LL-L: "Language politics" 17.JUL.2000 (05) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L * 17.JUL.2000 (05) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: "Language politics"

> From: john feather [johnfeather at sceptic1.freeserve.co.uk]
> Subject: Language politics
>
> English law does not, of course, apply in Scotland, which is a pretty
big
> limitation on the idea that it applies all over the world! (Since I
was
> castigated before over my confusion of England and Britain - ER and
EIIR
> and all that jazz - I am glad to have this opportunity to be very
> precise about the distinction. :-))

I'm not sure I remember any castigation, John! Email's a tricky medium
for trying to gauge the other correspondents' feelings.

Anyway, whilst investigating copyright law for ScotsteXt I discovered a
series of little "Nutshells" books on British law so that I could learn
the basics of copyright for myself, and as a result of these postings over
the weekend I've just gone out and bought another in the series - this time

on "Constitutional and Administrative Law" by Greer Hogan. On reading the
first chapter I discovered that not only are my collected ideas on British
government broadly correct, but that English law is much more bizarre
than I thought! I now realise that English law not only applies in Scotland

and the USA, but out to the furthest reaches of the Galaxy and beyond!

To give the flavour of the thing whilst sticking to language politics,
it says that it is argued (everything, it seems, "is argued", nothing is
laid down) it is argued that the European Union does limit the power of the

British government and that this relationship between the UK gov & the
EU can never be dissolved. For many activists this may be good news, but
for Scots activists it's a pyrrhic victory, because the same reasoning
leads to the conclusion that the Act of Union between Scotland and England
can never be dissolved!

A more sinister development is that while the Westminster parliament is
considered to have absolute, sovereign power over all known and unknown
universes, this power has in recent times been gradually transferred
from the parliament as a whole to the cabinet alone. This means that it's
now relatively safe to set up parliaments in other parts of the UK because
it involves no real transfer of power.

Bear in mind that all of this is just my interpretation of Hogan's
interpretation of various legal writers' interpretations of many
centuries of legal precedents that are expected to speak for themselves.

Sandy
http://scotstext.org
  Things in this subloonary warld bein far frae
perfeck, 'No that bad' is the maist that mortal
man can venture tae say while here ablo.
             - Catherine P. Slater, 'Marget Pow'

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