I Am A Moron

In my pigeonhole this morning:

"Dear [Liadnan]
On your recent VAT return you entered X in box 3 as your gross VAT for the quarter and in box 4 that you were reclaiming Y as VAT on purchases in the quarter. However, the figure you then entered in box 5 as the sum due to HMCE, Z, for which you also sent us a cheque* is 1000 pounds more than X-Y. We suggest you may have omitted to carry a 1 in the thousands and return your form for correction.
Love,
Her Majesty's Commissioners of Customs and Excise.

Or words to that effect.

As I said to the pleasant lady in Cardiff on the phone, this goes some way to explaining why I'm quite so poor this month.

*Which they have cashed. Obvs.

They See Me Coming You Know

London Review of Books Subscriber Evening
"Come and do your Christmas (or other) book shopping in the peace and tranquility of the London Review Bookshop without the plebs general public, with [free] wine and nibbles and with 10% discount on all books."

Bastards.

• Number of books bought: err. Some. Many. Lots.
• Number of Christmas presents bought: err One. Probably.
• Number of glasses of wine drunk: err.

V. bad. Oh, hang on, my life is a different film.

In other news, can someone answer me a question that has been causing some puzzlement for the last week: what in the name of buggery are the strange lights dancing in the sky down the end of Oxford Street every night? Anyone inclined to refer back to The Incident of the Green Lights on Canary Wharf would do well to remember that I was actually right, notwithstanding that accusations of absinthe poisoning were not entirely groundless.

Haselrig, Pym, Hampden, Holles, Strode....

"The argument that there is no power to enforce the law by injunction or contempt proceedings against a minister in his official capacity would, if upheld, establish the proposition that the executive obey the law as a matter of grace and not as a matter of necessity, a proposition which would reverse the result of the Civil War."

(per Lord Templeman in M v. Home Office [1994] AC 377).

And see a variety of other cases going back to the run of "no you can't get any money that way either Charlie" cases that, along with a few other bits and pieces, eventually brought down Charles I's personal rule, forced him to summon first the Short Parliament and then the Long Parliament, and finally precipitated the Civil War.

Civil Contingencies Act 2004

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:— [...]

s.20
Power to make emergency regulations
(1) Her Majesty may by Order in Council make emergency regulations if satisfied that the conditions in section 21 are satisfied.
(2) A senior Minister of the Crown may make emergency regulations if satisfied—
(a) that the conditions in section 21 are satisfied, and
(b) that it would not be possible, without serious delay, to arrange for an Order in Council under subsection (1).
(3) In this Part “senior Minister of the Crown” means—
(a) the First Lord of the Treasury (the Prime Minister),
(b) any of Her Majesty’s Principal Secretaries of State, and
(c) the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s Treasury.

[...]

s.22
[...]
(3) Emergency regulations may make provision of any kind that could be made by Act of Parliament or by the exercise of the Royal Prerogative[*].

(Quoted from Bills Before Parliament as although the Bill passed it has not yet made it onto Public Acts of the UK Parliament 2004. The form of the Act as passed may differ in some details from this, though the substance remains, I believe, the same.) (Edited to add now here.)

Yes, it's fair to point out that the executive of 2004, unlike that of 1642, does itself have a degree of democratic legitimacy. It should also be conceded that the Civil Contingencies Act contains many limitations on itself.

I am, nonetheless, far from convinced that these are sufficient.

(*ie about anything at all)

Edited to add: oh and the double "satisfied" in ss.20(1) and 20(2)(a), while comprehensible, is bloody awful stylistically.