I have rarely heard such a disgruntled debate as last night on the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill. Lord Norton has already given the background in his blog of 22 March and was on fine form in the chamber. Lady Boothroyd, the former Speaker of the Commons, not normally given to hyperbole except in her…
Notices of meetings of All Party Parliamentary Groups drop into our letter boxes every day but few are as compelling as the notice for the APPG which arrived yesterday on ‘Underground Spaces’. I confess that I assumed at first they were about underground art or some other esoteric matter such as underground economies. But no,…
On Wednesday evening the parliamentary timetable and my own dovetailed for once. Those of us opposed to the Personal Care at Home Bill trounced the Government on 4 votes at report stage. Carefully choreographed by 5 of us, Lords Lipsey and Warner in the lead, with Earl Howe for the Tories, Baroness Barker for the…
Anglican Prayers are read at the beginning of each sitting at 2.30 precisely until 2.35pm when Questions begin. I regularly go to prayers simply in order to get a seat. If it’s a popular day, crossbenchers will only get a seat if they do pray! I rather like prayers, the ancient language of the 17th…
Yesterday we got out for a proper spring walk in sunshine for the first time this year, around Castle Acre in West Norfolk, one of the best preserved Norman settlements in the country. The ruined priory at one end of the village is the perfect romantic ruin, the castle rather more dilapidated at the other…
