The weekend quiz question. How many married couples sit in the House of Lords and who are they? One clue: the title of this post doesn’t apply in every case. And can you name those members of the House of Lords who have spouses sitting in the House of Commons?
In an earlier post, on 27 August, I drew attention to the result of a survey of showing that 98 per cent of electoral registration officers favoured getting rid of the practice of selling the electoral register to commercial bodies. Citizens have by law to supply data about themselves for electoral purposes. I have always…
WE are moving into a pre-election period; how do I know this? The Government is getting a bit more nervous than usual about winning votes in the House of Lords. A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to talk to the assembled Government Front Bench and happily did so. However, what emerged was a very definite perception…
It’s only when I get a spare moment and log on to the blog that I realise what a lot has happened. Days pass with frantic rushes to get to the next meeting more or less on time (meetings do nearly always begin on time in this place – rooms are usually booked for an…
This Sunday (30 November) BBC Parliament will be showing an evening of programmes to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the Life Peerages Act. It will include a feature on one of the first women peers, Baroness Wootton of Abinger. The 1958 Act has been the basis for the transformation of the second…
