This Tuesday from 10am to 8pm there will be the welcome opportunity to elect a member of the House of the Lords. Naturally it is completely bizarre that only candidates who would have been eligible to be hereditary peers may stand, but that was the nature of the compromise needed to remove hereditaries from the…
The clamour for immediate military action against the regime of Muammar al-Qadhafi should be reflected upon at greater length and the tentative truce in Tripoli seized upon.
The quiz is back. I thought I would modify the format slightly, with a fortnightly quiz. As before, any reader winning three times will be invited to tea at the Lords. If an overseas winner wins it three times, and cannot make it to the Lords, I will arrange for some memento of the Lords…
One of my fellow bloggers – or even more likely, one of our regular contributors/commentators – may be able to prove me wrong, but I don’t recall much, if any, discussion of the work we do in the “Moses Room”. This is where the “Grand Committee” meets, under a huge picture of Moses handing over…
The Constitution Committee’s report on the European Union Bill has just been published. To quote from the press release: “The House of Lords Constitution Committee warns that the EU Bill represents a radical step-change for the UK in adopting referendum provisions on such a large scale. This is inconsistent with the Government’s statement that referendums…
I don’t ‘do’ foreign policy. If ever I get the urge to pontificate in the chamber about our role in the World’s business I gaze around me at the many and various people whose experience is greater than mine and decide to keep my mouth shut. But I am incensed about Libya….we should stay out…
Yesterday we had a debate about corruption. Of course everybody was against it, particularly in Third World countries where it undermines economic progress and social and political institutions. But when it comes to business some people weren’t so sure. Corruption is often hidden in the form of fees or taxes or commissions. And if these…
Following my discussion with the High representative of Palestine in the UK and the Emirates Ambassador the post graduate school of law is now well on its way to completion and hopefully will take students from Palestine later this year. I think they are being a little optimistic about starting this year but enthusiasm counts…
The reception on the third birthday of this Blog was a well attended and interesting occasion as Lord Norton points out below. One discussion I had led me to think that a number of us (the Lords) would benefit from a half day on refining our blogging techniques. For example, I have never really understood…
