The long and the short of it…

OK — this is less of a news story and more of an ongoing challenge. Let’s see if we can create a list of the “most…[insert adjective here]” Act of Parliament that exist.

I’ll start you off…

The shortest Act of [the UK] Parliament… No — it’s not the Brexit Bill, which has a whopping 45 words — excluding the usual pleasantries about Her Majesty and their Lords’ advice… Also, this Bill is still not legislation and may get longer if amendments are added to it (as Labour seems to wish). Instead, it is the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 which has only 27 substantive words. Perhaps the government simply believes that Brexit is just as obviously sensible as allowing the vote to women and so, like all clever ideas, needs only very few words? [Think E=mc2].

If short = obvious, then the tax man should be worried about the next result because…

The longest Act of Parliament is the Corporation Tax Act 2009 (my computer crashed twice while trying to calculate the word count, but it has 1,330 sections and 4 long schedules, all of which are a guaranteed cure for insomnia).

So — what are your suggestions for the the silliest-titled, oldest, most amended, longest debated, most important/significant … etc. etc. etc. Act of Parliament (ours or yours)?

Looking forward to reading your comments below…