Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is planning to strip Downing Street of key powers in some of the most far-reaching reforms of the British premiership for a generation.
In an audacious attempt to draw a line under the era of Prime Minister Tony Blair, Brown is looking at guaranteeing parliament the right to approve war and remove symbolic "royal prerogative" powers from the Prime Minister and hand them to parliament.
He has also said that he will revisit many of the fundamental National Health Service reforms of the Blair years and demand that general practice surgeries be open at the weekend and that doctors be on call in the evenings.
Doctors were given the right of opting out of out-of-hours care two years ago, under a controversial pay deal, signed by the then health secretary John Reid that awarded them a 22 percent pay rise last year.
The chancellor has long made it clear that he would like to build on the precedent set in 2003, when Britain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq was launched only after a vote in parliament.
The chancellor intends to go much further, possibly giving parliament the right not just to approve war, but also a key role in declaring armed action.
Brown is believed to be in favor of transferring key royal prerogatives to parliament. These are ancient monarchical powers, including the right to declare war and sign international treaties. They are exercised by the prime minister in the name of the monarch, under Britain's constitutional monarchy.
Handing elements of the royal prerogative to parliament would represent a direct break from Blair. In 2004, Downing Street flatly rejected such a proposal by the Commons Public Administration Select Committee, on the grounds that it was "not persuaded that the proposal would improve the present position."
A source in the Brown camp said: "Gordon is looking at transferring powers from the royal prerogative to parliament. These are not changes that will be handed down: they will be subject to discussion."
The source made clear that there would be safeguards in the parliamentary legislation that would enshrine the reforms.
"There would be safeguards to allow the executive to act immediately in emergencies where it is necessary to safeguard the lives of British forces," the source said.
Brown, who is convinced that Labour will win an unprecedented fourth consecutive term only if it embarks on the most fundamental reforms, believes enhancing the role of parliament is the best way to demonstrate the government has abandoned its old ways.
Blair was often accused of politicizing Downing Street -- and downgrading parliament -- by packing No 10 with political advisers who were seen as more powerful than ministers.
The chancellor accepts that Blair broke new ground when he allowed members of parliament to vote on a substantive motion on the eve of the Iraq war. By convention, pre-war votes are only ever held on a motion to "adjourn the house" if opponents can muster enough support.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS