Update note: It’s entirely possible that there should be a question-mark in the headline to this post. He’s not stupid enough to have made this move without thinking it through, but I can’t for the life of me work out what he’s got planned.
Update 2: This post is now largely obsolete, and so has been edited down – Jack Straw is indeed Lord Chancellor. Had a bit of a scare there though – and it’s still very confusing…
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Via email and the like, I’ve been having heated discussions with a couple of mates about precisely what’s happened to the office of Lord Chancellor in this reshuffle. It looks rather like Brown may have made a major cock-up, and the current TV coverage hasn’t mentioned it a jot.
[Update edit - removed paragraph]
There is, technically, no constitutional reason why Jack Straw couldn’t be Lord Chancellor while remaining in the Commons, from what I can tell. But it’d be very, very odd indeed and I can’t see any way it would work in practice. [Update edit - removed speculation]
What the hell is going on? [Update edit - removed sentence]
They’re now announcing a special Cabinet session to change the constitution – but how, exactly, and where does the Cabinet get the authority to do that?
June 28, 2007 at 3:00 pm
Straw has indeed got the Lord Chancellor gig.
June 28, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Very, very odd…
Post now edited to remove silly speculation.
I still don’t like this constitutional change business, though… I’m getting rather worried…
June 28, 2007 at 5:16 pm
The constitutional change business happened a couple of years back, when the first Lords reform act created a “Lord Speaker”, elected by the house. As far as I can see, the LC no longer has any function at all, except possibly to dissolve Parliament on HM’s behalf when she has a diary clash. (He may be technically still head of the judiciary, but all the heavy lifting was transferred to the “Justice Secretary”, who is, of course, the same bloke.)
But there’s no practical reason why the LC shouldn’t now be in the Commons, or even on Hackney Borough Council, as far as his functions go.
June 28, 2007 at 5:17 pm
Have spent the day reading The Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal. I think it would have been more correct to have said that Jack Straw is Lord Keeper, not Lord Chancellor.
It’s interesting stuff for the constitutionally-pedantic, what with Jack Straw now technically being the highest-ranking officeholder sitting in the House of Commons. Don’t quote me on this, but I think that if anyone kills Gordon Brown it’s murder, but if they kill Straw it’s high treason.
June 28, 2007 at 5:43 pm
BTW the Lord Speaker is actually Baroness Hayman. Why she’s not Lady Speaker in this day and age is a Blairite mystery which is beyond me.