Constitutionalism – The Empty City

“The best time to fix a roof is…”

28th July 2026

We have three years to protect our constitutional arrangements before a possible radical illiberal majority at the next General Election

There is enough time left, just about, to fix parts of our constitutional arrangements before the next general election. This is important, as there is a non-trivial possibility of a radical illiberal majority at that general election.

Of course, given our (largely Victorian) doctrine of parliamentary supremacy, and given the general deference our courts give to the executive, there is little which could be ultimately done to prevent the damage which a radical illiberal majority could do.

But the damage could be slowed down significantly.

For example, our current constitutional arrangements make it easy for ministers and departments to change and make law by statutory instruments, without any meaningful parliamentary involvement.

Making such secondary legislation subject to a distinct process involving parliamentary consideration would at a stroke check any attempt by an incoming government to inflict a raft of Trump-style executive orders on day one. Eventually a new administration could get round this obstacle, but it would reduce the speed of the assault.

Similarly, making it easier for citizens to challenge disproportionate executive decisions and secondary legislation would similarly make it harder for a new government to push through excessive measures.

And there many other things that could be done too, from making public procurement more transparent, to giving teeth (or even a tooth) to freedom of information laws, to limiting the powers of a new Prime Minister to create peers.

We could do so much strengthen the roof before this incoming storm. There may not, of course, be a storm. Maybe everything is going to be ok. Nonetheless, it would be worth doing anyway.

But we will not do any of this, even with three years to go of the current parliament, a period which provides more than enough time to force things through the House of Lords if need be.

Over at Prospect I have reviewed an interesting paper by the Constitution Unit at University College London: Safeguarding the Constitution: Key Steps to Strengthen UK Democratic Resilience.

It is a paper well worth reading, and if TL;DR you can read a summary here.

There are some good proposals in there, and some nice-to-haves, but as I set out at Prospect, I think the recommendations are incomplete.

And as aver at the end of that article: our constitutional arrangements are vulnerable, and it is complacent to think otherwise.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

Another new Prime Minister…and another new former Prime Minister

20th July 2026

Regular readers of this blog will recall that there is nothing unusual and indeed nothing wrong with our political system’s capacity to eject Prime Ministers from office.

As set out in a previous post, it is that we keep appointing poor Prime Ministers that is the problem, not that we are deft at getting rid of them: an input issue not an output issue.

In essence – our body politic retains an admirably efficient discharge system for getting rid of poor PMs, it is the diet which is at fault.

And regular readers will also recall that changing Prime Ministers mid-term is pretty much the norm and not the exception.

Every Prime Minister since 1974 has either gained office or left office mid-term (and sometimes both).

It is important to remember that we have a parliamentary system and not a presidential system.

And so what is happening today, with the appointment of Andrew Burnham to replace Keir Starmer is not even a constitutional drama, let alone a constitutional crisis.

That said, one remarkable feature is that, notwithstanding 650 members of parliament were elected at the last general election, the new Prime Minister had to be shipped in from outside parliament. One would hope that, in a parliamentary system, at least one elected member of parliament would be up to the job of having the confidence of a majority of the House of Commons (the constitutional test).

But, no.

The new Prime Minister appears to have a genuine belief in devolution and perhaps also electoral reform. This is, of course, welcome, though it is unlikely that substantive constitutional reforms can be enacted this side of a general election, especially if not in the manifesto.

On the other hand, not all constitutional reform needs primary legislation and endless parliamentary time. Let’s see what, if anything gets done to repair our constitutional arrangements before the next general election.

Looming behind all this, is that there is still a realistic prospect of an radically illiberal government being returned at the next election and, as this blog has previously averred, our constitution is in poor shape to withstand any radical illiberal assault.

Parliament really should be fixing the constitutional roof while the sun shines, especially in terms of delegated legislation.

Otherwise, today’s news means another former Prime Minister is now added to the pile.

Constitutional change and a new Prime Minister

6th July 2026

Why fundamental reform is more likely than before, but still unlikely

The United Kingdom is about to have a new Prime Minister.

As this blog has pointed out many times, changing Prime Minister mid-term is the norm in British politics. Since 1974 every Prime Minister has either entered office or left office between general elections, sometimes both. And there is nothing wrong or unusual with this, for we have a parliamentary and not a presidential system.

But the one thing a new, mid-term Prime Minister cannot point to is a fresh mandate, with a manifesto endorsed by a general election result. They are pretty much stuck with the same mandate.

Sometimes a new Prime Minister will break with the mandate they inherited. In 1990 John Major dumped the community charge (poll tax) notwithstanding it having been detailed in the 1987 Conservative manifesto. No sensible person doubted that was the right thing for him to do.

Generally, however, any proposed big change will be put off to the next election. There is often too much to do which is more urgent.

The new Prime Minister is likely to be Andrew Burnham, who has been open about supporting constitutional change and even now is expressing support for devolution and electoral reform.

But the eternal problem about constitutional reform is that it means those with power giving some of that power away.

Burnham has nice intentions about giving real power away, and maybe he will actually do something in office. And so on that basis it is more likely than before, but one suspects there is more than enough for a new Prime Minister to do, with the economy and taxation and defence and foreign affairs and so on. So constituional reform is still, on balance, unlikely before an election.

Over at Prospect a couple of weeks ago, I set out more thoughts on this.

Let’s see what happens.

Getting rid of six Prime Ministers in ten years is a sign of a working political system

23rd June 2026

It is that we keep appointing poor Prime Ministers that is the problem: an input issue not an output issue

There is an old adage that a litigator should not be “surprised” (or similar) by what their opponent does in litigation – one may be disappointed perhaps, but one should never be surprised. If a litigator is genuinely surprised by what their opponent does, they are probably in the wrong job.

A similar thing may be said about political commentators who are “baffled” (or similar) by a politician losing substantial support. A number of commentators seem bewildered by why and how the current Prime Minister Keir Starmer has lost political support so rapidly and widely that he announced his resignation yesterday, despite winning an emphatic majority at the last general election only two years ago. Again, if a pundit is genuinely baffled by a politician losing substantial amounts of political support they too are probably in the wrong job.

(The quick answer is that the current Prime Minister alienated his backbenchers and other political supporters by a sequence of decisions and indecisions, many of which were unforced errors.)

The question for this post is whether yet another Prime Minister going is a sign of a political system functioning or dysfunctioning. We will soon be on the seventh Prime Minister since the Brexit referendum ten years ago today, and such a turnover suggests something is not right.

Yet it is less obvious to say what is not right, as each departure can be explained and indeed justified on its own terms.

Cameron resigned because his government lost the Brexit referendum.

May resigned because she lost the confidence of her party and parliament regarding the Brexit exit deal.

Johnson resigned because the loss of support with his parliamentary party notwithstanding the huge majority (like Starmer) he had won a couple of years before.

Truss resigned because her and her Chancellor created an economic crisis.

Sunak went because he lost a general election.

And Starmer is going because he too has lost the confidence of his parliamentary majority.

Which of these particular departures can one object to or even quibble about?

If each departure can be justified on its own terms, the suggestion must be that the departures are signs of a political system working rather than not working.

But aggregate numbers change minds – or at least perspectives.

Yes, each of the departures makes sense by themselves, but six? In ten years? Surely that cannot be right?

Not long ago we had the premierships of Thatcher (eleven years), Major (seven years), and Blair (ten years).

If each departure was the right thing to happen, then the better question is why our political system keeps producing Prime Ministers who soon lose the confidence of their parliamentary supporters?

One could blame party members – for example, for Johnson and Truss.

But that explanation does not fit all.

Another answer is that we have had a run of prime ministers who could not or would not manage their parliamentary majority. Here May was in an impossible situation, but it is obvious Johnson, Truss and Starmer did not have happy relationships with their backbenchers.

The answer this blog will offer as to whether losing six prime ministers in ten years is a sign of our political system functioning or dtysfunctioning is that, given each departure was justified, it is a sign of a working polity.

But the constant production of prime ministers who so quickly lose their support is, in contrast, a sign of the system not working.

It is not that we keep getting rid of poor Prime Minister that is the problem, but that we keep appointing them.

It is an input issue, not an output issue.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

Must Prime Ministers fail? A constitutionalist perspective

16th May 2026

This was a week when we got to consider the office of Prime Minister, again.

The current occupant has somehow, through a sequence of decisions and non-decisions, made themselves a lame duck – despite a thumping majority two years ago and three years of a parliamentary terms to go. It is quite an impressive under-achievement, given the powers and privileges a Prime Minister has at their disposal.

But for a Prime Minister to be on their way out is, as this blog has stated before, not unusual. Since 1974 every single Prime Minister has come to office or left office between general elections, and recently both. The classic model of a Prime Minister coming and leaving power at a general elections has not happened in over fifty years.

What, however, is becoming distinctive is the speed with which Prime Ministers come and go. Since 2016 the churn has been quite remarkable. The long terms of Thatcher (eleven years) and Blair (ten years) now seem form another age.

Why?

Alan Beattie of the Financial Times observes:

“If you think the UK changes PMs too often, which of the last 5 departures were mistakes? Cameron shd have stayed after losing the referendum? May after deadlock with her deal? Johnson after Partygate? Truss after meltdown? And Sunak lost an election.”

He makes a good point: circumstances and events explain each of the recent changes which, taken together, appears to be rapid churn, if not turmoil.

And Beattie links to this fine article by Robert Shrimsley which avers:

“Britain is not ungovernable. It has just been very badly governed. In particular, it has endured a decade of woefully inept leadership.”

The problem thereby is not so much with the office, but with its occupants.

Over at his Substack Sam Freedman offers a view which mixes structural and personal points:

“Why do prime ministers keep failing?

“[One suggested reason] is that we’ve just had a really bad run of leaders who either lacked basic political skills, were temperamentally unsuited for the job, or were Liz Truss.

“[But] there are some deeper structural problems that are undoubtedly making it harder to be prime minister.

“[…] there are some uniquely British challenges with being prime minister that make it harder than necessary. The role has evolved in a typically haphazard way over the decades, without much thought as to its purpose.”

Freedman’s analysis is typically well-informed and insightful.

My view, which I had already put together before I saw any of the above commentators, is that there is structural gap in our constitutional arrangements where the office of the Prime Minister should be.

Indeed, until the lifetimes of people still alive, the constitutional fiction was that the office of Prime Minister had no legal existence at all.

Other than with a few express statutory powers, the powers (and privileges) of the Prime Minister are still almost entirely to be inferred from the royal prerogative and from being the head of a Commons majority. Prime Ministers can remove ministers (and civil servants) from their jobs and impose whips on backbenchers, and make certain other decisions.

But unless you have an individual of exceptional charisma and/or capacity, coupled with reliable allies in other cabinet jobs and substantial backbench support, a Prime Minister is vulnerable to political downturns.

In this way, despite what pundits sometimes say otherwise, we very much have a parliamentary and not a presidential system.

And so when one faces a sequence of difficult political challenges, as the United Kingdom has had since 2016, the tendency will be for Prime Ministers to fold.

Part of it is as Beattie and Shrimsley point out: the occupants have not been up to the challenges they have faced. But the occupants also have not had firm places to stand.

The job of Prime Minister is, for the reasons detailed by Freedman, becoming more and more difficult to do. There is no particular reason to believe any successor to the current occupant will do any better job. (It is telling that many think the only viable candidate is not one of the already elected members of parliament.)

And so, as I set out, over at Prospect, there is a prime minister-shaped hole in our constitutional arrangements.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

Changing Prime Ministers mid-term and the constitution

12th May 2026

How gaining or losing a Prime Minister between general elections in the norm and not the exception

There is perhaps a ‘classic’ view – which like many ‘classic’ views is not really true – that a Prime Minister comes in with a general election and then goes out at a General Election.

Like Disraeli and Gladstone did in Victorian days, or Attlee did between 1945 and 1951.

But since 1974 that has not happened.

Every Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 1974 has either taken office between general elections or lost office between general elections – and recently even both.

Some would say that 1974 is not a sound starting point, as Heath sought to stay on and do a deal after the February election, and we would have to go back to 1970.

Those who came in between general elections since 1974: Callaghan, Major, Brown, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak.

Those who left office between general elections since 1974: Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss.

Those who did both: May, Johnson, Truss – though at least May and Johnson fought general elections during their term as Prime Minister.

Compare and contrast that with parties losing office between elections: that rarely happens, even if we go back a long time.

In 1905 the Conservative and Liberal Unionist coalition lost office to the Liberals, months before a general election. Some of the national and wartime coalitions mid-century shifted between general elections. But straight party swaps are few.

More recently even the loss of an overall majority – in the late 1970s or the early 1990s – merely meant the minority administration staggered on.

And so we have two cycles: the party cycle and the Prime Minister cycle.

The party cycle generally accords with general elections. Invariably the party in government who lose at a general election is the party which won the one before.

The Prime Minister cycle, however, only incidentally accords with general elections. Since 1974 general elections account for only a portion of the arrivals and departures from office.

As we seem to be about to change (yet) another Prime Minister between general elections, it is useful to remind ourselves that we (still) have very much a parliamentary rather than presidential system of government.

Even those most presidential of Prime Ministers – Thatcher and Blair – left office mid-term.

Whilst they have office some Prime Ministers can be hubristic – think Johnson or Truss – but they quickly meet with Nemesis.

The body politic regurgitated and spat them out.

And with Starmer, the surprise would be if he actually did lose office with a general election. If so, he would be the first Labour Prime Minister since Wilson between 1964 and 1970 to win and lose office at general elections.

But it always seems to take us by surprise when a Prime Minister loses office between general elections, as if some norm has been subverted.

The true subversion would be if a Prime Minister who won a general election was able to continue to defeat at a general election.

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

The purpose of processes and policies and law in government is not to make things better, but to stop things being even worse

5th May 2026

The real reason we need rules and procedures in public administration

It is a paradox that in the weeks and days before an election people tend to become less interested in law and policy. The focus instead turns to politics and personalities, and the soap opera of who is up and who is down, and who is in and who is out.

And in the days after the elections, those who could not predict the outcome will confidently assert that the result proved them right all along.

This is not really a politics blog, and it has no party-partisan preference. Indeed, the general view of the blog is that governments tend to be illiberal, regardless of which politicians take power, and that the politicians who affect to be liberal in opposition tend not to carry that liberalism over into office.

As the eminent jurists the Bonzo Dog Band aver, it can seem that no matter who you vote for the government always gets in.

But.

We have in popular opposition not only those parading their liberalism, but the illiberalism, and so voters have a choice between the possibility of liberalism (and likely disappointment) and the certainty of illiberalism (and likely despotism).

And so it is at times like that we should take more interest in the actual workings of government and now public administration works. We should watch how public administration is conducted with anxious scrutiny.

This is why, perhaps counter-intuitively, the whole Starmer-Mandelson-Robbins affair is important.

In respect of political drama, the matter may not be of lasting import: the media caravan has moved on, and the attention-spans of the easily bored have been exhausted. The Prime Minister is still in office and if he is to be deposed, then it will because of a further political drama and not the one which has just passed.

The importance of what happened is otherwise than of immediate political effect. It was instead in the rare insight we had into how ministers and officials actually do make decisions (or don’t make decisions). The sort of thing which is usually hidden from public view.

An excellent balanced and informed account of the matter has now been posted at the Substack of the estimable former civil servant Martin Stanley. That post is required reading for anybody with an interest in our government in action (or inaction).

What I can add from the perspective of a former central government lawyer is that the informal-formal inexact process and lack of process is not unusual in Whitehall. The only difference here is that a stone has been lifted and we get to see what was teeming underneath.

(Public administration is more about teems than teams.)

Sometimes one can fall into the error of thinking government and administration is about the neat, almost-Euclidean geometry of decision trees and straight lines on a grand plane of an organogram. No, it is often a mess, both at the time and when there has to be an account of it afterwards.

This is why one the purpose of processes and policies and public law is not so much to make things go well, but to help stop things being worse. For example, the law of public procurement is not really there to help public authorities to make good purchasing decisions, but to stop public authorities making worse purchasing decisions than they otherwise would do.

And this is the significance of the Starmer-Mandelson-Robbins affair: we got to see under the rock. From that we can take the wider understanding that this is how important decisions and indecisions are made more generally. And that, in turn, helps explain why we have such an accountability gap in the government of the United Kingdom.

There is a general disconnect between how ministers and officials take decisions and how those decisions are accounted for to parliament, and to the media and public.

Certain executive-minded pundits and activists want to reduce even further the role of processes and policies and public law in government – to get rid of impediments and barriers.

They think that will make public administration better and more effective, but it is more likely to make public administration even worse than it already is.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

The prospect of “executive orders” being used by an incoming illiberal government

Spring Equinox, 2026

Hello and welcome to The Empty City blog, the new name of which is explained here.

Last weekend there was a news article about the Reform party which contained this passage:

“Nigel Farage’s party has promised it will enact a radical programme. One senior member said this would be modelled on the second Trump administration. The US president made many changes via executive orders rather than via Congress.”

Readers of this blog (and of my stuff elsewhere) should not be surprised by this.

Last year this blog set out how an incoming illiberal administration would have significant constitutional powers to do illiberal things with few or no checks and balances, as such legal instruments receive little or no parliamentary scrutiny.

In particular, such a new government would have the power of issuing at scale statutory instruments and other delegated legislation:

“The possibly third constitutional super-power is the sheer range and wealth of discretionary powers of the government not under the Royal Prerogative but already existing under perhaps thousands of legislative provisions.

“Some of these provisions under Acts of Parliament even allow ministers to change the law by ministerial discretion, as well as to issue statutory instruments and other instruments (such as statutory guidance) with legal effect.

“Every successive government has added more of these provisions, even if they complained about them in opposition.

And it would be open to a government under the first constitutional super-power – the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy – to add even more of these powers

“One suspects various “think-tanks” are already collating the discretionary powers that already exist, ready to arm – DOGE-style – an incoming radical and illiberal government.

“Such an incoming government would not need to break the law – for the law already will provide almost all the powers such a government could want.”

These legal instruments are not called “executive orders” – that is an Americanism.

But the sentiment is the same.

And the problem is that the current government – as with all governments whatever the parties in office – likes these legal instruments far too much to give them up.

A sensible government would prudently pass measures to limit the power of ministers to rule by fiat – to reduce the scope of discretionary powers to (for example) make, amend or repeal legislation.

But, of course, we do not have a sensible government acting prudently to make more difficult for a possible illiberal administration.

And so those who have warned about these powers and of how they could misused will only have the dubious consolation of saying “we told you so” if an incoming illiberal government uses these powers in illiberal ways.

This post is also cross posted at The Empty City substack, which is run in parallel with this blog.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

What is not happening with constitutionalism in the United States and the United Kingdom

11th March 2026

Hello and welcome to The Empty City blog on law, policy, and lore – the new name of which is explained here.

A look at constitutionalism (and the lack of it) in the United States and United Kingdom, with reference to a 1980s computer magazine column

The first journalist who I knew by name was Lloyd Mangram, the writer of a monthly round-up of news for that wonderful 1980s magazine for Sinclair Spectrum users, Crash.

(Yes, I was a Speccie – less earnest than the BBC micro users, less bombastic than the Commodore 64 users, and less exotic than a Dragon 32 user.)

The Merely Mangram column was cheerfully discursive and leisurely, and it gave a better sense of what was going on (and not going on) generally in that world – especially for this then-teenage reader – than the news reports, interviews and reviews elsewhere in the computer press.

So you can imagine the devastation when I discovered one day that Lloyd Mangram did not actually exist – that this supposed author was actually a composite persona put together by the other magazine writers.

Lloyd Mangram was a fiction!

This was when I first learned to be cynical about the media.

*
Nonetheless, there is merit in that sort of discursive commentary – especially about human affairs.

News reports are necessarily narrow; op-eds often promote a preconceived “angle” with motivated reasoning; explainers invariably work backwards from what topical particular point needs to be quickly explained.

But if [A] has some connection to [B], and in the meantime [C] is not happening, then a discursive approach can sometimes give more insight in what is going on, than any news report, an op-ed, or explainer.

And as Kenneth Tynan (who I think definitely existed?) says somewhere, the job of a critic is not only to say what is happening, but also to say what is not happening. This must also be true of a commentator.

Yet commenting on something which is not happening is not really what our media is geared to do, if you think about it. There is enough going on report and analyse, without setting out what is not happening.

In respect of the United States, what is not happening explains a great deal of what is happening.

What is not happening is any overall sense of constitutionalism.

President Trump and his circle are doing the worst of things, at home and abroad. There is a general approach of cruelty and violence, from Minnesota to the Indian Ocean .

But.

There are always Trumps. There are always Vances and Millers and Hegseths and Noems.

There are always knaves and fools, and there always those those who will serve knaves and fools.

The question is how constitutional arrangements – the division of powers, the checks and balances, the rule of law and the guarantees of certain fundamental rights – have failed and are failing to prevent what is happening.

The arrangements are there: Trump and his circle could face removal by impeachment at a stroke, and their antics could be consistently held to be unlawful.

Yet that is not happening.

What is not happening is any constitutionalist approach to restrain Trump and his circle.

*
Here in the United Kingdom we have a different sort of thing which is not happening in respect of constitutional matters.

We have a supposedly left-of-centre government with a former human rights lawyer as Prime Minister – and with similar lawyers and ex-lawyers in prominent positions.

But we do not have any consistent overall view to constitutionalism and constitutional reform.

Yesterday – hurrah! – there was a vote passing the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords, some 115 years after such peers were allowed to remain in the legislature with what was intended to be a temporary stay.

This reform is the minimum required – and a great deal of Lords reform is undone, as is any (and arguably more important) Commons reform.

And also yesterday – boo! – there was a vote restricting trials by jury.

This change, of course, will make little or no difference to court backlogs, which to deal with requires resources at scale.

And as this blog has said many times, juries are less important for the powers that they have, than for the powers that they prevent others from having.

Again, this change is not part of any overall constitutional vision.

Many of the problems in the United States and United Kingdom come about from what is not not being done.

And in our focus of twenty-four news and doomscrolling, we are perhaps less able to notice what is not happening.

As one Speccie computer game character would have said:

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

(Source)

This post is also cross posted at The Empty City substack, which is run in parallel with this blog.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.

Will the Carnival ever end?

Shrove Tuesday, 2026

The Contest between Carnival and Lent

by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (source)

Today is Shrove Tuesday, a moveable date which is reckoned as forty days before Palm Sunday.

Not long ago it was Candlemas, a fixed date – 2nd February – which is reckoned as forty days after Christmas.

(Candlemas, of course, has a special place on this blog.)

The gap between these dates is really a bridge between midwinter and the coming of spring.

It appears that the earliest possible date for Shrove Tuesday is 3rd February. The last time it was that early was in 1818. It seems the next time will be in 2285.

And so the two forty day periods reckoned respectively by Christmas and Easter can never actually overlap.

This blog has previously noted that the political culture of the United States – and to an extent in other places including the United Kingdom – is akin to the Carnival before Lent:

There are signs of push-back in the United States: with grand juries and state governments, and even in Congress and federal courts.

But the agents of misrule still are generally in power.

Many watching are waiting for the mid-term elections this November to see whether the current chaos can be paused; some are even actively seeking to avoid such an outcome.

But even if the mid-terms bring some relief from the carnival of cruelty in the United States, it will take far more than forty days to reverse the mess that has been created.

This is not a religious blog (I happen to be a non-militant atheist) but it is one concerned with lore as well as law, and a great deal of lore is to do with the passage of time and/or with the competing states of order and disorder.

Once the mid-terms come and go – whatever their outcome – what is happening now will be seen as having the inevitable consequence of what happens then.

Hindsight is perhaps the greatest and trickiest of hobgoblins.

As it stands, however, the outcome of what is now happening is uncertain.

We do not know who will win this contest between Carnival and Lent; we do not even know if it currently amounts to much of a contest.

But disorder, like order, is never bound to last forever.

Carnivals can and do eventually come to an end, even if not promptly forty days before an arbitrary date.

***

Comments Policy

This blog enjoys a high standard of comments, many of which are better and more interesting than the posts.

Comments are welcome, but they are pre-moderated and comments will not be published if irksome, or if they risk derailing the discussion.

More on the comments policy is here.