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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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This means don't put your mail in the washing machine.
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Paul Evans@courtenayilbert.bsky.social |
97 followers 150 following 53 posts
Retired Clerk in House of Commons, continuing as a parliamentary nerd; Victorian by nature; books and buildings biggest passions. Lives in and cares about Wales.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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This means don't put your mail in the washing machine.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Grove Road E3 - by the railway bridge. Used to walk past it every morning on the way to Mile End tube. Having read Thomas Pynchon's V (or was it actually in Gravity's Rainbow?) it always gave pause for thought.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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I believe the proposal is that they would retire at the dissolution following their 80th birthday.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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One of the many annoying things about this man's article is that Cambridge has no railway terminus. Hard as it may be for a Spectator chap to believe that there is any civilisation North of Cambridge, the railway does not in fact terminate there.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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We have now established that A is holed-up in Brussels. We will be sending an interrogation team over today. Please inform our ambassador and the Belgian security minister.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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I was asked to help two over-90s with no driving licence, passport or internet to get voter id. Went to Electoral Commission website to download form. It's four pages long and requires them to find and copy four different documents and provide a photo. I think they are about to be disenfranchised.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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It is indeed a very useful, calm and balanced explanation.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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I feel they should have credited Huskisson with being the pioneer of death by locomotive.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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For a quantum physicist, I expect all chairs are improbable. (As is this response.)
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Point taken, but is there not a risk that by seeking to protect MPs from threats of violence if they vote the wrong way you imply the efficacy of such threats?
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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@courtenayilbert.bsky.social is profoundly gratified, and is continually being impressed by your work. Can I just take this opportunity to endorse your description of the current search service on the parliamentary website as "completely inadequate"? It has been so continuously since its inception.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Hmmm
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Only within a one mile radius of Big Ben. Otherwise too cruel for the wfh crowd.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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For a long time I have been trying to insert a new cliche into political discourse - "The Politics of Jealousy". This is the reprehensible urge to hold on to what you have even if you have too much, and the refusal to share the fruits of the earth and the economy with others. So far I have failed.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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The "self-awareness of a new-born baby" bit made me think of Poor Things ...
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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The people have heard there is an escaped panjandrum on the streets, and have fled to the shelters.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Can anyone tell me please - do the stratospheric damages seemingly regularly awarded by US courts ever actually get paid?
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Surely we can all agree that Melanie's finest achievement was "Look what they've done to my song, Ma".
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Or theology, or Victorian poetry.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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/3 Dirty Linen/New-Found-Land, a 1976 drama by Tom Stoppard entirely founded on a select committee inquiry (including a Clerk called Miss Gotobed); and I have a feeling that the TV series State of Play featured a fictional select committee.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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/2 The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall’s Relationship with Kids Company, a musical put on by the Donmar in June 2017; /3
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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That's a funny question from the author of Dramas at Westminster! Some oddities follow:/2
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Not needless fussing - an important distinction. Pardon has always been a prerogative power, not a matter for the courts.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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This case is different. S. 359 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 pardoned deserters etc but did not quash the convictions, which it was argued were arrived at by due process. Pardoning the sub-postmasters could be done at the stroke of a pen, but they want their convictions quashed.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Me neither. Parliament defines the crimes in general, the courts determine specific cases. And if they get it wrong, they need to sort it out themselves. P'ment could help (eg by setting up a fixed term special tribunal or providing for class actions. But P'ment deciding innocence or guilt is dodgy.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Indeed, but it also casts something of a shadow over Parliament that all that backbench activity counted for very little compared to a few hours of Toby Jones. Though this says as much about our mainstream media as it does about our legislature - with the honourable exception of BBC Radio 4.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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OK, ok, you can ask the first question, Mr Swotty.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Great news Arabella.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Nobody cares. Outside Westminster and "Fleet Street" nobody really remembers exactly who Dominic Cummings was.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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City I dislike – Shining on the Hill City I begrudgingly respect – Vatican City I think is overrated – Sodom (and Gomorrah) City I think is underrated – Troy City I like – El Dorado City I dream of living in – Atlantis City I love – Shangri La
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Ella is fine, but only when accompanied by the Northumbrian Small Pipes.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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If this phenomenon genuinely does puzzle you, it would appear you have got off extremely lightly in your encounters with irrational human prejudice so far in your life. Which is maybe something to be envied. (I can't bear a lot of jazz - which is a genre. But most of all anything involving scat.)
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Reading Dicey is a fool's errand.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Will the Conservatives hold any seats in Wales at the GE?
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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They shouldn't really have their finger to their lips but their hand cupped behind their ear.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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What would the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth look like? Not for the most part what we see before us.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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I always liked his line about academic politics being so bitter because the stakes were so low,
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Much enjoying the Hansard Society's new podcast Parliament Matters with @ruthfox.bsky.social and Mark D'Arcy (late of Today in Parliament) chewing over the details of a Westminster week. Aural ambrosia for parliamentary nerds and political geeks: open.spotify.com/show/5odRade...
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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You all look Earl Grey type of guys.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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I think one should bear in mind the etymology: weakened by just having given birth. But I'm not sure that helps.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Leaving aside syntax and grammar, I think it is important to regularly remind ourselves that in 2017 May got 42.3% of the popular vote and in 2019 Johnson got 43.6%. It was mostly Jeremy Corbyn (and FPTP) who won the 2019 election for the Conservatives, if anyone, by dropping from 40% to 32%.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Yes. You haven't been playing by the move fast and break the rules (aka f*** the International Chess Federation/Policy Exchange) system. There's Legal Chess and there's Political Chess. Legal Chess is for losers.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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See Lennon & McCartney as against Lennon, and McCartney.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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When one's tastes mature you don't want things to taste sweet just because you were once a kid addicted to sweet sugary drinks. It's not aspartame that you can detect Marie, it's the bitter but refreshing savour of the unadulterated and uncorrupted.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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And, one might add, a very fine ceiling.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Well strictly speaking, disqualification for an office covers Chilterns and Northstead, but I guess they are different concepts . I think on peerages I would say "has been made a Life Peer, been appointed a Lord Spiritual, or been elected as a mbr of HoL as a representative of the hereditary peers."
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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That Gover is a bit quick out of the trap. Going to have to keep an eye on him.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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They move back in with their parents if they are lucky enough to have parents living in a largeish house in London. The others are shafted or snookered, and so rolls on the concentration of wealth and opportunity.
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Paul Evans
@courtenayilbert.bsky.social
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Island Gardens! Of course.
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