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Council of Ministers (Spain)

The Council of Ministers (Consejo de Ministros) is the main collective decision-making body of the Government of Spain, and it is exclusively composed of the Prime Minister, the deputy prime ministers and the ministers (22 as of 2024). Junior or deputy ministers such as the Secretaries of State are not members of the Council (although according to the Constitution they could be, if the Government Act included them, a constitutional provision that until today has not been used). The Monarch may also chair the Council when needed on the invitation of the Prime Minister.

The ministers are proposed by the Prime Minister and formally appointed by the King. There is no requirement for the Prime Minister nor the ministers to be MPs. The ministers are the heads of a ministerial department and receive the title of "Minister". In addition to the ministers that are the head of a department, there may be ministers without portfolio, who are entrusted responsibility for certain government functions.

The Council is the main collective decision-making body of the government and the only one constitutionally recognized but ministers can also meet through other government bodies such as the Government Delegated Committees. The Delegated Committees are created by the Council and composed by ministers and secretaries of state which deal with minor issues that may affect more than one ministry.

The Secretary of the Council of Ministers is the Minister of the Presidency. It is regulated by Article 98 of the Spanish Constitution and by article 5 of the Government Act of 1997.

Origins, 15th-18th century
From the beginnings of the modern state and the centralization of power in the monarchs, the government was exercised by them through people of trust. The monarchs trusted them certain subjects and with which they made daily dispatches to deal with these matters. Over time, these trusted people who, on numerous occasions, received the title of ministers, were in conflict with the powers of other ministers and, to resolve these, they made collective meetings between various ministers and the monarchs. The Spanish monarchy has ruled most of its history —depending on the greater or lesser desire of the monarch to delegate its power— through Councils —Council of Castile, Council of the Indies, Council of Aragon, etc.— whose main tasks were those of to administer justice in the name of the monarchs and to advise the Sovereign in his work of government and with these the polysynodial regime was established.

With Charles I this regime reached its peak, especially with the creation of the Council of State in 1526, a council that dealt with the great problems of the monarchy and were their secretaries who had more power, i.e. the called Secretaries of State. The secretariat of the Council of State was unique between 1526 and 1567, double between 1567 and 1706 and unique again since this last year. Exceptionally, between 1630 and 1661 there was a third secretary in charge «of Spain, the Indies and adjacent islands, the coast of Barbary and everything indifferent».

Philip II ruled until 1567 with a single secretary and with two since that date, although he balanced the power between his two Secretaries of State and the other advisors and private secretaries. With the subsequent monarchs —Philip III, Philip IV and Charles II— the figure of the favourite (Valido) appeared, a kind of prime minister. It is at this time when the position of secretary of the Dispatch appears.

With Philip V and, by French influence, the Council of Dispatch was created with a few members. This members had the task of advise the monarch in his task of government and that displaced the Council of State in this task. During his reign many of the Secretaries of State and of the Dispatch appeared.

The Supreme State Board
The institution of the Council of Ministers as a collective body of government does not appear with such a name until its creation by King Ferdinand VII in 1823, however, prior to this, it is worth mentioning the Supreme State Board. The Supreme State Board was a collective body of government created by King Charles III on the advice of the Count of Floridablanca, which was attended by the Secretaries of State and the Dispatch and anyone they considered necessary to address the issues presented to them.

This Board was not properly a Council of Ministers because, as we have said, not only ministers but other authorities, such as the Councilors of State, could attend and, in addition, this body was limited by the Reserved Instruction, an articulated text that included the matters that could be discussed by the Board. The Board, created in 1787, did not have a long journey or developed the work for which Floridablanca promoted its creation and, only a few months later, the first criticisms appeared accusing the Count of Floridablanca of wanting to assume all the ministries powers through this body, to appoint the high officials of the Kingdom and thus gather in his person all the power.

The Royal Decree of 8 July 1787, which created the Board, it said: "Since the Divine Providence led me to the Throne of this great Monarchy I have wished to promote, with all my strength, its prosperity. The Almighty wanted to favor my good intentions by arranging that, with the various events and vicissitudes of my reign, my experiences be increased, and my knowledge rectified: and this is the inheritance that it seemed to me to leave to my beloved vassals, reduced to perpetuate in them and in their government and constitution the progressive succession of the lights and maxims that I have acquired.

To this end I have resolved that, in addition to the Council of State, which will be convened when I, or my successors have it convenient, there is a Supreme Board, also of the State, similar to the one currently held by my verbal orders, composed of all the Secretaries of State and of the Universal Office: to which, in cases of gravity that occur, the other Ministers of the same Council of State appointed by me, or those of other Councils, or also the Generals, will concur; and educated and jealous people who believe they are useful or necessary.

This Board must be ordinary and perpetual, and must be convened once at least every week, being held in the [headquarters of the] First Secretary of State (the Prime Minister), even if this or another of the ministers does not attend, without any label or formalities of precedence between the concurrent, which only serve to prevent or delay my service and the good of the crown. (...)" With the fall of Floridablanca in 1792 and the arrival to the power of Aranda, this one influenced in the King Carlos IV to suppress the Supreme State Board and to return to the previous system with the Council of State like central organ of the Administration.

Briefly, with the return of King Ferdinand VII to the throne of Spain and the abolition of the Constitution of Cadiz, the king recovered the old Supreme Board by Royal Decree of 2 November 1815.

The Council of Ministers
After the experience during the Trienio Liberal, the Council of Ministers was officially created by King Fernando VII, who ordered by Royal Decree of 19 November 1823 that his Secretaries of State (Secretarios de Estado y del Despacho) should gather to form a body, which was to be called the Council of Ministers. In the meetings of this Council all matters of common interest would be discussed, and every Secretary would report about affairs under his responsibility and receive instructions from the King. The Secretary of State (or First Secretary of State) would act as Chief Minister and preside over the meetings when the King was absent.

The first meeting of the Council was on 22 November and to it were summoned the Minister of Justice, the Minister of War and the Minister of the Treasury and Navy.

This Council was directly and permanently submitted to the monarch, as it appears in the historical texts that show that between 28 December 1825 and 19 September 1826 it was suspended by direct orders of Ferdinand VII, while it was strengthened the Council of State. From the beginning of the Council of Ministers there were constant conflicts between the Secretaries of Dispatch of the Council and the secretaries of the Council of State because in many occasions the first one had to respond before the latter, a situation that shortly after ceased to re-establish the king, on the proposal of the Council of Ministers, the merely consultative structure originally held by the Council of State.

To understand the motives that the monarch had to create the Council, it is necessary to resort to the royal decree of December 1823 that establishes the "bases on which the new Council of Ministers must walk," and these are:

"1st. Raise a good police throughout the Kingdom. 2nd. Dissolution of the Army and formation of a new one. 3rd. Nothing that has a relationship with Chambers or any kind of representation. 4th. To clean up all the Secretaries of Dispatch, Justice and other offices of both the Court and the rest of the Kingdom of all those who have been addicted to the Constitutional System, protecting the Realists decisively. 5th. Work ceaselessly to destroy the secret societies and all kinds of sects. 6th. Not recognize the constitutional loans."

The purpose, then, was to dismantle any trace of the constitutional period of the Liberal Triennium.

At the time of its creation, the Council of Ministers was composed of the five ministers —six when the Interior Minister was added— in addition to a secretary who, in the absence of this, it assumed the functions of secretary of the Council the Minister of Grace and Justice.

They used to meet once a week; later, it was extended to twice —Tuesdays and Saturdays— although depending on the circumstances, the hours could vary, as happened at the time of the uprising of Jorge Bessières that met daily or when the monarch pleased. Extraordinary meetings and the continual excuses of the ministers not to attend were also common, although the general norm was habitual attendance, as was not the case in other institutions of the monarchy. Likewise, various authorities that were called to issue reports or defend the files that were being processed could go to the Council, generally in the area of the Treasury and international relations. They were described in the minutes as "assistants".

The place designed for its meetings and the most usual in its beginnings was the headquarters of the First Secretary of State, although with time it was the headquarters of the Secretariat of the Navy that assumed that role. It was also common that the Council met where the monarch was, as in the Royal Palaces of Aranjuez, San Lorenzo or La Granja. After the death of King Ferdinand VII and during the regency of María Christina, in an attempt to win the support of the Liberals, the Queen Regent appointed Secretary of State to Martinez de la Rosa, who due to the tradition already created, received the title of President of the Council of Ministers with the approval of the Royal Statute and with this title, he has been considered the first real Prime Minister of Spain. It was precisely this statute, which for the first time constitutionalized the body of the Council of Ministers but without specifying their formation and powers.

Although the Royal Statute affirmed that the monarch freely appoints and separates the ministers, the parliamentary practice obliged the sovereign to elect the ministers among the members of the Cortes Generales who had the confidence of these ministers, in clear imitation of the European systems in which the Government should have the confidence of the Crown and Parliament. In the same way, the prerogatives that were granted to the monarch were actually exercised by his ministers.

In the first Council's meetings of Martinez de la Rosa and Mendizábal the Queen Regent did not usually attend —although she was always informed of everything— and they met once or twice a week and with the ordinary assistance of the ministers —although during the premiership of Mendizábal many times the Councils were reduced to two members by the notable absences— in addition to the Secretary of the Council of Ministers, with Martinez de la Rosa to the Council also attended the members of the Government, senior administrative positions and military chiefs, mainly because of the War.

With the regency of General Espartero the political situation did not improve. The difficulties to form stable governments were insurmountable and the personality of Espartero —who wanted to exercise power himself— did not help much, in fact, all the ministers of prime minister Joaquín María López resigned at the same time because they had demanded that Espartero respected the principle of that the Monarch reign but does not rule and they said «that such healthy principles can not be realized, [ministers] believe in the obligation to resign their positions in the hands of Your Highness confident that their resignation will be admitted, which is based on the essential conditions of the representative government (...)». Espartero quickly appointed Álvaro Gómez Becerra as Prime Minister, something that did not please the Congress that ratified his support for the previous government.

After this situation began the uprisings against General Espartero and, in Barcelona, General Serrano proclaimed himself universal minister, ceased Espartero and appointed Joaquín María López as prime minister, who took this opportunity to lift the minority of Queen Isabella II. This measure was later ratified by the Cortes Generales. With Narváez as Prime Minister and a council formed by six ministers, they prepared a reform project that would later be transferred to the Cortes for debate and that led to the Constitution of 1845. The typical political instability of the time soon appeared, with governments of less than 20 days to maximum of 9 months mainly for palace intrigues. With Narváez back in government —his third government— in October 1847, the ephemeral governments ended until 1851. His Council of Ministers carried out important reforms in the Administration and the Treasury, but the most important was to confront and dominate the events of 1848. The revolutions of this year affected Spain in a limited way thanks to the iron hand of the Council, coming to call it a "necessary dictatorship" since the government ruled with the Cortes dissolved and the constitutional guarantees suspended.

In the winter of 1851, Juan Bravo Murillo became President of the Council of Ministers, forming a council with a remarkable technical training devoted in depth to the art of government and administration, moving away from the military rather than political government of General Narváez. This Council carried out an important economic sanitation; prepared a new administration reform; and normalized relations with the Holy See through the Concordat of 1851. But, undoubtedly, the task with more resonance was the preparation of a draft constitutional reform, however this suffered the rejection of progressive deputies, most of the moderates and the Queen Mother herself, who still had great influence on her daughter. All this ended up causing the resignation of the government in December 1852.

With the fall of the Bravo Murillo government, political instability and ephemeral governments returned, lasting until the fall of the First Republic in 1874.

The Restoration
After the dethronement of Isabella II, the debates on the form of State, the regency of Serrano (1869-1871), the brief reign of Amadeo I (1871-1873), the republican experience (1873-1873) and the Serrano dictatorship (1874), a military coup took place and the Bourbon restoration started with Alfonso XII, son of Queen Isabella II, as King of Spain.

During this period the Constitution of 1876 was approved, a constitution sufficiently flexible so that all the ideologies coexisted under it and could make the necessary changes in favor of one or another ideology without altering the system. This constitution gave sovereignty to both the Monarch and the Cortes, returning to the principle that the Government should have the confidence of both the Crown and Parliament. Thanks to this flexibility, a two-party system is installed in Spain, which derives from the so-called turnismo between Cánovas and Sagasta agreed at El Pardo Palace, through which the liberal and conservative parties took turns in power. For politicians of the time, the need for stability allowed not necessarily attend the will of the electoral body, but ensure the proper functioning of constitutional bodies. The new Constitution grants the Monarch the executive power delegating into his ministers and, although it is not mentioned explicitly in the constitution, the figure of the President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) acquires greater relevance and power, placing himself in the center as the true guiding center of the country's administrative action. It is at this time when a true civil government is established, with small lapses of prime ministers of a military nature.

It is also not a period free of controversy, since a turnismo system like this was only possible with the help of the Ministry of the Interior which is traditionally in charge of supervising the electoral processes and which, at that time, was the one in charge to put in agreement to the political forces to agree the result of the elections. Nevertheless, this system gave the necessary stability to the country between 1875 and 1903. However, this system soon entered into a crisis with the internal fights between parties, the incipient dissolution of these and the appearance of new ones, such as the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party in 1879.

With the ascension to the throne of the young Alfonso XIII, there was a radical change in Spanish politics. The personality of the monarch to have a central role in decision-making was reflected in the first Council of Ministers, in which, the king read article 54.8 of the Constitution and as a comment he said to his ministers: «As you have just heard, the Constitution gives me the concession of honors, titles and greatness; that is why I warn you that the use of this right is completely reserved for me». To this the Duke of Veragua replied, that the same Constitution affirmed that those decisions should be countersigned by the ministers, a position that Prime Minister Sagasta did not defend and implying that the monarch's argument prevailed. This reflects the characteristics that Spanish politics took, with a monarch with a personal power supported by the Armed Forces and the distribution of royal favors, as well as the cowardice of politicians to curb the king's desire for power and his authoritarian personality.

The crisis of the system was evident, and in the next 21 years until the coup d'état of Primo de Rivera there were 33 governments, at an average of 8 months per government.

Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
On 13 September 1923, the coup d'état of Primo de Rivera was held, ending with the approval of King Alfonso XIII and his appointment as head of government. With the arrival of Primo de Rivera to power a Military Directorate was established chaired over by him under the title of President of the Military Directorate —with full executive and legislative powers— and the office of President of the Council of Ministers and the own Council of Ministers were suppressed.

In December 1925, the Military Directory disappeared and a Civil Directory was constituted, recovering the positions of President of the Council of Ministers and Ministers of the Crown, as well as recovering the figure of the Vice President of the Council of Ministers, which had only been exercised by Joaquín María Ferrer between 1840 and 1841.

The most relevant of this period of civil government was the draft Constitution of 1929, which granted the monarch the ability to assist the Council of Ministers whenever he wished and chair over it should he attend; it had to approve the appointments and substitutions of the dismissals of the ministers of the Crown, although it was granted to the king the capacity to appoint ministers without portfolio.

This project did not prosper and Primo de Rivera ended up resigning and being replaced by another military, Lieutenant General Berenguer Fusté as Prime Minister, appointed as temporary until new elections were held to return the constitutional course to the country, but the local elections of 1931 eventually end up with the monarchy and the Second Republic was established.

Second Republic
With the arrival of the second republic and the approval of the Constitution of 1931, a parallel is established between the Government and the Council of Ministers, when it says in its article 86 that "the President of the Council of Ministers and the Ministers constitute the Government" and the figure of the President emphasizes that «he directs and represents the general policy of the Government» while the ministers «are responsible for the top direction and management of the public services assigned to the different ministerial departments». With this Constitution it can be affirmed that the Prime Minister ceases to be primus inter pares. As in the monarchical era, it was the head of the State who freely appointed the president of the Council, but now it was the President of the Council of Ministers who appointed his ministers, with the exception of Article 88 that empowered the President of the Republic to appoint ministers without portfolio, something that also included the draft Constitution of 1929. The Constitution at no time established the mechanism of parliamentary confidence, since it was the President of the Republic who appointed the Prime Minister freely, although they did respond jointly to their actions before the Congress and, if the parliament expressly denied them confidence, the head of the State was forced to cease them. Likewise, Congress could censure the government or individually the ministers forcing them to resign if approved by an absolute majority.

Therefore, the Council of Ministers in the Republican era continued to maintain the double confidence of the monarchical tradition, and must have the confidence of the Cortes and the President of the Republic.

The Council of Ministers had the legislative initiative that it shared with the Cortes, it had regulatory power and it could legislate by delegation of Congress. In addition, the Council of Ministers in exceptional cases could give authority to the President of the Republic to legislate on legislative matters, this provisional legislation being that Congress could later reject it.

Dictatorship of Francisco Franco
On 18 July 1936 a part of the Republican army took up arms against the constitutional regime. On 24 July, the National Defense Board was created in Burgos, which assumed «all the Powers of the State and legitimately represents the country before foreign powers.» This body was organized in a collective way and took decisions jointly by Decree. It will not be until August of that year that Francisco Franco becomes part of the board.

Franco managed in September 1936 to assume all the power of the State, by means of a Decree of the Board of 29 September 1936 that said: "Article one - In compliance with the agreement adopted by the National Defense Board, the Chief of the Government of the Spanish State is appointed to the Most Excellent General of Division Mr. Francisco Franco Bahamonde, who will assume all the powers of the new State. Article Two.- It is also named Generalissimo of the national forces of land, sea and air, and is conferred the position of General Head of Operations Armies. Article third.- This proclamation will be solemnly covered, before adequate representation of all the national elements that make up this liberating movement, and from it the opportune communication will be made to the foreign Governments. Fourth Article - In the short time that elapses until the transfer of powers, the National Defense Board will continue to assume what it currently exercises. Article Five - Any provisions opposing this Decree are repealed and without effect." After almost 2 years of war and the Republican side practically defeated, a true government was formed on the rebel side, with Franco at the head, with a Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Francisco Gómez-Jordana Sousa as well as ten other ministers. This government was regulated by the Laws of the Central State Administration of 30 January 1938 and the Law of 8 August 1939 that restructured the Government.The first of the laws changes the name of the head of the Government to that of the President of the Government —a name that is maintained today— that was linked to the head of the State. This law does not mention the Council of Ministers, although in practice it was in force even though all the dispositions and resolutions of the head of the State had to be submitted to the deliberation of the latter. The second of the laws does mention the Council of Ministers to indicate that the head of the State could dictate resolutions without the prior deliberation of the Council in cases of urgency.

This Council of Ministers did not possess military authority, which was exercised directly by the dictator through the National Defense Board and the High Military Command. During this time, the Council behaves like a technical-administrative organ at the service of the dictator, who does not debate or decide the big political questions.

However, since 1945 the Council of Ministers takes greater relevance especially after the departure of the government of the Falangist José Luis de Arrese. Between this date and 1950, the Franco regime suffers a clear international isolationism, which ends after the interested aid of the United States. Since then, Spain enters the WHO, UNESCO, signed agreements with the Holy See and, among all this, financial aid from the United States continued to arrive. With the new government of 1951, which included, among others, the opening and former ambassador in the Holy See, Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez or his right hand, Luis Carrero Blanco.

This new government transforms the Council of Ministers into a more political than technical-administrative body, due mainly to the good international situation for the regime and the economic boom of the country. From 1957 the so-called technocracy came to power by displacing the Falangists who will develop the Stabilization Plan of 1959 and will carry out more advanced legislation in social matters, such as the 1958 labor agreements. A before and after is marked after the approval of the Legal System and the State Administration Act (LRJAE) of 1957 that develops the principle of Unity of Administration and places the Council of Ministers as the supreme and central body of the Administration, regulating the Government under the name of Council of Ministers and equipping it with Delegated Committees of the Government to deal with minor issues between ministries. At that time the Secretary of the Council of Ministers was the Minister-Under Secretary of the Presidency.

In 1967 Franco brought to the Cortes the Organic Act of the State (LOE) that separated the figure of the head of State from that of the head of government, who led and on whom the Council of Ministers depended, and defined this Council as «the body that determines the national policy, ensures the application of laws, exercises regulatory power and assists permanently the Head of State in political and administrative affairs », giving full regulatory authority to the government. The peculiarity of this law is that the President of the Government is appointed by the Head of State on the proposal of a three candidates of the Council of the Kingdom (the private council of the dictator).

From this time the Council of Ministers acquires its largest autonomy quotas, mainly due to the poor health of the dictator, and six years after approving the LOE, Franco appoints Carrero Blanco as President of the Government, who appointed his own Cabinet. Carrero Blanco was assassinated soon after and with Arias Navarro as Prime Minister, the more the dictator's health worsened, more power and influence had the Council of Ministers.

In short, throughout the Franco dictatorship, it made use of the Council of Ministers as a legitimizing body and to avoid its own political wear. That is why he submitted to the Council even decisions of which only he was competent, such as pardons.

Current constitution
With the approval of the democratic Constitution of 1978, the figure of the Government was separated from the concept of the Council of Ministers, lasting until the approval of the Government Act of 1997. The Constitution, in its article 98.1 establishes that the Government consists of the «President, of the Vice Presidents where appropriate, of the Ministers and of the other members established by law.» This tagline «and of the other members that the law establishes» refers to the possibility of including the Secretaries of State in the government. This separates the concepts of Government from the concept of the Council of Ministers (that, as its name indicates, is the meeting only of the ministers). However the Government Act of 1997 did not use the powers granted by the Constitution to include the Secretaries of State. It only considers the Prime Minister and the ministers as members of the government, therefore reuniting the Government and Council of Ministers. The current constitutional system is presidential; highlighting the Prime Minister as the preeminent head of government and the center of parliamentary confidence above all the other members of the Council. The President is the only member of Government who can propose a vote of confidence to Parliament, or present an appeal of unconstitutionality, among other powers. If the premier dies or ceases, the government ceases with him. This signals a return to the principles established in the Constitution of the Second Republic since the prime minister is not a simple primus inter pares (first among equals).

The parliamentary system obliges the government to have the confidence of the parliament at all times. If Congress censures the government on its own initiative then a prospective replacement candidate for Prime Minister must be nominated at the same time. If the censure motion carries, the replacement candidate is deemed to have the confidence of the Congress and automatically becomes the new Prime Minister. This constructive vote of no confidence was established by articles 113 and 114 of the Constitution; there have been four attempts, and the first successful vote was on 1 June 2018 when Mariano Rajoy was voted out in favour of Pedro Sánchez.

Regarding the election of the Prime Minister, unlike previous periods, the monarch does not appoint the head of the government. The role of the monarch is to nominate a candidate that the Congress of Deputies must approve or reject. If the candidate is approved, the monarch can appoint him. In the same way, it is the Premier who proposes to the monarch the appointment or cessation of the ministers. Since 1987, it is the Prime Minister by Royal Decree who decides how many ministries the Government has.

This does not mean that the ministers are mere hierarchical subordinates, because the Constitution itself in Article 98.2, when establishing the directive function of the premier, establishes that the president directs the government «notwithstanding the competence and direct responsibility of these [ministers] in their management».

Meetings of the council
The Council of Ministers, as a general rule, meets weekly every Tuesday morning. Its meetings, from which minutes will be drawn up, may be deliberative and/or decision-making. The minutes will include, exclusively, the circumstances related to the time and place of its celebration, the list of attendees, the resolutions adopted and the reports presented. Therefore, the deliberations that the different members of the Government maintain, since these by law are of a secret nature, can not be collected.

The meetings of the Council are convened and chaired by the Prime Minister, though, in his absence, Deputy Prime Ministers take the responsibility to chair over the cabinet and it is the Premier who establishes the topics to be discussed. Also on exceptional occasions, the cabinet can be chaired by the King of Spain: in that event the meeting is solely consultative.

Location of council meetings
The Council of Ministers meetings are held at the Council Building, one of the buildings that compose Moncloa Palace, the official resident of the Prime Minister and the headquarters of the government.

However, the Council of Ministers can meet in any city in the country. Some examples are the Council's meetings in 1976 and 2018 in Barcelona, the Council's meeting in Palma de Mallorca in 1983 or the Council's meetings in Seville in 1976, 2010 and 2018.

Collaboration and support bodies
According to the Government Act of 1997, there are two bodies with the mission of collaborate or give support to the Council of Ministers. These are the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries and the Government Secretariat.

General Commission
The General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries is an auxiliary body of the Council of Ministers composed by all the secretaries of state and undersecretaries of the different ministries. The General Commission has as purpose to study the matters that must to be dealt in the Council of Ministers.

The chairman of the Commission is the Deputy Prime Minister or the Minister of the Presidency if the first can not be present. The secretary of the Commission is the Under Secretary of the Presidency. The Solicitor General of the State shall also attend and those senior positions with the rank of Secretary of State or Under Secretary who are summoned by the President of the Commission by reason of the matter in question.

Government Secretariat
The Government Secretariat is the support body of the Council of Ministers, the Government Delegated Committees and the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries.

The Government Secretariat is responsible for assisting the Minister-Secretary of the Council of Ministers; conduct the calls of the members of the bodies it attends; collaborate with the Technical Secretariats of the Government Delegated Committees; guard the records and minutes of meetings; to collaborate in the technical quality of the norms approved by the Government and to ensure the correct publication of the dispositions and norms emanating from the Government that should be inserted in the Official State Gazette.

This body is part of the Ministry of the Presidency and currently is the General Technical Secretariat of the Ministry.

Cabinet and Council
Although in the English-speaking countries the terms Cabinet and Council of Ministers may mean the same, in Spain they are not the same. The Council of Ministers is the main body of the executive power while the Cabinet is an auxiliary body of the Prime Minister's Office, composed by the Moncloa Chief of Staff and several civil servants and advisers.

title: Council of Ministers (Spain)


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Moondyne Joe

Joseph Bolitho Johns (c. February 1826 – 13 August 1900), better known as Moondyne Joe, was an English convict and Western Australia's best-known bushranger. Born into poor and relatively difficult circumstances, he became something of a petty criminal robber with a strong sense of self-determination. He is remembered as a person who had escaped multiple times from prison.

Childhood
Some say he was born in Cornwall but an online ANU source quotes him as being born in Wales, around 1826-27, the son of Thomas Johns and raised as a Protestant. He was baptised in the Parish Church at Wendron, married at Johnston Memorial Congregational church at Fremantle, and buried in the Anglican section of Fremantle Cemetery. Despite claims that he was Roman Catholic, there is no evidence for this and would be incredibly unusual in Cornwall. He was the third of three children of blacksmith Thomas Johns (1799–1833) and his wife Mary Bolitho (1804–1860). Joe was a tall man with black hair and hazel-coloured eyes, and it is likely that he contracted smallpox in his youth as, later, records describe him as "pockmarked". His father died some time in 1833, and Johns and his brother took work as copper miners. In 1841 the family was living at Porkellis, Cornwall, but by 1848 Johns had migrated to Wales, taking work as an iron ore miner, probably at the Clydach Iron Works.

Prison
On 15 November 1848, Johns and an associate using the name William Cross, the pseudonym for the convict John Williams, were arrested near Chepstow for "stealing from the house of Richard Price, three loaves of bread, one piece of bacon, several cheeses, and other goods". Arraigned at the Brecon Assizes on charges of burglary and stealing, the pair pleaded not guilty. On 23 March, they were tried at the Lent Assizes before Sir William Erle. Newspaper reports of the trial suggest that the pair gave an unexpectedly spirited defence, but Johns was abrasive and "contravened the conventions of court procedure". The men were convicted and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. W. J. Edgar (1990) observes that in several other cases brought before the same judge that day, guilty pleas to very similar charges resulted in sentences ranging from three weeks to three months.

Johns and Williams were to spend the next seven months working on a government work party in the local area, before being transferred to Millbank Prison. On 1 January 1850, they were transferred to Pentonville Prison to serve their mandatory six months of solitary confinement. The pair were transferred to Dartmoor Prison on 21 October 1851, but shortly afterwards Johns was transferred to the Woolwich prison hulk Justitia, probably for disciplinary reasons. When the Justitia was destroyed by fire, he was transferred to the Defence. About a year later, he boarded the prison ship Pyrenees for transportation to what was then the British penal colony of Western Australia to serve out the remainder of his sentence. In turn, Williams was transported to Van Diemen's Land in March 1852.

Australia bound

Pyrenees sailed for Western Australia on 2 February 1853, and arrived in Fremantle on 30 April. In reward for good behaviour, Johns was issued with a ticket of leave on arrival, and on 10 March 1855 he received a conditional pardon. He then settled in the Avon Valley, one of the most rugged and inaccessible places in the Darling Range. The Aboriginal name for the area was Moondyne. Johns made a living by partly fencing the springs in the area, and trapping escaped stock and horses. Often a reward was offered for the return of such animals.

In August 1861, Johns caught an unbranded stallion and branded it with his own mark. This was effectively horse stealing, and when the police heard of this they arrested him at their first opportunity. The horse was taken as evidence, and Johns was placed in the Toodyay lockup. Sometime during the night, Johns broke out of his cell, and stole the horse once more, taking also the local magistrate's brand-new saddle and bridle. He was caught the next day but, while on the run, he had killed the horse and cut his brand out of the hide, thus destroying the evidence. Consequently, he received only a three-year sentence for jail-breaking, whereas a typical sentence for horse stealing was more than ten years.

While Johns was serving his sentence, there was a rash of convict escapes and attempted escapes, but Johns remained well behaved. His good behaviour earned him a remission on his sentence, and he was released on a ticket of leave in February 1864. He then found work on Henry Martin's farm in Kelmscott. In January 1865, a steer named "Bright" belonging to William Wallace was killed, and Johns was accused of the deed. He was arrested on 29 March, found guilty on 5 July, and sentenced to ten years' penal servitude. Johns was to protest his innocence of this crime for the rest of his life. He was determined not to serve what he felt was an unjust sentence and, in early November, he and another prisoner absconded from a work party. They were on the run for nearly a month, during which time they committed a number of small robberies. It was during this time that Johns first adopted the nickname Moondyne Joe. They were finally caught 37 km east of York by a party of policemen that included Tommy Windich, an Aboriginal tracker. For absconding and for being in possession of a firearm, Johns was sentenced to twelve months in irons, and transferred to Fremantle Prison.

Escape
In April 1866, Johns sent a petition to the Chief Justice, and received four years off his sentence. This was apparently unsatisfactory to him for, in July, he received a further six months in irons for trying to cut the lock out of his door. Early in August, he succeeded in escaping again. After cutting off his irons, he met up with three other escapees, and together they roamed the bush around Perth, committing a number of robberies and narrowly escaping capture on a number of occasions. Near the end of the month, one of the gang was captured by police. Realising that the gang could not elude the police forever, Johns formulated a plan to escape the colony by travelling overland to the colony of South Australia. This would be a long and arduous journey through extremely arid land, and the gang would have to be very well equipped if it were to stand any chance of success. On 5 September, Johns equipped his company by committing the biggest robbery of his career, stealing supplies and equipment from the Toodyay store of an old enemy, James Everett. The gang then started travelling east along the explorer Charles Hunt's established route. Their tracks were discovered by police on 26 September, about 160 km east of York. A team of police then set out after them, and they were captured on 29 September 1866 at Boodalin Soak, about 6 km north-west of the present-day site of the town of Westonia, approximately 300 km north-east of Perth.

Hard labour
As punishment for escaping and for the robberies committed while on the run, Johns received five years' hard labour on top of his remaining sentence. Extraordinary measures were taken to ensure that Johns did not escape again. He was sent to Fremantle Prison, and kept in the yard with his neck chained to the iron bar of a window, while a special "escape-proof" cell was made for him. The stone-walled cell was lined with jarrah sleepers and over one thousand nails, and was almost air-proof and light-proof. Johns was kept in the cell on a bread and water diet, with only one to two hours of exercise a day. In early 1867, due to his diminishing health, Johns was set to work breaking stone in the open air but, rather than permit him to leave the prison, the acting comptroller-general ordered that the stone be brought in and dumped in a corner of the prison yard, where Johns worked under the constant supervision of a warder. Governor John Hampton was so confident of the arrangements, he was heard to say to Johns: "If you get out again, I'll forgive you". However, the rock broken by Johns was not removed regularly, and eventually a pile grew up until it obscured the guard's view of him below the waist. Partially hidden behind the pile of rocks, he occasionally swung his sledgehammer at the limestone wall of the prison.

On 7 March 1867, Johns escaped through a hole he had made in the prison wall. Despite an extensive manhunt, no sign of him was found, and he would not be recaptured for nearly two years. He did not return to any of his old haunts, and he committed no crimes, so the authorities received very little information about him. Also, many convicts were encouraged by Johns' audacious escape, and a number of escapes were attempted in the following months, so that he was quickly forgotten.

On 25 February 1869, Johns tried to steal some wine from the cellars at Houghton Winery. By chance, the owner had been helping with a police search, and afterwards invited a group of police back to the vineyard for refreshments. When the owner entered the cellar, Johns assumed that he was discovered, and made a dash for the door into the arms of the police. He was returned to prison, sentenced to an additional 12 months, half to be in separate confinement, for absconding. On 22 March 1869, he was sentenced to an additional four years in irons for breaking and entering. Johns made at least one more attempt to escape, attempting in February 1871 to create a key for his cell in the carpenter's workshop, but was unsuccessful. Eventually, in April 1871, Comptroller General Wakeford heard from Johns of Hampton's promise. After verifying with Superintendent Lefroy that those words were spoken, Wakeford informed the current governor, Frederick Weld, who agreed that further punishment would be unfair. Johns was given a ticket of leave in May 1871.

Later life
The remainder of Johns' life consisted of periods of good behaviour punctuated by occasional minor misdemeanors and brief jail terms. In January 1879, he married a widow named Louisa Hearn, and they spent some time prospecting for gold near Southern Cross. In 1881, while exploring the countryside around Karridale, he discovered Moondyne Cave.

Final years and death
In 1893, Johns' wife Louisa died at the age of 40, and the death affected him greatly. Years after, he began acting strangely, and was eventually found to be mentally ill. He died of senile dementia in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum (now the Fremantle Arts Centre building) on 13 August 1900, and was buried in Fremantle Cemetery. His tombstone bears the word "rhyddid", meaning "freedom" in Welsh.

Literature and film

While Moondyne Joe was bushranging in 1869, an Irish political prisoner named John Boyle O'Reilly was working in a convict road party near Bunbury. Although it is very unlikely that O'Reilly knew Moondyne Joe, he must have heard many stories of his exploits. In March 1869, O'Reilly escaped and was rescued by an American ship. After his arrival in the United States, he wrote a novel about convict life called Moondyne: An Australian Tale, whose central character was called Moondyne Joe. The book is presented as fiction, and neither the character nor the plot bears much resemblance to the life of Joseph Johns.

In 1913, O'Reilly's novel was made into a movie entitled Moondyne. Directed by W. J. Lincoln, it starred George Bryant, Godfrey Cass and Roy Redgrave.

Randolph Stow wrote a humorous children's book, Midnite: The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy, in 1967 which told the story of an Australian bushranger based on the life and exploits of Moondyne Joe and a Queensland bushranger Captain Starlight.

In 2002, Cygnet Books published The Legend of Moondyne Joe, a work of juvenile fiction written by Mark Greenwood and illustrated by Frané Lessac. The book won the award in the Children's Books category at the 2002 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards.

In 2012, Fremantle Press published a postmodern interpretation of Moondyne Joe's life, The Ballad of Moondyne Joe, including poems and prose by John Kinsella and Niall Lucy.

In song and verse

In 1982 a musical/play was written by Roy Abbott and Roger Montgomery of the Mucky Duck Bush Band and performed by Mucky Duck and friends at various venues.

Memorials
A railway siding on the Eastern Goldfields Railway in Johns' area of operations in the Avon Valley has been named "Moondyne", most likely after the man rather than the area.

Festivals
On the first Sunday of May, the township of Toodyay celebrates the life and times of Moondyne Joe by holding the Moondyne Festival. This festival takes place in the main street with street theatre, market stalls, demonstrations and the entire town is generally transported back to earlier years.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Moondyne Joe


text:
Talk:Mancur Olson

Untitled
Made a stub for Mancur Olson at Mancur Olson/Temp. Rd232 23:51, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

 * Deleted the copyvio and moved the /Temp page into place --rbrwr± 21:45, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Recommended merge from Logic of Collective Action
The new article about Olson's book is POV and inferior to the description of the book already contained in Olson's article. I feel Logic of Collective Action should be made a redirect page to Mancur Olson. Alternatively, the book information contained in Mancur Olson could be moved to and supplant the information currently contained in Logic of Collective Action, but I'm not sure that a distinct article for the book is warranted. Any votes in favor of my first suggestion or the alternative? Accurizer 16:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

 * The book deserves an article of its own. It's a classic. Algae 17:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Look, The Logic of Collective Action is the single most important book of political economy written in the second half of the 20th century. It should definitely have its own article. If you feel its article is POV or inferior, thenfixit. Mi kk er ... 10:43, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * I took a shot at fixing it. Please review and make any changes deemed appropriate. Accurizer 13:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Thank you. Algae 15:24, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

 * You're welcome; I hope the article does some justice to the topic now. We're all just trying to make things right. Accurizer 22:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Please check the "influences" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.37.148.8 (talk) 15:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC) Removed 'influences'. JB had little to do with MC. Quite the opposite. Read MC/RZ's paper on production externalities. Cheers. AG. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.37.148.49 (talk) 23:26, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Subjective, unsourced introduction
I think "The reigning political theories of his day granted groups an almost primordial status. Some appealed to a natural human instinct for herding, others ascribed the formation of groups that are rooted in kinship to the process of modernization" is a highly subjective opinion on political theory, that is given as if a fact. It is actually lifted from a 1994 book, "Pathologies of Rational Choice Theories" - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dvPX1ljtXnwC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8 - by Green and Shapiro, that says "The reigning political scientists of his day granted groups an almost primordial status. Some appealed, with Gaetano Mosca, to a natural human instinct for herding together and fighting with other herds. Others followed Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales in ascribing the formation of groups that are not rooted in kinship to the process of modernization." First of all, it ought at least to be attributed to those authors, rather than stated as a simple 'fact' about Olson's intellectual environment. And the omission of the 'not' in the entry is a big problem. But I think that one subjective critical view of one of Olson's books doesn't really belong in the introductory paragraph of his entry. Can anyone come up with a more objective introduction? Peace Makes Plenty (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

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Correct Spelling of Olson's Name
Olson's first name is properly spelled Mançur, not Mancur. This leads to a correct pronunciation with an S sound rather than a C sound. Pronouncing it wrong, in economic circles, makes one sound foolish. Ask me how I know.

I've corrected the spelling in several places, but I've been unable to figure out how to correct the title. This would lead to broken links elsewhere.

Aside from correcting the title, does anyone know how to have links saying both Mançur and Mancur directed to the same page? Rmmiller44 (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mancur Olson


text:
Johnny Dawes

Johnny Dawes (born 9 May 1964) is a British rock climber and author, known for his dynamic climbing style and bold traditional climbing routes. This included the first ascent of Indian Face, the first-ever route at the E9-grade. His influence on British climbing was at its peak in the mid to late-1980s.

Climbing career

Dawes' climbing career splits into an initial period pre-1986 where he focused on gritstone in the Peak District, which was suited to his unique climbing style (e.g. Gaia, and End of the Affair). From 1986, Dawes focused on Wales and on a diverse range of rock, from the slate quarries of Llanberis (e.g. The Quarryman, The Very Big and the Very Small, and Dawes of Perception), to the quartzite cliffs of Gogarth North Stack (e.g. Conan the Librarian, and Hardback Thesaurus), and the rhyolite mountain crags of Clogwyn Du'r Arddu (e.g. Indian Face). Dawes is remembered for intimidating traditional climbing routes, in the legacy of Pete Livesey, Ron Fawcett and John Redhead, and less for sport climbing routes, unlike his contemporaries Jerry Moffatt and Ben Moon.

Dawes came to prominence outside of the rock climbing world with his 4 October 1986 ascent of Indian Face, the first E9-graded traditional rock route in Britain, and at the time, considered to be the hardest and most dangerous traditional route in the world. The guidebook described it as "A pitch of such appalling difficulty as to be almost beyond the realms of human comprehension". In a 2011 interview, Dawes said: "As you set off it's best to consider yourself already dead. You just do it". The climb, and rare repeats, are the subject of a 2006 documentary, Johnny Dawes and the Story of Indian Face.

In 1993, Dawes was a member of an expedition funded by the Mount Everest Foundation to attempt the first ascent of The Shark's Fin on Meru Peak in Gangotri Himalaya, India; a dropped boot led to a forced descent from 6,000 meters to avoid frostbite. An autobiographical account of his climbing, Full of Myself, was published in 2011.

Style
Dawes had a uniquely dynamic technique, leaping between very small holds, and also for his levels of balance and foot-control that enable him to climb extreme-grade routes without using his hands. Welsh climber George Smith said: "His climbing seemed choreographed rather than constructed in a gym. If there's perfect pitch for movement, he has it". Aspects of his unique technique was captured in the 1986 climbing film, Stone Monkey, considered one of the best-ever films in the genre, as well as the 2015 climbing series, No Handed Climbing,  and other "no-hands",  and "no-feet" videos.

His unorthodox climbing style, coupled with his reputation for a keen intellect and an artistic or bohemian bent, made Dawes an enigmatic and mercurial character in British climbing. His writing has been called "quirky, convoluted, and often obscure", and a tendency to "speak in riddles" earned him the titles of "nutty professor", and of "mad genius" from some commentators. His approach also made it difficult to secure commercial sponsorship, with Dawes saying in a 2019 interview, "I wasn’t supported by the climbing industry because I didn't fit the commercial template".

Legacy
Dawes is widely considered a legend of British rock climbing, and one of the most influential figures in British rock climbing history. Over a career spanning the early-1980s to the early-1990s, he pushed the technical level of traditional climbing with routes that were unprecedented both in terms of difficulty, and the style in which they were climbed. In 2012, The Guardian called Dawes a "defining figure" and wrote that: "His climbs were rated among the very hardest in the world, test pieces of both balance and nerve, some with a reputation for terrible danger". Some of his routes are still so intimidating that they are rarely repeated, and several feature in climbing films focused on Dawes (e.g.  80s Birth of Extreme) and his routes (e.g. Hard Grit, Quarrymen).

Personal life
Dawes was born in 1964 in Birmingham, into a wealthy family, whose parents were part of the 1960s British motor racing scene. His education at the Uppingham School was a difficult one, with Dawes suffering from periods of depression and bullying.

Dawes rejected the career path of his contemporaries into third-level education and then a likely London-based career, choosing instead to obsess on climbing, telling The Guardian, "I was in a shut-off state, to a certain extent. When I was doing something dangerous it would wake me up".

In 2011, Dawes was diagnosed with hypothyroidism, which he called "depressing and heavy"; by 2018, treatment enabled him to climb at.

Notable ascents

 * 1983: Monopoly (E7 6b), Millstone Edge. First ascent. Originally climbed with side-runners, Dawes reclimbed it in 1984 with a low peg runner (now removed).
 * 1984: The Salmon (E7 6c), Bamford Edge. First ascent. Reclimbed by Dawes as Smoked Salmon at E8 7b in 1995, after it lost a crucial pebble.
 * 1984: The Braille Trail (E7 6c), Burbage South Edge. First ascent.
 * 1985: Dawes of Perception (E7 6c), Vivian Quarry, Llanberis. First ascent.
 * 1986: Janus (E7 6b), Curbar Edge. First ascent.
 * 1986: Slab and Crack (E7/8, 6c), Curbar Edge. First ascent.
 * 1986: Gaia (E8 6c), Black Rocks, Derbyshire. First ascent. Britain's first grade-E8; featured in the 1998 film, Hard Grit; repeats are coveted.
 * 1986: End of the Affair (E8 6c), Curbar Edge. First ascent. Dawes' hardest gritstone route, and the end of a period of focus by Dawes on gritstone.
 * 1986: Indian Face (E9 6c), Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, Snowdonia. First ascent. Britain's first grade-E9, and considered the world's hardest 'trad' climb at the time; features in the 2006 climbing-film, Johnny Dawes and the Indian Face.
 * 1986: The Quarryman (E8 7a), Twll Mawr, Dinorwic quarry, Llanberis. First ascent, 4 pitches on Welsh slate, one of the hardest climbing routes at the time, now part of a 2019 climbing film, The Quarrymen, and its notorious Groove pitch features in the 1986 climbing film, Stone Monkey. Dawes soon added the Fire Escape alternative finish (E7 6c).
 * 1986: Conan the Librarian (E7 6b), Gogarth North Stack. First ascent, with Bob Dury.
 * 1986: Come to Mother (E7 6a), Gogarth South Stack. First ascent with Paul Pritchard. The route has now fallen down.
 * 1986: The Hollow Man (E8 6b), Gogarth North Stack. First ascent with Andy Pollit.
 * 1987: The Scoop (E7 6b), Strone Ulladale, Harris. First ascent with Paul Pritchard of 8 pitches of Doug Scott's 1969 grade-A5 aid climbing route; a free ascent was considered in 1984 to be one of British climbing's "great challenges"; partly shown in the 1988 film, The 80s: Birth of Extreme.
 * 1987: Coeur de Lion (E8 7a), Twll Mawr, Dinorwic quarry, Llanberis. First ascent. Unrepeated until 2015.
 * 1988: Hardback Thesaurus (E7/8 6c), Gogarth North Stack. First ascent and first onsight of an E7; is shown in the 1988 film, The 80s: Birth of Extreme.
 * 1990: The Very Big & the Very Small, Rainbow Slab Area, Dinorwic quarry, Llanberis. First ascent. Only 3-bolts, hardest slate route at time; rarely repeated; Dawes believes grade is 8c.
 * 1994: Angel's Share (E8 7a) or, Black Rocks. First ascent. Gritstone slab at E8 7a without bouldering pads, or a boulder with pads.
 * 1995: Face Mecca (E9 6c), Clogwyn Du'r Arddu, Snowdonia. Second ascent. FFA Nick Dixon in 1989.
 * 2003: Drummond Base (E8 6c), Curbar Edge. First ascent.

Filmography

 * Documentary on The Quarryman (E8 7a):
 * Documentary on The Indian Face (E9 6c):
 * Documentary on the hardest gritstone routes in Peak District:
 * Documentary on leading UK climbers:
 * Documentary on Dawes, Ben Moon and Jerry Moffatt:
 * Documentary on Dawes' technique:

title: Johnny Dawes


text:
The Big Snooze

The Big Snooze is a 1946 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon planned by Bob Clampett and finished by Arthur Davis, who were both uncredited as directors. Its title was inspired by the 1939 book The Big Sleep, and its 1946 film adaptation, also a Warner release. The Big Snooze features Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, voiced by Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan.

Plot
Bugs and Elmer are in the midst of their usual hunting-chasing scenario. After Bugs tricks Elmer into running through a hollow log and off a cliff three times, Elmer angrily quits because he feels that the writers never let him catch the rabbit. He tears up his Warner Bros. cartoon contract and walks off the set to devote his life to fishing, stunning Bugs, who piteously asks him to reconsider.

During a relaxing fishing trip, Elmer falls asleep. Bugs observes Elmer's nap, remarks that the dream he notices Elmer is having — that of a classic log and saw, representing snoring — is "a heavenly dream". Then, Bugs decides he had "better look into this", and downs a sleeping pill. He dreams he is inside Elmer's dream, in a boat crooning "Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat". He decides to use Nightmare Paint to disrupt the "serene scene".

Within Elmer's dreamland, Bugs creates unsettling situations: Elmer appears nearly nude, wearing only his derby hat and a strategically placed "loincloth" consisting of a laurel wreath. Next, in a musical parody of "The Campbells Are Coming", and a visual parody of the Pink Elephants on Parade sequence from the Disney film Dumbo (1941), Bugs creates a situation where "miwwions and biwwions of wabbits" are dancing over Elmer while Bugs' voice is heard singing, "The rabbits are coming. Hooray! Hooray!" When Elmer asks where they are all coming from, Bugs replies, "From me, Doc." Then we see him literally multiplying them from an adding machine.

Looking for another way to torment Elmer, Bugs consults the book A Thousand and One Arabian Nightmares, exclaiming, "Oh, no! It's too gruesome!" before peeking over the book to cheerfully tell the audience, "But I'll do it!" Elmer realizes what Bugs has in mind, pleading, "No, no! No, not that! Not that, please!" as Bugs ties him to railroad tracks, just as "the Super Chief" (Bugs in an Indian chief's war bonnet, leading a conga line of baby rabbits) crosses over Elmer's head.

Elmer chases Bugs through a surreal landscape, and Bugs inquires, "What's the matter doc, ya cold? Here, I'll fix dat." Before Elmer can react, Bugs dresses him in drag, (dress, wig, lipstick) transforming the inept hunter into a woman with an hourglass figure who resembles Rita Hayworth. Bugs inspects his handiwork, then lifts the backdrop to reveal a trio of literal wolves in Zoot suits, lounging by the sign at Hollywood and Vine, who catcall at Elmer.

Bugs intercepts Elmer and puts him through a bizarre series of steps which include flipping upside down to run on his hair (which reveals Elmer's panties and how complete the makeover was), hopping on all fours, and dancing a hopak.

As Bugs and Elmer fall off a cliff, Bugs drinks some "Hare Tonic (Stops Falling Hare)" and screeches to a halt in mid-air, while the dream Elmer continues to careen toward earth, finally crash-landing into the real Elmer's snoozing body. He wakes up with a start, exclaiming, "Ooh, what a howwible nightmare!"

Elmer dashes back to the cartoon's original background, pieces his Warner contract back together, and agrees to continue. The chase through the log begins anew. Bugs faces the viewers in a closeup, finishing with the catchphrase from the "Beulah" character on the radio show Fibber McGee and Molly, "Ah love dat man!"

Reception
Animation historian Jerry Beck writes, "In The Big Snooze, Clampett, who has drawn up imaginary worlds several times before, outdoes himself with the imagery in Elmer's nightmare. The abstract rabbits foreshadow the minimalism of United Productions of America (UPA) cartoons, and the surreal landscape combining clouds, yellow skies, and musical notes is the closest we'll come to visualizing a Looney Tunes acid trip."

title: The Big Snooze


text:
Wikipedia talk:Requests for arbitration/ArmchairVexillologistDon

Don wrote in his response:

 * THE TWO PROVINCAL RED ENSIGN DESPUTES HAPPENNED IMMEDIATELY after the original national RED ENSIGN DISPUTE settled down.
 * AndyL changed BOTH the Provincal Red Ensign pages of Ontario, and Manitoba right after our "big Red Ensign (of Canada) dispute" petered out. He inserted text (to emphasize earlier) references that stated the Red Ensigns were adopted in 1965 AD, and 1966 AD, respectively.' However, AndyLs wording, and later he openly said to me that the Ontario, and Manitoba Red Ensigns DID NOT EXIST until 1965 AD, and 1966 AD, respectively.

I don't know why Don has chosen to ignore the substance of the complaint and spend his time writing on an irrelevent side issue but, in point of fact, what Don says above is wrong. In fact the histories of both the Flag of Ontario and Flag of Manitoba articles show that reference to those flags being adopted in 1965 and 1966 respectively were added to those articles long before Don ever became an editor and were, in fact, added by editors other than me. I edited those articles only to change the Red Ensign link to Canadian Red Ensign. I did revert Don, however, when he subsequently made poor quality edits to those articles. However, given that the references Don is complaining about are, in fact, correct (ie the flags of those provinces were adopted in 1965 and 1966) I don't see the problem if I had added those reference. As point of fact, however, I did not. AndyL 21:25, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)


text:
MSC Cruises

MSC Cruises (MSC Crociere) is a Swiss-Italian global cruise line based in Geneva, with operations offices in Naples, Genoa and Venice. It was founded in 1988 in Naples, Italy, as part of the Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC). In addition to being the world's largest privately held cruise company, employing about 23,500 people worldwide and with offices in 45 countries, MSC Cruises is the third-largest cruise company in the world, after Carnival Corporation & plc and Royal Caribbean Group, with a 10.2% share of all passengers carried in 2021.

StarLauro Cruises
In 1988 Gianluigi Aponte, founder of Mediterranean Shipping Company cargo shipping company, decided to enter the cruise industry and purchased the Achille Lauro from Flotta Lauro Line. He retained "Lauro" in the company name in honour of his mentor, naming the new cruise line StarLauro Cruises. The original Lauro Lines (Flotta Lauro) was originally founded in Naples, Italy by Achille Lauro in the 1940s.

In 1990 Mediterranean Shipping Co. purchased the Monterey to sail for their StarLauro Cruises brand.

MSC Cruises
In 1995, StarLauro Cruises was rebranded as MSC Cruises, with the livery changed from the blue funnel star logo to a white funnel with the MSC Logo. In 1997 MSC purchased the Atlantic from Premier Cruise Lines, and renamed the ship Melody.

In 2003 the MSC Lirica entered service, the first new purpose built ship for the cruise line.

In 2014, MSC Cruises announced that the four Mistral class ships underwent renovation under the "Renaissance Programme".

In July 2018, the company announced that it would build a second cruise terminal at PortMiami for its World-class cruise ships as an expansion of its North American program. It is scheduled to be completed in October 2022. In October 2018, MSC announced an order for four luxury ships of 64,000 gross tons each. These ultra-luxury vessels were to be based on the cruise line's luxury concept, the "MSC Yacht Club."

In January 2019, MSC Cruises unveiled the world's first virtual personal cruise assistant - ZOE, an artificial intelligence device designed by Harman International. It is currently featured on MSC Bellissima and MSC Grandiosa and will be featured on future newbuilds upon their delivery.

In mid 2020, MSC Cruises suspended most (or all) of their operations for over six months during the COVID-19 pandemic.

On 7 January 2021, MSC had released a plan for the MSC Grandiosa to start its 7-night cruises on 24 January 2021 and for MSC Magnifica to start its 10-night cruises on 14 February 2021, both in the Mediterranean. Only passengers who were residents of Schengen countries would be accepted until further notice, however.

On 9 January 2021, a report stated MSC was hoping to resume some cruises in Europe in the near future but added that "it remains to be seen whether this will go ahead with much of the continent still in lockdown".

In June 2021, MSC announced a new luxury brand named Explora Journeys, with four vessels planned beginning with the Explora I.

In March 2022, MSC Cruises signed a multi-year deal with Formula 1 to become their official cruise partner. They were the title sponsor of the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix.

In January 2023, MSC Cruises announced a new multi-year partnership agreement with the New York Knicks. The deal gets MSC promotion during Knicks home games, including LED signage, virtual-on-court signage, and the opportunity to serve as the presenting partner during in-game t-shirt tosses.

Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve
In December 2015, MSC Cruises signed a 100-year lease for the private island of Ocean Cay in the Bahamas to develop the land for an exclusive island experience. The site had previously been used to mine white Aragonite sand for decades, and after the original owners abandoned the 95 acre island, the land had to be restored to remove all of the old mining equipment, with MSC Cruises committing $200 million for the project involving restoration and conversion of the island into a private resort.

The restoration required the work of many scientists to bring the area back into a functioning marine habitat. And, once the Bahamian government granted the site marine reserve status, the project was then officially named the Ocean Cay MSC Marine Reserve and was set to open in mid-November 2019, but weather delays pushed the date to 5 December 2019.

title: MSC Cruises


text:
Lilian Bowes Lyon

Lilian Helen Bowes Lyon (23 December 1895 – 25 July 1949) was a British poet.

Biography
Born 23 December 1895 at Ridley Hall, Northumberland. She was the youngest daughter of the Honourable Francis Bowes-Lyon, son of the 13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. Her mother was Lady Anne Lindsay, daughter of the 25th Earl of Crawford. Lilian was a first cousin of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who later became Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.

During the First World War, Bowes Lyon helped at Glamis Castle (owned by her uncle) which became a convalescence home for soldiers. Her brother Charles Bowes Lyon was killed in the war on 23 October 1914, inspiring her poem "Battlefield" which was later published in Bright Feather Fading.

After the Great War, Bowes Lyon studied for a time at the University of Oxford and then moved to London. She was independently wealthy. In 1929, she met the writer William Plomer CBE and through him, Laurens van der Post. She published two novels, The Buried Stream (1929) and Under the Spreading Tree (1931) but thereafter focused on poetry. Bowes Lyon published six individual collections with Jonathan Cape and a Collected Poems in 1948. Her "Collected Poems" contains an introduction by C. Day-Lewis, who noted the influences of Emily Dickinson, Hopkins and Christina Rossetti. Her verse appeared in many periodicals and anthologies including The Adelphi, Country Life, Kingdom Come, The Listener, The London Mercury, The Lyric (USA), The Observer, Orion, Punch, The Spectator, Time and Tide and "Poetry" (USA).

During the Second World War, Bowes Lyon moved to the East End of London, where she used the Tilbury Docks unofficial air raid shelter and assisted with nursing the injured.

She had several amputations due to thromboangiitis obliterans (Buerger's Disease), losing toes, a foot, her lower legs and eventually both her legs below her hips. She returned to her home in Kensington and continued to write poetry despite the thromboangiitis obliterans beginning to affect her hands. These poems, found amongst William Plomer’s papers at University of Durham, were published in "Uncollected Poems" by Tragara Press.

She died on 25 July 1949.

Works

 * The Buried Stream (Jonathan Cape, 1929) novel
 * Under the Spreading Tree (Jonathan Cape, 1931) novel as D J Cotman
 * The White Hare (Jonathan Cape, 1934) poems
 * Bright Feather Fading (Jonathan Cape, 1936) poems
 * Tomorrow is a Revealing (Jonathan Cape, 1941) poems
 * Evening in Stepney (Jonathan Cape, 1943) poems
 * A Rough Walk Home (Jonathan Cape, 1946) poems
 * Collected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 1948)
 * Uncollected Poems (Tragara Press, 1981)

title: Lilian Bowes Lyon


text:
Shahid Malik

Shahid Rafique Malik (شاہد رفیق ملک نے; born 24 November 1967) is a British technology and media industry chairman and former politician. A member of the Labour Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Dewsbury from 2005 to 2010.

The son of the mayor of Burnley, Malik studied business at Durham University. Prior to his election to parliament, Malik worked in the urban development, communities and education sectors. Elected at the 2005 general election, Malik and Sadiq Khan were the first British-born Muslims to be elected to parliament.

In 2007, Malik became Britain's first Muslim government minister. Initially responsible for the Department for International Development from 2007 to 2008, he subsequently served at the Ministry of Justice from 2008 to 2009 and Department for Communities and Local Government from 2009 to 2010. In his last ministerial role, he led the British government's efforts in fighting extremism; overseeing race, faith, and community cohesion; developing the Thames Gateway; and managing the Fire and Rescue Service. He lost his seat at the 2010 general election.

Early life
Malik was born in Burnley, Lancashire, in 1967. His father Rafique Malik was a district councillor between 1976 and 2006 and a mayor of Burnley, having emigrated from Pakistan in the 1960s. He attended Barden High School and Burnley Sixth Form Centre before studying Business Studies at the South Bank Polytechnic in London and later attending Durham University. Malik is one of seven siblings.

Pre-parliamentary career
After graduating, Malik initially worked with the East Lancashire Training and Enterprise Council in a business development capacity and later served as chief executive of the Pakistan Muslim Centre in Sheffield and the Haringey Regeneration Agency. He was national chair of the voluntary sector body Urban Forum from 1999 to 2002. He served as a commissioner for racial equality from 1998 to 2002 and an equality commissioner for Northern Ireland from 1999 to 2002. He also served as an independent governor of Sheffield Hallam University from 1995 to 2001 and as vice-chair of the United Nations body, UNESCO UK, from 2000 to 2003.

In 2000, Malik was elected as the first non-white member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party. He was re-elected each year until 2005 when he stood down after being elected as an MP. Malik sought selection in several seats including Leeds Central and Tottenham. In 2002 he had hoped to be selected in his home town of Burnley where Peter Pike had indicated he was standing down. However, the National Executive Committee decided that the Constituency Labour Party should have an all-women shortlist. He then stood for selection in Brent East after Labour lost the 2003 by-election but was left off the shortlist despite having gained the most nominations in the selection process.

In June 2001, Malik was arrested and allegedly beaten by police during racially motivated riots in Burnley. He said he had been trying to stop the violence and told the BBC he had been arrested by "very hyped-up" police. "The riot shields were smashed in my face, causing four to five stitches above the eye, a black eye, lacerations to the arm, bruises on the back of the head, on the body and on the legs." On leaving Burnley General Hospital Malik said: "No recriminations. This incident should not stereotype all police officers". No charges were brought by Lancashire Police and Malik was offered an apology. In April 2003, Malik won a public apology and "substantial" libel damages after being wrongly accused of throwing bricks during the riots in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph on 17 January 2002. Malik's lawyer told the High Court in London: "At the time referred to in the article, he was acting as a mediator and peacemaker in a volatile situation following disturbances in Burnley."

2005 general election
In 2004 Malik was selected as the Labour candidate in Dewsbury for the 2005 general election. Labour saw a 6% drop in its vote nationally in 2005, and despite a 4.2% swing to the Conservatives in Dewsbury, Malik comfortably retained the seat for Labour with a majority of 4,615 ahead of Sayeeda Warsi. Upon his election, Malik was one of the first British-born Muslims to become an MP.

At the 2005 House Magazine Awards, he was awarded the best Maiden Speech among the one hundred plus new MPs elected in 2005. In February 2006, he was runner-up in the Channel Four News awards in the 'Rising Star' category. Upon election, Malik was appointed to the Home Affairs Select Committee. He also served on the Environmental Audit Select Committee until the cabinet reshuffle of May 2006 when he was appointed as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the then Minister of State for Schools Jim Knight. He served as an international monitor for the Palestinian Presidential elections in 2005 and Parliamentary elections in January 2006.

Race and community cohesion issues
Soon after his election to the House of Commons in 2005, Malik became one of the public faces of Muslim leadership in the UK and a leading voice in the battle with Islamic extremism in Britain. In the government reshuffle of 9 June 2009, Malik was given ministerial responsibility for issues of race, faith and community cohesion. In 2008, he was made an honorary Doctor of the University of Bradford for his contributions as Member of Parliament and, in particular, in recognition of the distinctive role he has played in working towards community cohesion and in striving for racial harmony.

Terrorism and extremism
Just two months after Malik was elected to the House of Commons, it was revealed that the leader of the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Mohammad Sidique Khan, came from his Dewsbury constituency. Malik described the bombings as "the most profound challenge yet faced by the British Muslim community". He said: "Condemnation is not enough and British Muslims must, and I believe are prepared to, confront the voices of evil head on."

Later Malik confronted the issue in an article for The Times newspaper. He wrote: "Yes, foreign policy causes anger among many British Muslims but this does not in itself cause terrorism. Unquestionably, the lethal ingredient is a twisted, perverted interpretation of Islam whereby you can legitimately kill yourself and other innocent people, and you will go to Heaven." He concluded that: "For British Muslims the fight against extremism is not just for the very soul of Islam but for the freedoms we enjoy as Britons."

Malik found controversy in February 2007 when he wrote, again in The Times, that the Muslim Council of Britain should "stop whingeing and show leadership." Referring to their decision not to play a part in Holocaust Memorial Day, Malik wrote: "Its flawed moral leadership places the MCB alongside the likes of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, as nonattendees."

Muslim veil row
In October 2006 Malik garnered national attention when he spoke out in support of the decision to suspend, and later sack, a Muslim teaching assistant from Dewsbury for refusing to remove her veil in the classroom. Aishah Azmi, 24, was asked to remove her niqab veil after pupils found it hard to understand her during English language lessons. The school said she could wear the veil outside the classroom. Malik said: "In schools the top priority has got to be the education of our children... I believe the education authority has bent over backwards to be accommodating and has been extremely reasonable and sensible in the decision it has come to.” "There is no religious obligation whatsoever for Muslim women to cover themselves up in front of primary school children."

In June 2009 Malik spoke out against comments made by Nicolas Sarkozy after the French President declared the burqa was "not welcome" in France. Sarkozy said: "The burqa is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience." Malik responded publicly by saying: "It is not the job of government to dictate what people should or should not wear in our society – that is a matter of personal choice."

"There are no laws stating what clothes or attire are acceptable and so whether one chooses to wear a veil or burqa, a miniskirt or goth outfit is entirely at the individual's discretion."

Parliamentary cleaners' rights
Malik placed an early day motion (EDM 434, 2005), which attracted 178 MPs signatures and led to the first picket and strike in the Houses of Parliament and eventually to improved pay and conditions for the cleaners of Parliament. EDM 434 stated: That this House values the cleaners who maintain high standards of service to Parliament; believes the parliamentary cleaners should be treated with respect and that it is wrong that, despite the widespread concern over their pay and conditions of employment, their pay has only increased from the national minimum wage of £4.85 per hour to £5 per hour; is concerned that the parliamentary cleaners only enjoy 12 days' paid holiday and have no company sick pay or pension; believes the time has come to end this sorry state of affairs; and urges the parliamentary authorities to reach agreement with the two contractors on making available the necessary resources to ensure that cleaners earn the London living wage.

2010 general election
At the 2010 general election Malik lost his seat in the House of Commons to Simon Reevell of the Conservative Party. There had been significant boundary changes in his constituency which he felt had counted against him. Malik commented that the changes "brought in 26,000 extra Tories" from rural areas, including Denby Dale and Kirkburton. In his speech on election night, Malik also accused the independent candidate, Khizar Iqbal, of being "brought forward not to win but to make sure that I lost". Iqbal had been supported by anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell.

International Development minister
Malik's first and longest ministerial role was as International Development minister where his roles included: conflict, humanitarian affairs and security; globally development programmes apart from Sub-Saharan Africa; UK civil society; Asian and Inter-American Development Banks; Caribbean Development Bank; Asia, MENA, South America and Europe development; and aid effectiveness. Malik was responsible for the UK's largest global aid programmes including in India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as the Middle East and North Africa, the rest of Asia, South America and Europe. He was also the UK's Aid Effectiveness Minister working to ensure that the impact of aid was maximised, and gave evidence to the Parliament's International Development Committee on the issue.

In his role as the UK Minister responsible for Humanitarian Affairs, Conflict and Security Operations he had responsibility for overseeing the response to humanitarian emergencies both natural and man-made. For example, it covered disasters such as Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh Cyclone Nargis in Burma; and the Pakistan earthquake, as well as man-made challenges, which meant supporting the work in Afghanistan, Iraq as well as for example UNRWA, UNDP, UNICEF, WHO etc.

Some of the individual initiative's in countries were in partnership with other countries and were relatively sizeable for example he signed a £90m maternal and new born health programme in Pakistan which was designed to save the lives of an estimated 30,000 women and some 350,000 children.

Malik was involved in the transition of Nepal out of civil war into an inclusive democracy. In this role he acted as an honest broker engaging with the Maoists leader Chairman Prachanda and the seven party alliance including PM Koirala. Other troubled areas that Malik engaged with included Darfur. In addition, Malik's focused his efforts on the Far East with visits and support to Vietnam and Indonesia.

He signed the UK's first ten-year partnership agreement in the Middle East with the government of Yemen. He also served as an observer to both Palestinian Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

In terms of UK civil society he was responsible for the distribution of £120 million per year to small NGOs as well as large ones such as the CAFOD, Red Cross, Oxfam, Action Aid, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief etc. He launched the UK's Youth volunteering schemes and others that linked the UK with the developing world and co-chaired the DFID/Trade Union Congress International Development Forum.

Communities and Local Government minister
As Communities and Local Government minister, Malik's role included covering: preventing extremism; community cohesion and faith; race migration; the Thames Gateway; Olympics legacy; and Fire and Rescue Services.

Malik was responsible for ensuring the £9 billion Olympic legacy investment had a beneficial impact on the regeneration of East London for the next twenty years. He also oversaw work with major businesses such as Land Securities PLC and helped initiate the dredging of the Dubai Ports World's £1.8 billion UK investment. He dealt with local authorities and private sector organisations to develop the Thames Gateway project and was responsible for the appointments of board members on the Olympic Park Legacy Company. He also chaired the Thames Gateway Strategic Partnership which was made up of the council leaders, CEOs and other agencies involved in the project.

Malik founded an award which was to be presented by the Prime Minister of the day known as the Heroes of the Holocaust award. The award was given (sometimes posthumously) to British non-Jews who had risked their lives or given their lives to save Jews and other persecuted groups from the Nazis. Gordon Brown was the first Prime Minister to present the Award which consists of a silver medallion inscribed with the words "In the Service of Humanity".

Libel claim
On 6 October 2006 Malik launched a libel case against both The Dewsbury Press editor Danny Lockwood and former Conservative councillor Jonathan Scott over a letter by Mr Scott criticising Labour's tactics following Scott's defeat at the Kirklees council elections in May 2006. Malik believing the material amounted to an accusation of racism. The defending newspaper suggested the case was attack on freedom of speech and a petition was presented to the Prime Minister protesting against Malik's legal action. The petition was dismissed.

In a trial at the High Court, despite the country's most senior Libel Judge, Lord Justice Eady, ruling in favour of Mr Malik giving him victory on three of the four defences that the Press newspaper, Lockwood and Scott had put forward against Mr Malik's defamation claim, the case ended in a mistrial due to the jury's inability to arrive at a majority of at least 10 out of 12 on the fourth defence. A retrial was averted after an agreed statement was published vindicating Malik. In the statement, Scott stated "I am happy to make clear that my letter was never intended to accuse Malik of orchestrating gangs of thugs or playing the race card. This was an interpretation some people placed upon my letter and subsequent article, an interpretation with which I disagreed". Lockwood said, "We want to make it clear that we never accused Shahid of any impropriety whatsoever during the elections". Malik said, "I am very pleased that after a discussion with Danny Lockwood, he has been able to give me the assurances I required".

Problems at US airports
On 25 October 2007, while on Government business, Malik was stopped and searched by United States airport security staff at Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. Malik said of the incident: "The abusive attitude I endured last November I forgot about and I forgave, but I really do believe that British ministers and parliamentarians should be afforded the same respect and dignity at USA airports that we would bestow upon our colleagues in the Senate and Congress. Obviously, there was no malice involved but it has to be said that the USA system does not inspire confidence."

BBC Gaza War Appeal
Malik criticised the BBC's decision not to broadcast an appeal by the Disaster and Emergencies Committee to help raise millions of pounds for people in need of food, medicines and shelter following Israel's three-week assault on the Palestinian territory. Malik warned that the Corporation's decision would be seen around the world as 'one which inflicts still further misery on the beleaguered and suffering people of Gaza'.

Tackling extremism
Malik said the £45million-a-year "Prevent" strategy would work in deprived white areas rather than concentrating on Muslim youths. Former Government adviser Paul Richards criticised the move, saying: "There is a real danger that if ministers relax the focus on Muslim youth, then it dilutes efforts to tackle terrorism". Former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis accused Malik of having "watered down the policy". Malik said Prevent, which includes measures like helping mosques to spot the early signs of extremism in vulnerable youngsters, was too focused on the Muslim community. He added: "You speak to any Muslim on the street anywhere in this country and they will say they are as opposed as you and I are to extremism, to terrorism ... But the frustration is that they are constantly linked with terrorism as a community as a whole". He went on: "It is not just about the Muslim, it is actually about everybody in our society having a role to play and we cannot dismiss or underestimate the threat from the far right".

MPs' expenses
Malik claimed £185,421 in parliamentary expenses for 2006, the highest amount claimed by any MP. Some £163,000 of this was used for staff and office etc. while the rest some £22,110 was claimed for personal use as part of his 'staying away from main house' allowance (ACA). 183 other MPs claimed exactly the same amount and in 2007/08 he again claimed the maximum personal ACA allowance as did 142 other MPs. Following Thomas Legg's audit of MPs expenses spending limits on eligible items were retrospectively lowered thus meaning that 468 MPs being were forced to make repayments. Malik repaid £1,300. The investigation further ordered that Malik apologise in writing to the House "for breaching the rules of the House when he was a Member of Parliament and for his failure while still a member to respond sufficiently promptly to the Commissioner's investigation". It noted Malik had failed "to recognise his personal responsibility" to respond thus making the situation "more serious." A spokesman for Malik said the claim had previously been "approved twice by the parliamentary authorities and subsequently audited as eligible."

On 15 May 2009, Malik stepped down as justice minister in order to allow the Prime Minister's independent adviser on ministerial interests, Philip Mawer, to investigate accusations in The Daily Telegraph that he had breached the Ministerial Code by accepting preferential rent on his office and home. However, the inquiry concluded that he was in fact paying the market rent and Mawer cleared him of any breach. On 9 June, Malik rejoined the government as Communities and Local Government minister. After a further inquiry by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Malik also was cleared of parliamentary rules. On receiving the news Malik said: "I have now been cleared of breaching the ministerial code of conduct by the ministerial standards adviser Sir Philip Mawer, cleared of any abuse of expenses by a parliamentary review conducted by the Department of Resources, and now finally cleared of abusing office expenses by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards John Lyon. Today's outcome represents the end of a 12-month nightmare and I would like to thank all those family, friends and constituents who have stood by me and kept the faith – we have today all been vindicated."

Racist hate material
Malik and his staff regularly had to intercept abusive and racist communications sent to his offices in Westminster and Dewsbury. In June 2008 Malik acted against YouTube after supporters of the far-right posted a 39-second video clip warning him not to "mess with the big boys", cutting from a still of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, to a shot of Malik covered in blood. The video was removed from the site following a further complaint from the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

In December 2009, a 55-year-old man from Woodley, Berkshire pleaded guilty under the Malicious Communications Act of 1988, of sending an indecent or grossly offensive email to Malik for the purpose of causing distress or anxiety. He was fined £200.

Anthrax terror alert
In December 2009 an envelope containing suspicious white powder was sent to Malik's office at the House of Commons, triggering an anti-terrorist investigation. Comments written on the envelope suggested it had been sent by a supporter of the far-right. The substance was later found to be harmless.

Personal life and family
Although over a hundred MPs employed family members in their offices, Malik was found to be the only MP to have employed his father, who was paid between £13,566 to £25,195 per year from the taxpayer-funded MP's Staffing Allowance fund. Failure to initially disclose this information was later referenced in Malik's use of expenses investigation.

title: Shahid Malik