the fourth place

There’s something fishy about the progress of the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, which is getting its second reading in the House of Lords tomorrow, and by fishy, I mean an old, putrid fish, rotten to the point where you reel back in disgust, obviously. The Chairman of the House of Lords Committee currently dealing with the Bill said it first. "They (the government) wanted to give themselves power to change any law with the minimum of parliamentary involvement, thus gold-plating their powers," Lord Holme reported. The government, he then added “got it badly wrong this time”.

Well no, anyone still possessing logic, which this Bill tends to destroy, must be thinking at this juxtaposition. The government have surely not “got it badly wrong”. They have so far managed to get this Bill through all three readings in the House of Commons. “They” wanted to “gold-plate” their powers, and “they” have almost managed to do so. All that remains between us and a virtual dictatorship now is the House of Lords, whose sterling dissection of the amended Bill managed to hit precisely one headline last week, and whose own existence is under permanent threat. You could, rather more convincingly, argue that the government have got it very right, if the stench wasn’t threatening to overwhelm you.

Source

He goes on to speculate about why bloggers have turned quiet on this one. The answer for me is simple. Its summer, its hot and I don't want to be inside paging through Hansard and replying to my MP. Sure that's a terrible reason, but its true. Saving the country is hard work, takes actice opposition by thousands of people, and we can't be bothered.