Alas and Alack...

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Now I know that the Star Chamber was instituted as a means of reining in the rich, powerful and otherwise ungovernable: a kind of all-powerful meta-court of final resort. But over time it was bastardised by the powers that be and mutated into the ultimate means of coercive control: making up the rules expediently to suit the needs and wants of those in government. And in like vein, here in 2021, Doris is at it again. Under the cover of COP26, his government today forced through a whipped vote that threatens to undermine Parliamentary procedure and probity - in my book, this looks like an open charter for sleaze and self-interest. Whatever suits this lot gets passed into process, or so it would seem.

Now it looks eminently possible that paid lobbying could become a de facto acceptable feature of our so-called 'democracy' rather than the shady and immoral backroom dealing it really is: political decisions made for and on behalf of the highest bidder. Sounds like a banana republic to me: why not bring back the rotten boroughs, take back the franchise from non landowners, women and anyone else they find annoyingly getting in the way of their plans? These people are dangerous, have a mandate and seem intent on destroying everything we take for granted as being correct and proper. This bizarrely is the very accusation that the Tories have traditionally levelled at the Labour Party. There is definitely something rotten in the State of Denmark: let's hope for a suitably Shakespearian denouement to it all.

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