Very important point here. The reason why it is fair to ask Johnson about the detailed regulation in each area of England is precisely because his government - in a centralised way and with very limited democratic scrutiny- makes those regulations. The buck stops with him.
(If someone had asked him about the detailed rules in Aberdeen or Aberystwyth, his answer would, rightly, have been: “ask the 🏴 or 🏴 Ministers about that”.)
The burden of centralisation is that you are accountable for all the decisions taken centrally.
One aspect of that is that when those decisions profoundly affect people’s lives, they expect you to be on top of all of them. Johnson’s well-known lack of interest in detail makes him vulnerable there.
But the problem is more systemic than that: it’s that centralising critical decisions like these, involving endless detailed judgements which should be based on local knowledge and sensitivity to local needs, may well be beyond the centre’s capacity.
The relationship between the degree of decentralisation of lockdown regulation and countries’ success in dealing with this stage of the pandemic will be a worthwhile research project.
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The concerns set out by @GeorgeMonbiot here have powerful and authoritative backing from the 2022 @CMAgovUK report into children’s care. Its conclusion:
Since then, the inability of the children in care system to deal adequately with children in care with complex needs has led to an explosion in “Deprivation of Liberty Orders” (DOLs) - so many that there is now a special court to deal with them. judiciary.uk/launch-of-nati…
Some brief comments on the European Commission’s proposal to get a mandate to negotiate a youth mobility agreement with the UK. ec.europa.eu/commission/pre…
1. The EU is not there yet. The mandate has to be agreed by the Council of Ministers: probably by qualified majority. And it isn’t clear whether a final agreement would need to be ratified by all Member States as well as the EU itself.
2. If the EU does agree a mandate, that is likely to slam the door on any attempt by the UK to negotiate youth mobility agreements with individual Member States (because they have a duty of sincere cooperation). So any agreement would have to cover (say) 🇧🇬 as well as (say) 🇫🇷.
1. No plan to “stop the boats” (chase them into French waters, destroy them on (French?) shores) or to send refugees who do land here to other countries (safe, because otherwise UK public opinion, let alone law, won’t wear it) works without cooperation of those countries. Esp. 🇫🇷
2. Those countries won’t do deals or cooperate just because it suits the UK. And France is (and French voters are) well aware that France takes many more refugees than we do.
1. It is of course true that big business (and the professions) can be a bit politically uniform. When I started out in the early 90s, the commercial Bar ( the profession I know best) was pretty much solidly Conservative (and certainly conservative).
To the point that aspiring pupils were sometimes advised not to mention eg chairing their university Labour club in their application.
Full report Windsor Framework (WF) report by @LordsEUCom Protocol sub-committee here . I will concentrate on areas where I gave evidence to the Committee. https://t.co/eyeHRrgNjncommittees.parliament.uk/publications/4…
On State aid. I entirely agree with @jamesrwebber’s points, made separately. And with the conclusions. The basic point: Art 10 remains a serious issue for any major cross-UK subsidy programme (Green New Deal/pandemic subsidies): in practice it will have to be cleared by the EU.
It also remains potentially applicable even to measures that don’t immediately and on their face cover NI: see eg James’ car battery example.