Sir Peter North, distinguished legal academic, has recommended in a review that the limit for drink driving should be reduced from 80mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood to 50mg. He estimated that this would save 168 lives a year, and also recommended that the offence be coupled with a mandatory 12 month ban. The proposed new limit…
My colleague Lord Hylton received an interesting answer to a written question last week. I have delayed blogging about it because I thought he might be doing so … but here goes. The question concerns how many sections and/or schedules to Acts of Parliament since 1997 have not commenced and the staggering answer is about…
This week’s quiz relates to popular culture. There are some leading figures in the arts and entertainment who sit in the House of Lords, including Melvyn Bragg (Lord Bragg) and Andrew Lloyd-Webber (Lord Lloyd-Webber). Melvyn Bragg once hosted an episode of the South Bank Show in which he interviewed the crime writer Ruth Rendell and…
I attended the launch of an autobiography by Eric Sanders at the Commonwealth Club http://tickets.commonwealthclub.org/ last night. Eric has been a very long standing member of my old local Labour Party in Hammersmith and at 90 years of age shows no sign of flaggng having just finished the autobiography. The title is: Secret Operations, From…
UK Members of the European Parliament were previously entitled to have parliamentary passes so that they could meet with parliamentarians and not have to keep queuing in order to get into the Palace of Westminster. Last year, the Commons decided that this privilege should be withdrawn. As parliamentary passes cover the parliamentary estate, the House…
Peers are still getting used to their new seating positions in the House. One colleague sat next to me yesterday bemoaned the fact that he had still not got used to sitting where he was. For most members, it is a major physical as well as political change. Only the Bishops (and those cross-benchers who actually…
We had a short (90 minute) debate yesterday evening about Drug Misuse Policy, initiated by Baroness Meacher. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has recently issued a discussion paper entitled From Coercion to Cohesion: Treating Drug Dependence through Healthcare, not Punishment. http://www.idpc.net/publications/unodc-from-coercion-to-cohesion-treatment. For nearly 50 years, ever since the first UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs…
I attended part of the debate today on the Olympics. It was rather complacent – on time, within budget, legacy, culture, regeneration etc. etc. Lord Patten was one of the few to express the concerns that I feel, about, inter alia, transport, security and carbon emission. I have tried and failed to discover the total…
I’m no football expert and I’m not paranoid but does anyone else think that Cameron told Robert Green to let the ball in deliberately so that the US didn’t feel totally trashed and oiled up by the Brits!?
