This might seem an odd question but follow me on this…

It’s a given in British constitutional law that the Prime Minister cannot be a Roman-Catholic even though nowhere is there a specific injunction in law to this effect.

The reason for this derives from the fact that within the British constitution the Prime Minister wield the ‘royal prerogative’ - a set of powers, including the power to appoint Ministers, declare war and a few other things besides that, strictly speaking, belong to the Crown - in effect in wielding the royal prerogative the PM is acting directly in lieu of the Monarch and subject to the same strictures imposed in law as would otherwise apply to the Monarch, notably those derived from the 1701 Act of Settlement, which is the Act of Parliament which prevents a Catholic from ascending to the throne.

Now…

What the 1701 Act of Settlement actually says is:

“And it was thereby further enacted, that all and every person and persons that then were, or afterwards should be reconciled to, or shall hold communion with the see or Church of Rome, or should profess the popish religion, or marry a papist, should be excluded, and are by that Act made for ever incapable to inherit, possess, or enjoy the Crown and government of this realm, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging, or any part of the same, or to have, use, or exercise any regal power, authority, or jurisdiction within the same:”

Which is pretty unequivocal, if you ask me.

The key points here are that the prohibition on Catholics in the Act of Settlement extends not only Catholics, themselves, but to anyone who marries a Catholic as well - Cherie, of course, being a Catholic - and that amongst the various things that a Catholic (or someone married to one) cannot do is “exercise any regal power, authority, or jurisdiction” - i.e. the royal prerogative.

So, on that basis, it looks very much a possibility that Blair may not legally be the PM, or at least he may not legally be permitted to make use of the royal prerogative, which would make every government appointed by him since 1997 illegal, as well as the war in Iraq and a whole shitload of other things besides.

One for the constitutional lawyers, methinks.

…and straight on to the accountancy class.

If yet more evidence were ever needed that the 650 or so inhabitants of ‘Westminster Village’ have lost touch with the real world, an article in today’s Observer notes the view of the Associate Parliamentary Skills Group and National Skills Forum that:

“Primary school children should receive careers advice and be encouraged to question their dreams of becoming pop stars and fairy princesses…”

‘Careers advice should be given to every child of primary-school age,’ according to Barry Sheerman, Labour MP for Huddersfield and former lecturer in American Studies at the University of Wales, Swansea, before adding that:

‘For too many children, a future as a fairy princess or pop star is the only dream they have, and it doesn’t occur to them to aspire to go to university, be a doctor or a scientist.

We are not suggesting sitting a five-year-old child down with a list of firm options but you need to inspire the imagination of the children to see where their potential could lead them.’

In other words, it’s ok for young kids to have an imagination but only so far it extends to matters which the political elite think will be useful to the economy in future, so I guess we can expect a new generation of reading books to be added to the national curriculum including:

Topsy and Tim study accountancy.

The [Schroedinger’s] Cat in the Hat’s Big Book of Nuclear Physics

“Oh do go on, he dared, he dared.
Please tell us why E = mc squared
For surely then we’ll see, we’ll see
Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty”

And of course, we can exclusively reveal that the title of JK Rowlings seventh and final book about life at Hogwarts School of Wizardry is to be called ‘Harry Potter and the Management Consultant” in which Harry, Ron and Hermione’s battle with the evil Lord Voldemort reaches a conclusion in a race against time to get their plans for Hogwarts to become a City Academy to the Ministry of Magic in time to stop ‘he who cannot be named’ turning the school into a comprehensive.

It’s worth noting that this not merely another bizarre excursion into managerialism from New Labour but comes from a cross-party group which includes Lib Dem, Simon Hughes, who believes:

‘…children should be given mentors before they leave primary school to start talking to them about career options.

They would be able to enthuse the child, then continue mentoring throughout secondary school with a view specifically towards careers advice.’

Nothing, then, from Simon on rooting out the most pernicious of all childish fantasies, the belief that an invisible and onmipotent supreme being runs the universe which is taught, by law, to all children from the age of five.

What else can one do in the circumstance by paraphrase the words of Roger Waters:

“Hey, dickheads, leave the kids alone!”

Curious Hamster has already done a first rate job of picking apart Sir Ian Blair’s failed efforts, in a letter to Sir John Gieve[pdf], to scotch any prospect of an independent investigation by the IPCC into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, however in reading the letter itself there a point I noticed which gives me considerable concern, as Blair writes:

“The officers have the protection of Section 3 of the Criminal Law Act. I do not seek to exempt them from investigation (and, ultimately therefore prosecution if evidence of deliberate malfeasance was available)”

Whoa, there. Deliberate malfeasance? Is that, in Blair’s opinion, the sole and exclusive test as to whether or not an officer acted correctly under the Kratos rules and in circumstances which end with a shooting? Does the possibility of incompetence and, more importantly - and relevantly in the Menezes shooting, negligence not factor into Blair’s thinking?

Blair is, here, sending out a coded message that, in his opinion, a prosecution should be brought if, and only if, it can be shown that officers were engaged in wilful and deliberate misconduct in the course of such a shooting - it’s murder or nothing; just an unfortunate error.

That’s Blair’s message to the Menezes family:

“Sorry. Shit happens.”

It seems to me that Blair has, however inadvertantly, provided us with a further insight into how an tragic incident like the Menezes shooting can occur all too easily; far too easily, in fact, for the public to feel comfortable with the approach of the Police towards it’s ’shoot to kill’ policy. Blair’s comment evidences the existence of an institutionalised arrogance within the Police, a belief that while they may not be entirely above the law, the law does not apply to them to anything like the full extent it would apply to a civillian for whom anything other than a clear case of self-defence would be no defence at all.