Teaching Comparative Government

PM May tries to explain why Brexit is a good idea to the association of the UK's top business people at the Confederation of British Industry meeting. Brexit plan will stop EU migrants 'jumping the queue' Theresa May is renewing her efforts to sell her draft Brexit withdrawal agreement - saying it will stop EU migrants "jumping the queue". She said migration would become skills-based, with Europeans no longer prioritised over "engineers from Sydney or software developers from Delhi". The PM also insisted to business leaders at the CBI that the withdrawal deal had been "agreed in full"… There has been widespread criticism of the draft 585-page withdrawal agreement - and the short paper setting out what the UK and EU's future relationship could look like - which are set to be finalised and signed off at an EU summit this weekend. Two of the prime minister's cabinet ministers resigned over the proposed deal, while others are believed to...

Pro-Brexit politicians deny that Britain's economy will be damaged by leaving the EU. Anti-Brexit pols will point to the closing of a Michelin factory in Scotland. Michelin workers' shock at factory closure Dundee Michelin factory workers have spoken of their shock after the company announced its intention to close the plant, with the loss of all 845 jobs. The tyre factory will close by mid-2020 after the French firm deemed it "unsuitable" in the current climate… Michelin Dundee manager John Reid said… "Clearly we have been operating in a very difficult market context for more than a year. "We've had our volume cut three times this year. "This year we actually produced the lowest volume we've ever produced in the factory, so it was clear that something fairly fundamental was happening."… The union Unite has said the closure would be a "hammer-blow" to the city. Michelin said the Dundee site, which opened in 1971 and specialised ...

Generally, one of the key characteristics of a nation is a common language. So, how has the United Kingdom done so well for so long? See the video for the whole discussion. ‘Please repeat the question’: In Britain’s Parliament, two English speakers struggle to communicate Britain’s Parliament was divided by a common language on Thursday, as one politician was forced to repeat a question twice when his colleague couldn’t understand him, before eventually submitting the question in writing after his attempts at verbal communication failed. Both politicians, of course, were speaking English. The incident took place during a meeting about House of Commons Commissions, a body that oversees the administration of Parliament and its grounds, as David Linden of the Scottish National Party asked Conservative member of Parliament Paul Beresford about planned renovation works. “I know from speaking to a number of parliamentary colleagues that there are still certain aspects of the estate, includin...

A possible election in the UK may be scheduled at the time of an election in the USA. British PM Theresa May 'planning snap election' in November British Prime Minister Theresa May is planning an early general election in November to save her leadership and to prevent the collapse of talks with European leaders over Britain's exit from the bloc, according to a report by the Sunday Times newspaper. The report comes just days after EU leaders rejected the Conservative party leader's preferred plan for leaving the EU, the so-called Chequers agreement. Under that plan, the United Kingdom would enter into a free trade area with the European Union, which would have common rules and standards in several major industries, and maintain customs duties regulations but end freedom of movement between EU member states and the UK. EU leaders dismissed the proposals as unworkable at a meeting they attended with May in Salzburg earlier this week. The Sunday Times spoke to two senior ...

The British PM and the Nigerian President agree on cooperative programs. Theresa May signs security partnership with Nigeria's president Theresa May has signed a security pact with Nigeria’s president aimed at helping the country combat the militant group Boko Haram through better military training and anti-terrorist propaganda techniques developed in the UK. PM May and President Buhari The British prime minister’s agreement with Muhammadu Buhari was announced at a summit between the pair in Abuja… Billed as the UK’s first security and defence partnership with Nigeria, the pact was the centrepiece of the second day of May’s three-day trip to Africa… The UK will provide training to the Nigerian military to help it contend with improvised explosive devices used by Boko Haram, and has offered to help train full army units, as opposed to individual soldiers, before they are deployed in the country’s north-east, where the Islamist militant group has its base. It also hopes to cut the...

The US is not the only place where people try to manipulate public opinion. Europe Worries as Facebook Fights Manipulation Worldwide Iranian Facebook "stamps" Facebook revealed this post to be the work of an Iranian-backed campaign aimed at Britain, the first known influence campaign with a target outside the United States. The picture was just like many of the other Facebook posts criticizing Britain’s decision to leave the European Union: a fake commemorative stamp showing a person preparing to shoot himself in the foot. But on Tuesday, Facebook revealed that the unremarkable post was anything but. It originated from an Iranian-backed group aimed at Britain, in what the company said was the first known instance of a foreign influence campaign aimed at people outside the United States. Facebook has spent the past two years trying to block foreign propaganda in the United States. But its disclosure of hundreds of fake accounts and pages, including the one tied to the Iranian...

What does the local government look like in unitary system like the UK's? As Austerity Helps Bankrupt an English County, Even Conservatives Mutiny Britain is already in upheaval over Brexit, its looming withdrawal from the European Union, with many experts warning of economic hardship ahead. But Northamptonshire is foreshadowing another potential fiscal crisis: Local governments drained of resources, cutting services to the bone. Northamptonshire Councils are Britain’s fundamental unit of local government, dealing with an array of basic needs: trash collection, public transport, libraries, town planning, and care for children and other vulnerable people, among other things. They levy a tax on homes and charge fees for some services. They also collect a nationally set tax on commercial real estate, and keep an increasing share of it. But for years they received most of their funding from the central government. The crisis in Northamptonshire is complicated and partly self-inflicted...

Does age bring wisdom? Or does youth imply knowledge of how the modern world works? Why the opinions don't necessarily translate into policy? How young and old would vote on Brexit now Few issues divide opinions between different age groups quite as sharply as Brexit. And it could be that the differences are becoming even more pronounced… If there were to be a second referendum now, 52% would vote Remain and 48% Leave, an average of polls over the past three months suggests… So, it is a stable picture, albeit one that reverses the position in 2016. But the opinions of voters vary dramatically across different groups - none more so than between young and old. Just over 70% of 18 to 24-year-olds who voted in the referendum backed Remain, four major academic and commercial polls conducted shortly after the ballot agree, with just under 30% backing Leave. In contrast, only 40% of those aged 65 and over supported Remain, while 60% placed their cross against Leave. These younger and o...

Legislatures in liberal democracies found a way to preserve voting rights of legislators a hundred years ago. It's probably time for something new. An obscure British parliamentary rule was broken. Here’s why it’s a big deal. Last week in the U.K.’s House of Commons, the governing party appeared to cast aside its “pairing rule,” a chamber practice that has been used to preserve voting rights of absent Members of Parliament (MPs) — including MPs out on maternity leave. This caused a huge outcry, with the minister for the Cabinet Office forced to respond to an urgent question in the House of Commons this week, promising that such errors would not be repeated. But the ensuing controversy also highlights the limitations of relying on informal legislative practices in increasingly diverse parliamentary bodies. This is how legislative pairing works Pairing is an informal arrangement between two legislative parties when an MP is sick, on parental leave, or otherwise not present to vote. ...

PM May's plans for Brexit survived on a vote in Commons because several Labour MPs voted for her bill. The future looks rocky. Britain’s May narrowly avoids defeat in parliament on EU trade laws British Prime Minister Theresa May narrowly avoided a defeat in parliament at the hands of pro-EU lawmakers from her own party on Tuesday, fending off a rebellion that had threatened to deepen a crisis over her Brexit strategy. Parliament voted 307 to 301 against an amendment to trade legislation [that]… was seen as a test of May’s ability to deliver a smooth British exit from the European Union and keep her job… One Conservative lawmaker present told Reuters that the party whips whose job it is to enforce discipline, desperate to win the vote, had threatened to call a confidence vote in May if she lost, a move that could bring down the government… May is expected to face many more challenges to her strategy after a summer break as she works her way through a mountain of Brexit-related l...

Have you heard about "free votes?" Labour has decided to give MPs a free vote on a proposed new runway at London's Heathrow airport. And "Tory MPs will be whipped to vote in favour of the new runway…" What does that mean? Labour giving MPs free vote on Heathrow runway plan Labour will not ask its MPs to vote against Heathrow expansion even though its leadership is opposed to a new runway, a senior figure has confirmed. The party is giving its MPs a free vote when the issue is decided on Monday, meaning shadow ministers will not be disciplined for supporting the move. Its transport spokesman Andy McDonald said the runway did not meet Labour's economic and environmental tests. But he said MPs had "strong" personal views and Labour had to be "pragmatic". Scores of Labour MPs are expected to back the government when Parliament votes on whether to give the go ahead for detailed planning on a third runway at the UK's largest airport. With t...

At least, Brexit is more complicated than it was in the referendum. Facing Defeat on Brexit, May Gives Ground to U.K.’s Parliament Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, on Tuesday promised greater control for Parliament over withdrawal from the European Union, after a threatened rebellion by lawmakers forced her into a new and potentially significant retreat in the country’s troubled exit from the bloc. Brexit protesters in London The day began on an ominous note with the resignation of one of Mrs. May’s ministers over her plans for withdrawal, known as Brexit, and got steadily worse for the prime minister when some of her rebel lawmakers combined with opposition parties, posing the threat of a damaging defeat. The vote concerned an amendment that had been added by the House of Lords to Mrs. May’s main Brexit legislation. The amendment would have given lawmakers more control over the process… Mrs. May had appealed to lawmakers not to support the amendment, arguing that it would weak...

Big government buildings undergo constant repairs and renovations, but sometimes real rebuilding needs doing. ( See a report on the $310 million renovation of Minnesota's state capitol. ) Westminster is rotting from within The Palace of Westminster, with its cinematic Big Ben clock, set beside the River Thames, is a survivor — of epic fire, German bombs, sulfuric smog and bad plumbing. An eccentric masterwork of Victorian genius, its dual chambers for lords and commoners are the living, breathing heart of constitutional monarchy, the home of Parliament, and one of the most photographed buildings in the world. But Westminster is a wreck, its caretakers say. The palace is not falling down. Not at all. Its bones, the superstructure, are solid enough, and carrying on… Rather, Westminster is rotting from the inside, its water and waste pipes sclerotic, its ventilation shafts congested, its neural networks — the communication, electric, fire systems — nearly shot… Westminster service ...

By now you know that Ireland is not part of the UK. Northern Ireland is. You should also know that the conflict between Ireland and the UK (Northern Ireland) was long and bloody. The first time I went to London (30 years ago), there were signs everywhere alerting people to avoid and report unaccompanied packages, since there was an IRA campaign of bombing going on. The conflict had been going on for at least a couple generations before that. The Good Friday Agreement brought an end to the violence. What is the Good Friday Agreement? The Good Friday Agreement, The Belfast Agreement. An agreement that can't even agree on its own name - the irony. Northern Ireland has lived with this agreement for 20 years and its name (in whatever form) is never far from the tips of our politicians' tongues. But do younger people, who have never experienced life without it, even know what it is? "The talks that ended the Troubles... I think." That was among the responses offered cauti...

In a unitary regime, street crime becomes a national issue. 'McMafia gangs' behind London crime wave - David Lammy Tottenham MP Lammy Drug gangs controlled by Eastern European criminals are fuelling the rising tide of violent crime in London, a Labour MP has claimed. Tottenham MP David Lammy said drugs were as "prolific as ordering a pizza", comparing the situation to McMafia, a BBC drama about Russian gangsters. The MP said political leaders were doing nothing about it. The Metropolitan Police is now investigating more than 50 suspected murders this year. Police patrols have been stepped up and officers are using stop-and-search powers to seize weapons after the increase in violence. Mr Lammy said violent crime in his part of London, where there have been four murders, was the worst he had seen in 18 years as an MP. He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was "no single cause" for it but "turf wars" between drug gangs was a major factor. ...

The complications involved in the progress toward Brexit keep growing. Did Brexit campaigners cheat? And if they did, what does that mean? Sanni If he knocked on your door, Shahmir Sanni might not be what you would expect of a campaigner for Brexit… Sanni is a young, hip, gay Muslim, a Pakistani Briton who studied economics at his university, loves fashion and is an American-style libertarian, a committed “euroskeptic.”… Once an anonymous college-age volunteer, Sanni is now front-page news in Britain, as a whistleblower who alleges that pro-Brexit campaigners in 2016 “cheated” — specifically that a prominent group run by top Tories, including now-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, broke election law by coordinating campaigns among allied organizations to circumvent spending caps. The political firm at the center of the controversy is Aggregate IQ, a tiny Canadian firm closely connected to Cambridge Analytica… The week-long controversy over who did what and how in the 2016 Brexit vote...

The speaker of the House of Commons, the present one was chosen by the Conservatives, has a great deal of power, but it is mostly used in traditional ways. Not so, the other day. Boris Johnson, the foreign minister, has a lot of power and a lack of inhibition. Boris Johnson’s ‘sexist’ behavior swiftly shut down in the House of Commons British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has a habit of putting his foot in his mouth He once described Hillary Clinton as “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital” with “dyed blond hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare.”… In an on-camera interview, he somewhat nonsensically compared the European Union to a “gigantic lobster. With butter sauce.”… And in Parliament on Tuesday, he referred to Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary for the opposition Labour Party, as Lady Nugee. Nugee is the last name of Thornberry's husband, Christopher. Johnson appeared to be disparaging Thornberry for asking whether the government is prepared to take R...