If both Houses of Parliament pass a Bill in the same form, then it is presented for Royal Assent and Royal Assent is duly given. There is no stage at which the Government, or the Prime Minister, may advise the monarch to refuse Royal Assent. It would be unconstitutional for them to do so.
Havering councillors Bob Perry and Melvin Wallace appear to be supporting both Andrew Boff and Shaun Bailey.
The Electoral Commission does not have any power to investigate registration fraud or criminal offences relating to election campaigns - that is the responsibility of the police. It has a general power to recommend changes in electoral law to government but it can only intervene over campaign financing and party registration issues.
It really is no use complaining that the Electoral Commission fails to do that which it has no power to do.
Can I point out that the level of business rates is set by central government.
Those statistics on 'long-term empty homes' are bunk. For private housing they derive from the council tax register. Until 2013 owners used to register their homes as long-term empty as they could claim Class C exemption from council tax for six months, but Class C exemption has now been abolished and no-one is claiming it. So no-one is surveying private residential property to find any that are long-term empty.
That's not how it works. If you dropped the level of allowances, then people of working age wouldn't be able to afford it and almost all councillors would be people over retirement age.
Natalie McGarry has not announced that she's standing down. She has been denied renomination as an SNP candidate only.
The RMT stopped affiliating to Labour (actually it was expelled) in 2004, which is why it hasn't made much news recently. Its last donations to Labour were in 2002. It did donate to Corbyn's leadership campaign, but that's only an internal party election. You're welcome to check the Electoral Commission's register of donations.
(There's a one-off donation to Neil Findlay MSP from 2014 - that was part of the Scottish Labour leadership election)
"Good unions and their leaders are not affiliated to any political party" - really? The RMT is not affiliated to any political party.
The original point of the Autumn Statement was that the budget only dealt with taxation, while the Autumn Statement dealt with government spending. But in 1993 the Budget and Autumn Statement was merged and Kenneth Clarke's four budgets were all delivered in November/December. Gordon Brown moved the budget back to the Spring, but kept an interim financial statement in the Autumn to allow for smaller changes.
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Brainchild