Concern over use of 'Henry Vlll' powers to overturn acts of parliament | The Law Gazette.

It's time for every liberty-minded blogger who has retired, jaded, after the fall of Labour to return to the fray. Why? Because, in the words of Joshua Rozenberg in the Law Society Gazette last week;

The Bonfire of the Quangos is a notion much to be applauded. What is emphatically NOT to be applauded is that the Coalition has slipped into the Bill a provision allowing ministers to amend Acts of Parliament. Sound familiar? That's just what Labour ventured in the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. And it's just as wrong. Witterings from Witney (to whom a tip of the hat) quotes from a letter he received from William Hague, Oliver Heald and Richard Benyon (his then Conservative MP) about Labour's attempt to subvert Parliament's power;

I can assure you that the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill will receive a robust opposition from my colleagues and I in Parliament. We recognise this as a devious means by which Ministers will seek to avoid the sovereignty of Parliament. It is another example of the contempt with which this Government holds Parliament and our national institutions.

Now all three gentlemen are about to support the introduction of its equivalent. The notion that this government is in any way a greater friend of liberty than the old one has been exploded. Ladies and gentlemen, to arms!