Can’t blog today without mentioning US President Elect Barack Obama. Whether his politics are to one’s taste or not (and I’m not sure we know anything much except the generalities) his election last night is surely a fantastic indication of faith by the American people in justice, equality and a new order in domestic and…
Son of a President, grandson of a Senator My quiz question on the US Presidency attracted attention not only from readers in this country but also in the USA. One US blog raised the question of whether the dominance of the names of Nixon and Bush on presidential tickets meant that the US was acquiring…
The House yesterday debated the current economic situation. I mentioned in an earlier post some of the speakers who would be taking part. The debate can be found at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/81103-0002.htm#0811039000009 The quality of the debate was commented on by the minister, Baroness Vadera, in her speech winding-up for the Government: “My Lords, it is rare…
There will be a Private Notice Question today in the Chamber of the House of Lords. It will read as follows “To ask HMG, following the proposals announced yesterday, whether they will urgently report to the House how they will maintain an arm’s length relationship with the banks in which they have taken a shareholding.’…
I mentioned in an earlier post Lord Rowlands’ booklet on the House of Lords in the early eighteenth century. One notable feature of the House was that on occasion peers could sit in silence for fifteen or thirty minutes before anyone rose to say anything. Another distintive feature was the existence of proxy voting. An…
