More on the abolition of Parliament.

Barking Blair's Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act, giving ministers the power to amend legislation without reference to Parliament, has started to pick up a bit of notice.

Owen Barder notes that the LegReg Act is conferring what Westminster insiders refer to as "Henry VIII powers".

To my eye, this seems to be the mother and father of all Henry VIII powers. I expect we will be told that, like the abolition of local council elections which has been floated this week, these changes will make the business of government much more efficient and streamlined.

Mind you, if TB wants to chop off his wife's head that's fine with me.

Spy Blog comments on the lack of any safeguards:

This all feels like a replay of the non-debate which happened over the controversial Civil Contingencies Act 2004 Part 2 Emergency Powers, where the Government repeatedly refused to exclude any "core constitutional Acts of Parliament", such as Magna Carta 1297 , the Bill of Rights 1688, or Habeas Corpus, or even the European Communities Act 1972 etc. from being subject to amendment or repeal under Emergency Regulations.

In the end, even the Civil Contingencies Act ended up with the dubious fig leaf, that it could not be used to amend or repeal the Civil Contingecies Act itself (e.g. to extend a period of Emergency indefinately) or the Human Rights Act (which already has huge loopholes for "national security" or "public health" etc).

However, the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill does not have even those "safeguards", and, if passed as it stands, would give a Minister the power to amend or repeal or replace any or all legislation, and even the Common Law as well.

Talk Politics has the pithiest comments:

Just when you thought things could not get any fucking worse, bullshit like this turns up on the statute books - if this passes, then we really have got to find some way not just to change governments every now and then but get rid of the whole fucking lot of them.

Sounds like the latest recruit to libertarianism to me.

Murky.org wonders why this is nowhere in the MSM:

This is outrageous, truly outrageous - and I'm amazed that it's not front page news. I only learned of this bill via pointers from friends.

[...]

The real issue that remains is the parliamentary bill to, possibly literally, end parliamentary bills.

The CBI, ever the tool of big government, is supporting the Act.

This needs much wider dissemination. Start blogging, people.