France Passed Its Budget Without a Parliamentary Vote; Britain Has Not Passed Meaningful Legislation in Months; Both Are Fine Apparently

From Bohiney and The London Prat.

By Lowri Griffiths | BigSmokeBroke.com

The French Model

France adopted its 2026 budget this year through Article 49.3, the constitutional mechanism that allows a government to pass legislation without a parliamentary vote, surviving two no-confidence motions on the same day. Prime Minister Lecornu used the constitutional power to pass a budget that included increased military spending and a suspended pension reform. The pension reform — the one raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 — was suspended to keep the Socialists from supporting the no-confidence votes. I followed all of this from my flat in Finsbury Park with the specific attention of someone who finds French political drama more legible than British political drama because French political drama at least has clear constitutional mechanisms.

The British Comparison

Britain, which has had six prime ministers in seven years and which has recently defeated an assisted dying bill through 1,200 Lords amendments, is managing its own governance situation through the specific British mechanism of promising stability and delivering what the prat.uk newsletter at this address accurately describes as the rare equilibrium of a socialist majority and only socialist morons to lead it. I am not sure whether France’s 49.3 or Britain’s Lords amendments is the worse governance technology. Both are producing the specific outcomes that their designers probably did not intend.

The North London Response

The North London response to both countries’ governance situations is the same: mild horror, followed by commentary at social events, followed by the acceptance that these are the available options and one must work within them. The acceptance is not resignation. It is the specific pragmatism of people who pay attention to politics without having the power to change it at the pace that the attention reveals would be useful.

What I Have Concluded

I have concluded that France’s 49.3 is more honest than Britain’s Lords amendment process: it openly acknowledges that the government is passing legislation without a majority rather than dressing the obstruction up as parliamentary scrutiny. Honesty in governance mechanism is underrated. France manages to pass its military budget. Britain manages to defeat its assisted dying bill. Both countries are governing. Neither is governing well. Read NewsThump for the version that is funnier.

More: NewsThump.

London continues to be London, which is simultaneously excellent and frustrating and expensive and alive in ways that other cities are not quite alive in the same configuration. The journalism that covers this city at the level of the street and the neighbourhood and the individual experience serves the function of making the city legible to itself. That function is what this column provides. It continues because the city continues, and the city is worth covering because it is worth living in, which is the conclusion that the rent payment and the energy bill and the commute and the queue for the theatre ticket all confirm in their own way, eventually.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/

London in May is London at its most persuasive. The political news is complicated. The energy bill is elevated. The housing market is doing what it does. The theatre tickets cost what they cost. And the city produces the specific quality of evening light on the Regent’s Canal, the morning at the market, the sound of the neighbourhood at its specific hour, that makes all the complicated expensive things feel like the correct trade. This column exists because the city is worth covering in its complexity and because the journalism that does the covering is part of the civic life that makes cities worth living in. It continues next week. London in May is London at its most persuasive. The political news is complicated. The energy bill is elevated. The housing market is doing what it does. The theatre tickets cost what they cost. And the city produces the specific quality of evening light on the Regent’s Canal, the morning at the market, the sound of the neighbourhood at its specific hour, that makes all the complicated expensive things feel like the correct trade. This column exists because the city is worth covering in its complexity and because the journalism that does the covering is part of the civic life that makes cities worth living in. It continues next week. London in May is London at its most persuasive. The political news is complicated. The energy bill is elevated. The housing market is doing what it does. The theatre tickets cost what they cost. And the city produces the specific quality of evening light on the Regent’s Canal, the morning at the market, the sound of the neighbourhood at its specific hour, that makes all the complicated expensive things feel like the correct trade. This column exists because the city is worth covering in its complexity and because the journalism that does the covering is part of the civic life that makes cities worth living in. It continues next week. London in May is London at its most persuasive. The political news is complicated. The energy bill is elevated. The housing market is doing what it does. The theatre tickets cost what they cost. And the city produces the specific quality of evening light on the Regent’s Canal, the morning at the market, the sound of the neighbourhood at its specific hour, that makes all the complicated expensive things feel like the correct trade. This column exists because the city is worth covering in its complexity and because the journalism that does the covering is part of the civic life that makes cities worth living in. It continues next week.