Local government is never likely to be at its best when facing the question of how to allocate a shared national/regional responsibility which more or less every locality prefers someone else to shoulder.

Yes, I think the breadth of opposition and flexibility as to rival candidates tells you that while Richard III may have done the only thing he could sooner or later, he had also stepped well outside the bounds of ‘acceptable’ ruthlessness. ‘Medieval England was not a meritocracy’ and all that.

‘Historical confidence is not and need not be criminal proof: an exemplar.’

And given the rapidity with which revolts broke out, including the confusion over who the candidate of the Buckingham Rebellion was at first, the answer was ‘I don’t have time for that.’

*Of course* you can’t usurp the Crown from a previously more or less universally accepted King and then let him and his brother live! The only thing even up for debate there is whether you’d rather leave it a few years and then trump up some treasonable conspiracy on the Henry VII and Warwick model.

(Honestly, guys. There is no plausible alternative murderer unless you’re into anachronistically baroque conspiracy theories, and the ‘you need people to know your rivals are gone’ stuff collapses once we realise the Princes are essentially regarded in the past tense by the end of 1483.)

I confess I always feel two male skeletons of the right age with velvet (and so very high-ranking and dead between the late 13th century and 1674) in the Tower and the Woodvilles’ willingness in summer 1483 to back Henry Tudor to marry Elizabeth of York mean this needn’t be such a big debate!

There is a risk of an indefinite catch-22 here: a smaller, implacably opposed group of people make it politically impossible to use a better route to reform, while a larger, contingently concerned group end up rejecting the results of a worse one.

I also think people who focus on the problems with a PMB as the vehicle should be asked how they’d react to a Government Bill (which would, I agree, be a much better approach). I strongly suspect a lot of the same people would see that as outrageous side-picking on a matter of conscience.

I suspect that is the highest impact-to-effort ratio I will ever manage, for better or worse …

I care about the world too much to leak all my secrets. I’m all heart. You know that.

I have since made a firm commitment never to post anything I think could conceivably not be properly public knowledge regarding China and Taiwan.

It was always coherent to be sceptical of lockdowns, but conclude the evidence showed there was no viable alternative to implementing them.

Hello! I'm working on the basis that 'long-standing mutual at the Other Place' counts as 'someone I know'.

I realise this is part of how British voters think about their democracy, for better or worse. But one reason I prefer a German-/Scottish-style system to STV for Westminster is that, while either is better than FPTP, competitive constituency service could really exacerbate that point.

I think you could also argue FPTP (accepting the problem with labelling the EC this way) interacts in a particularly toxic way with an open primary system plus institutionalisation of the big two parties. You’ve effectively maximised electoral insulation *and* minimised party-based guardrails.

Yes, the current 52-48 lead for the Union is buttressed for now by the fact that plenty of the 48 don’t think independence is a priority right this minute. That is no protection when political circumstances make it one again. The constitutional, structural challenges still need to be addressed.