Be Excellent To Each Other

All in here.

Utterly horrible.

Or to be mre precise, over certain aspects of Law relating to Cornwall.

Not really bothered.

I think it is completely resonsable. Ancient Right or power exists, someone uses it responsibly. Imagine if the government proposed a bill to concrete over all of cornwall for shits and giggles and he didn't veto it. There would be outrage that he hadn't taken up his 'effective veto'.

Also, given the lack of serious parliamentary time given to any legislative change these days, if we had the opportunity to stick our noses in, we would.

Also - the article does somewhat fail to point out that when he is king, he will have veto over every single piece of legislation. In the same way that his mother does. And I predict he'll use it as often as she does.

Crown Proceedings Act 1947, s. 38 (3); s.40 (1)

Competition Act 1998, s73

The Cornish have been banging this drum for decades.

Bloody Cornwall. I wish we had a benevolent royal type looking out for us.

Do not want.

And building housing estates on that nice empty field behind your house?

This is hardly surprising and not really a 'revelation' in any case. However, I'd not go so far as to say it's not worth worrying about. He can veto anything that might have an impact on his interests. That's potentially a lot more than stuff to do with concreting all of Cornwall.

It's also interesting that someone used the 'future king' argument and how the queen hardly uses her powers. As far as I'm aware, the queen isn't an active moneymaking businesswoman.

The minute any Royal even considered using a veto, the monarchy would be gone.

Even back in our public and admin law text books 13 years ago it was very clear that the royal prerogatives are only still there on the basis that "you can have these, but if you actually use them we'll take them, and the Palace, off you". Basically the powers are still there to make the Royals feel better, a bit like knowing that you haven't lost that favourite teddy bear you had when you were a kid, but don't still cuddle it at night.

She owns hundreds of factories churning out porcelain goods with her portrait on them. Prince Charles just sells butter.

You have! The Duke of Edinburgh. You have to go for three days' hiking and learn how to put up a tent before he'll give you the time of day, though.

Uhh, doesn't the OP state that Charles has already used a royal prerogative to influence the formulation of bills multiple times?

And it's Mr Chris teaching the tent putting up-ing.

No?

It says that bills have been put to him for his consent multiple times, but (as far as I can see from a skim read) doesn't say that any legislation has been changed as a result. The bit abou the lib dem asking for details of the process and not getting any does, to the cynic, suggest that they have indeed changed bills to make his Charlesness happy, though.

Mali - there's no point making it easy for them.

Yes, quite. There's not much difference in practice between "we put up a Bill he didn't like and he veto'd it" and "we did a backroom deal; he saw the Bill first, we took out the bits he didn't like, and he didn't veto it". But the latter is almost impossible to prove and hence far more worrying a possibility.

And if Charles has form for this sort of thing, there's reason to be concerned that he'd exercise the same use of the Royal Veto on all legislation -- again, not operating visibly, but applying behind-the-scenes pressure. Perhaps it's not a desperately credible threat but it's still something we shouldn't dismiss out of hand I think.

I should think they're both very difficult to prove, to be honest. They're hardly likely to say "we dropped this bill because Charles said to" rather than "we consulted all relevant stakeholders and decided that the best way forward was to drop the bill".


Agreed. Something to write to my MP about, I think. Although he's a Tory.

No rant from Dr Lave yet? He was all over this on Twitter last night.

I think that someone having veto over laws and using them to protect their fiscal interests is wrong... but enough about Rupert Murdoch!

The article says



It doesn't say that this is at the behest of the Prince, more that this is an automatic process if a piece of legislation affects the Duchy. The article itself doesn't say whether any of the bills proposed had any interaction beyond that at all. In addition, I'd say that there are enough MPs of all colours, who if there was so much as a clarification requested, would have hit the roof and gone public earlier, rather than this article which has no more flavour than and MP contacting the guardian and saying 'It has come to my attention that Charles has this right, I am Outrage'.

APOD - the article does say that when a government minister asked about the process they were told to mind their own business (granted she's a Liberal), and also that Charles's mob have written to government departments to say "ahem, we understand you're planning on doing X, we have a right to see this and it's subject to His Highnesseseses's consent", so I'd say there's a lot more going on here than just him having to rubber stamp stuff due to a constitutional quirk.

Actually, it says no such thing. It says that in respect of Lord Berkelys Marine Navigation Bill, the House of Lords office said that The Duchy must be involved, but doesn't say who started that process, and if you click the letter to see it, it is just a statement of fact. It also says in respect of the Apprenticeship bill that permission was sought (and people questioned why, but again, it doesn't state why/how that permission was requested).

I agree that this is an anachronistic provision, but there is nothing here to say (although it desperately tries to intimate otherwise) that anything that has happened is anything other than the due process according to the law.

And you of all people should know that no-one ever, ever, ever waives Legal Professional Privilege...

Oops, you're right. Yes, I misread that bit. Trying to read it inbetween reviewing a SaaS agreement.



I should say that the fact that an MP asked for details and was fobbed off is a bit telling.

I also misread the bit on the govenment minster - it wasn't that a government minister was fobbed off - it was Sarah Teather doing the fobbing to one of her own party MPs

Anyway, is the Duchy one of your clients, you big establishment apologist?



They do from time to time, as it happens. Anyway - (a) I'm not sure the OPC are correct that the internal guidance is subject to LPP, and (b) if it is, it's not up to them to waive it, it's up to the government (or possibly a specific minister).

Heh, no. I just think that as a news story, based on available information, this is a non event. As a headline grabber, it relies on banging on about how he has got involved on non legislative matters in the past, and hoping that the reader doesn't draw a distinction and that it all flows through to being the same thing.

True, true.

Still, it's a bit shite, and I wouldn't call it a non-event. It sounds like something that has consciously been kept quiet - the refusal to say whether or not the Coroners and Justice Bill had been amended as a result of Jug Ears' veto is shocking. It really does suggest that he's had stuff changed.

Of course he has!

Rather him than an encampment of[snip-ed]



The thing that bothers me more is that any given megacorp or US/Israel-influence lobby group can also "veto anything that might affect their interests" or worse. The implication that this is the worst and most shocking thing wrong with our system of lawmaking today is a bit silly IMHO.

tribunal says: "In a modern day context, the duchy is carrying out the public function or service of providing an income for the undertaking of an extremely important constitutional role for the UK."

Yeah, I heard about that yesterday. The Information Tribunal finding on whether the Duchy is a "public body" for the purposes of the FOIA is not going to have too much effect on anything else, I respectfully submit. Also, expect that to get appealed to fuckery.

I like to propagate discussion, more than anything. I'm a facilitator.