Supreme Folly

Falconer's Folly. Both the building and that which it contains, the new Supreme Court.

I didn't hear Joshua Rozenberg's Radio Four programme on it last night, as I was at a meeting of Lanchester Parish Council. Lanchester Parish Council is part of this country's democratic, representative process. The Supreme Court is the greatest ever threat to that process.

No longer in Parliament, they are no longer accessible to other parliamentarians, not least literally as their peers. No longer the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (even if that will initially be the same people), they are no longer guardians of the Union and the Commonwealth.

And explicitly Supreme as well as extraparliamentary, they may, and they will, simply strike down any statute that they do not like, with no one in any position to do anything to stop them.

Imagine if there had been a Supreme Court in the Attlee years.