This past week has been an exceptionally busy week for me in parliament and the theme of old age ran through much of the debates. First the Personal Care at Home Bill had its second reading on Monday. It’s a singularly unfortunate piece of legislation which has largely been created as an electoral eye catcher.…
I was the only woman to speak in Lord Tyler’s debate on constitutional renewal last Thursday, and characteristically perhaps for a woman I looked at the domestic governance arrangements inside the House which I observe do not serve well the business of the House. The House is unable to respond swiftly and effectively to crises…
Whenever the winner of a vote says it was a “victory for common sense” you can be sure we have been debating something profoundly unimportant. Baroness Warsi, the Conservative shadow minister for Community Cohesion, (great title isn’t it?) hailed the Government defeat in the Lords last night as a “victory for common sense”. She went on.. “We delivered…
Bedd Gelert has suggested we should have a discussion about airport security and the underpinning policy approaches (security profiling or blanket coverage of restrictions). Since I am about to embark on a journey from Pisa to Stansted airport where travel time will be doubled as a result of security provisions that will make me feel…
Heavens, it turns out I’ve been eating nanoparticles for lunch! I didn’t know they were naturally occurring in some foods; ricotta cheese for one. So my ravioli gnudi (which are largely ricotta and spinach and absolutely delicious) presumably had billions of them. How do I know this? Because the House of Lords Science and Technology…
