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Comment by nicky0 | Hacker News Reader

It was parliament (or at least a parliamentary committee), not the government, that did this though wasn't it?

That’s the gp’s point I think, the U.K. doesn’t have the the same separation of powers between government branches as the US. With some minor exceptions, Parliament is the whole enchilada.

> That’s the gp’s point I think, the U.K. doesn’t have the the same separation of powers between government branches as the US. With some minor exceptions, Parliament is the whole enchilada.

An example of this is that, until recently, their "supreme court" was a committee in one of the houses of parliament:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Appeal_in_Ordinary

Exactly, and my point was that "government", in UK, means the current executive and means something different from "parliament".

It seems the facebook seizure was not ordered by Theresa May's government, but instead by parliament itself exerting its powers directly.

It's an unusual move and that is what makes this particularly interesting.

I'm not sure why so many people have replied to me trying to insist that government and parliament mean the same thing. They do not.

The UK is a parliamentary democracy, parliament is the government. Even in the US, Congress can compel testimony over matters it has authority to legislate.

No, parliament is not the govenmnent. At least, in the UK when we say Government, we refer to the executive body (prime minister, cabinet etc.). In the US when you say government, you mean the whole thing. So your wanting to correct me stems from your using the US meaning of the word and me meaning the British one.

In the UK, Parliament IS the government.[1]

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty#Unit...

No, it's not. I in the UK the terms Parliament and Government are not at all interchangeable.

I'll see your link and raise you this one.

https://www.parliament.uk/about/how/role/parliament-governme...

"Parliament and the Government are different. They have different roles and do different things."

You are making a distinction that doesn't really exist in the UK. Parliament is the legislative body. The executive are members of Parliament. Until fairly recently, one of the houses of parliament was the highest court in the UK too. In systems with Parliamentary Sovereignty, Parliament is the highest body in the nation: it "outranks" the executive and the judiciary, at least in theory. The UK now has a Supreme Court, but it's much less powerful than the US version.

In the UK there definitely is a distinction between the terms parliament and government.

Parliament refers to the entire body of the houses of commons and lords.

Gorverment refers to the executive (prime minister, cabinet & other ministers) which is can include people who are not members of parliament.

Yes, if you define "government" as "executive", then parliament isn't the government. Pettifogging about definitions isn't helpful when the point of the comment was to emphasize that the distinction is less clear in the UK than the US. Besides which your definition excludes the entire civil service, which is part of the government. It also excludes the Queen, who is, technically, the executive, even if not in practice.

Also, if you define the executive as the PM, cabinet, and other ministers, then they are all members of parliament even when they aren't Members of Parliament (MPs). The ones who aren't members of the House of Commons (MPs) are members of the House of Lords, which is part of Parliament. There are rare cases of people not in either house being brought into the Cabinet, but that hasn't happened since the First World War, I believe.

Edit: Upon reflection, this whole conversation revolves around whether we say "government" or "Government". We're both right. I'm describing the "government". You're describing the "Government".

Another quote, from Tony Blair, I saw today.... felt is should go here:

"For the first time in my political memory, parliament is operating like a shadow government. It has taken effective charge of the process surrounding Brexit through the Grieve amendment, ensuring that all options can be voted upon. It has asserted itself with a vigour and clarity of purpose frankly missing from the actual government. It is articulating the different outcomes with a blatant disregard for the government mantra that it is this deal or no deal.

I am heartily thankful that parliament is doing so. There is as much leadership on the back benches as on the front. At a moment of supreme importance for the nation, with so much at stake and such bitter divisions in the population, they’re doing what I always hoped they would do: behave like leaders, recognising that at this time, party whips can’t matter more than genuine appreciation of where the national interest lies."

Yes fair enough. I was using the term government as it is understood in the UK.

I'm not "pettifogging" and your G/g distinction is not accurate. It is common in Britain to use small g. For example this news article which also an example of the proper usage, and clear distinction between, the terms parliament and government.

> [Phillip Hammond] said if the government loses the vote in parliament on 11 December, it would be in “uncharted political territory”. More than half of backbench Tory MPs who are not on the government payroll have committed to voting down the deal.

> Hammond said cabinet ministers would examine the reasons why MPs had voted against the deal and then try to forge consensus. “We will then have to sit down as a cabinet and a government and decide where to go on the basis of the vote, what we’ve seen in the vote and who has voted in which way because clearly we live in a democracy, parliament is sovereign,” he said." [1]

1: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/28/chancellor-...

In the US sense of “government”, Parliament is the highest body of government of the UK.

In the common parliamentary-democracy sense of “government”, the UK government is an entity subordinate to the UK Parliament.

Quite right. And this was an act done by the parliament and not the government, as I said.

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