My OperaLiberal jailbirds. How's that gonna work?
Tuesday, December 7, 2010 3:57:21 AM
It has now been established by the courts that they do indeed have the right to remove MPs from their posts. Judges can sack politicians.
The case that established this precedent was one of a Labour candidate that libelled his Liberal opponent. The politicians are desperately trying to portray this decision as being one in which the reason for the judge's cry of "You're fired!" was not anything to do with what the candidate put on his election literature, but with the fact that he libelled someone.
This is of course rubbish. The usual punishment for the crime of libel is, at worst, punitive damages. To the best of my knowledge no judge has ever remotely sacked anyone from their job for it. The real reason, as we all know, was that the judge believed that voters had indeed believed at least some of what was written and had therefore been misled into voting for the wrong man.
Before the election the libelee (Hey! A new word!) signed a piece of paper declaring that he would do everything in his power to prevent the cost of going to university increasing, so did all his fellow Liberal candidates. I bet they really love him now. He's established a legal principle that can be used against them if they vote for their own bill to treble the cost of going to university, which is exactly what some of them say they are going to do in a couple of days.
I should be writing for Private Eye...
The case that established this precedent was one of a Labour candidate that libelled his Liberal opponent. The politicians are desperately trying to portray this decision as being one in which the reason for the judge's cry of "You're fired!" was not anything to do with what the candidate put on his election literature, but with the fact that he libelled someone.
This is of course rubbish. The usual punishment for the crime of libel is, at worst, punitive damages. To the best of my knowledge no judge has ever remotely sacked anyone from their job for it. The real reason, as we all know, was that the judge believed that voters had indeed believed at least some of what was written and had therefore been misled into voting for the wrong man.
Before the election the libelee (Hey! A new word!) signed a piece of paper declaring that he would do everything in his power to prevent the cost of going to university increasing, so did all his fellow Liberal candidates. I bet they really love him now. He's established a legal principle that can be used against them if they vote for their own bill to treble the cost of going to university, which is exactly what some of them say they are going to do in a couple of days.
I should be writing for Private Eye...
