The Spectator's Notes

12 April 2008

Charles Moore's reflections on the week

One of the issues in the Governance of Britain Constitutional Renewal Bill with which we are threatened is the question of war powers. When he became Prime Minister, Gordon Brown gave the impression that the ‘royal prerogative’ should be removed: Parliament, not the executive, should have the sole power to decide whether the nation goes to war. Last month, Jack Straw, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, published the White Paper. Mr Straw is really the last cunning old fox in government. While deferring to the idea of parliamentary supremacy, his recommendation ‘does not see a requirement’ for most of the things which the reformers would like, and opts, instead of legislation, for something called ‘a detailed resolution’ which would set out the processes which Parliament would follow if war loomed. Mr Straw’s trickery is completely justified. It is ridiculous that the nation should have to wait for parliamentary approval before taking any military action, because timetables of war do not work like that. It is also democratically unnecessary, because no government can prosecute a war for any length of time without parliamentary approval. As Enoch Powell pointed out in the middle of the Falklands war, the royal prerogative is a huge power, but it is of no avail without ‘retaining the subsequent and continuing confidence of the House’. The demand for a change in all of this results from guilty feeling about the Iraq war. But the funny thing is that this, unusually, was a war that the Commons did clearly debate before it began, and clearly voted for.

Halliwell’s Film Companion lists every feature film ever released. The films beginning with the word ‘I’ give an insight into the human ego. Here are just the titles where the ‘I’ is followed by the letter a or the letter b: I Accuse, I Aim at the Stars, I Am a Camera, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, I Am Curious — Yellow, I Am Not Afraid, I Am Sam, I Am Sexy, I Am the Cheese, I Am the Law, I Became a Criminal, I Believe in You, I Bought a Vampire Motorcycle, I Bury the Living.