to reach the missing millions (8m on one estimate) should be a higher priority.

Procedure Committee has put up a new round of written evidence on the parliamentary questions inquiry - including ours, focusing on the relationship with the FOI system committees.parliament.uk/work/9454/wr... committees.parliament.uk/writtenevide...

Lord Pack (LD) My Lords, is not a key element of trust in politics that elections are run fairly and independently? Therefore, I hope that the Minister might commit to restoring the full independence of the Electoral Commission and repealing the power for a Government of any political persuasion to set the policy and strategic direction for the commission. Is not an independent regulator a far more trustworthy regulator? Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab) My Lords, the noble Lord raises an interesting point, and I will write to him about the details of it. Obviously, one of the basic tenets of the British values I have talked about is free and fair elections. Making sure that the Electoral Commission can facilitate those across the United Kingdom is very important.

I was expecting the government to stonewall my question about restoring the independence of the Electoral Commission, but the answer I got today in Parliament... hints that there may be a little movement possible?

Democratic theorists hold that voting contributes to some political good: individual and collective autonomy, equality, justice, pluralism, stability, better policies, and many others. But elections are common under authoritarianism, and empirical research finds that holding elections can stabilize authoritarian regimes. This creates what we term the democrat’s dilemma, where citizens who vote in authoritarian elections may bolster the regimes they wish to unseat, even when they cast a vote for the opposition. We identify three major ways of thinking about the democratic value of electoral participation—justice-based, epistemic, and proceduralist approaches—and use them to examine the complex moral considerations that confront voters in authoritarian regimes. We contend that authoritarian elections’ residual democratic value can justify voting, even when doing so could further entrench the autocrat. Our argument also implies that the democratic principles that justify voting in authoritarian elections oblige citizens to choose the most democratic alternative.

You should vote, even if your vote won't change the outcome, because this is how we uphold the democratic principles that underlie our republican ideals.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Bored on train so made a starter pack listing all the House of Commons Library automated accounts on Bluesky:
go.bsky.app/4Giwged
Would recommend treating it as a pick list, rather than a normal starter pack. Some of the accounts - particularly written answers from departments - are quite noisy.

YouTube video by Mark Pack Labour is wrong to be cancelling council elections, yet again

We discussed in Lords the latest election cancellations, which mean some councillors elected for four years will get three unelected years on top.

To make matters worse, the Secretary of State suggested it is a choice between democracy or getting potholes fixed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms99...

"The band added: 'It goes without saying we hope Malcolm Offord and his party are roundly defeated by people all over the UK'."

Permission granted to Craig Murray to seek judicial review of the Palestine Action ban in the Court of Session, despite parallel proceedings already under way in England.

ICYMI over the weekend

The DOJ demand for voter rolls is not about micro-targeting. That kind of voter data is already freely available between the public voter lists and data brokers. The difference in what they're demanding is more technical backend metadata so they can make spurious claims about list maintenance.

How odd.

Why we need to strengthen and codify small party rights in the House of Commons Following the Unit’s January seminar, Can the House of Commons handle multi-party politics?, panellist Louise Thompson explains the procedural and logistical obstacles facing small parties in the House of Commons. She calls for parliamentary institutions to adapt their processes, and concludes that formalising some current informal arrangements and looking at ways to increase equalities of opportunity across all opposition parties would be sensible next steps.

NEW BLOG: Why we need to strengthen and codify small party rights in the House of Commons

Louise Thompson explains the obstacles facing small parties. She calls for parliamentary institutions to formalise informal arrangements consider ways to increase equalities of opportunity for all parties

Grant me, indulgent Heaven, that I may live,
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give;
Deal Freedom’s sacred treasures free as air,
Till Slave and Despot be but things that were.

—Robert Burns, “Lines Inscribed in a Lady’s Pocket Almanac”
#BurnsNight #C18 #poem

A final post for Burn's night. Despite being written over 200 years ago, much of Burns' work remains relevant today, and examples of it can be found it all sorts of places around Glasgow.

Cont./

#robertburns #burnsnight #streetart #streetpoetry #govan

And a periodic reminder that the Scottish and Welsh legal systems are not in a federal relationship with "UK law". They are universal legal systems with unified justice systems. "Federalising" investigation of certain kinds of offences would be inconsistent with this.

A timely Sundance doc is an ICE-breaker around community action Everybody To Kenmure Street shows what's possible when immigration officials aren't allowed to murder at will.

the feel-good film of Sundance is a documentary where a community stands up to immigration officials, tells them to fuck off, and wins www.avclub.com/everybody-to...