Having just got to the end of five days of living on £1 or less a day, I celebrated with two hard-boiled eggs, toast and marmite and some freshly-ground coffee. It tasted wonderful and was greatly appreciated. But this exercise has been an incredibly sobering experience for me. I have spent many years working in…
Departing from the role of Convenor of the Cross Benches and taking up the Lord Speakership
Last week during a rather tense debate on Police Reform, a distinguished Crossbencher mentioned that he spoke from the ‘relative neutrality of the Cross Benches’ at which some peers snorted – a touch derisively. In the last Labour administration I was called in by the Front Bench to “explain the role of the Crossbenchers” which unfortunately…
Yesterday a colleague asked a black cab to take her to the House of Lords and he refused – saying “not after what I’ve just heard on the radio.” Mystified she asked the next cabbie, who reluctantly agreed to take her to Parliament, what it was all about. He too had heard the broadcast which…
Throughout the time I have been Convenor of the Cross Benches I got used to the ill-disguised jibes directed at the Cross Benches – there are too many of us, it was said, we don’t get out to vote, we don’t contribute to the nitty gritty of legislation, we don’t attend enough. Some of this was/is…
