Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

I said it yesterday (slightly more eloquently, I hope); the Express editorial says it today:

Had the UNC won rather than lost the last election, it is almost certain that constitutional reform would not have been high on either its legislative or political agenda. However, having tasted the gall of defeat, the party has now hit upon a stratagem that it believes will enable it to continue contesting the election, albeit, of necessity, in another form.

According to party chairman Wade Mark, the UNC's ire has been raised because "the reality is that there exists in the Parliament a dictatorship controlled by the Executive, meaning the Cabinet". That is true, but the first question that Mr. Mark should answer for the UNC is when has this not been the case — including the occasions when the UNC, either in coalition or singly, ruled the parliamentary roost.

The second question to be put before Mr. Mark, as the campaigning UNC spokesman on the matter, is why should the population now believe that the UNC underwent such a change of heart before the lost election that, had it won, it would have embarked on the steps it considered necessary to so transform Parliament that it would cease to be "a dictatorship controlled by the Executive, meaning the Cabinet".