As I feared and predicted in my last post (see below) David Laws MP has had to resign. I don’t want to add much more to what I have said below except that if we don’t get our expenses system onto a more logical and rational basis we will continue to have cases like this with all…
Everyone agrees that the House of Lords has far too many members, we are already stuffed to the gills. Yet we now have 56 additional peers and the rumour of more to come. How does a perfectly obvious fact get so easily discounted? As Peter Riddell points out in today’s Times it cannot be a…
Just as we politicians thought it was safe to go back in the water another swimmer falls to the Telegraph shark! I think David Laws MP is in an impossible situation as the rules do not allow him to keep personal relationships confidential when he stays in a second home subsidised by the taxpayer. I think…
Back in the Chamber Tuesday for the first time since the election to hear the first speeches on the Loyal Address. Swearing in first of all…and I remembered to bring my writ of summons; the two people behind me forgot theirs, but the Clerks are well prepared and dug out copies for the forgetful. It…
Yesterday’s debate on constitutional affairs marked quite a moving moment for those of us on the Liberal Democrat side. Having argued tirelessly for decades that Britain needs thoroughgoing constitutional reform – a new electoral system, an elected second chamber, fixed term Parliaments, to name just three – it was astonishing and gratifying to see Tom…
Earl Ferrers was on form yesterday when he moved the motion for the loyal address. He noted that he been in the House for 55 years, but this was the first time he had been invited to move the loyal address. “Your Lordships will soon find out why.” He then made one of his characteristically witty but incisive…
At the State Opening today, the Sword of State and the Cap of Maintenance were carried in procession in front of the Queen. Various people have asked about the origins of the Cap of Maintenance. Some sources claim the origins have been lost in time. However, I am reliably informed by Lord Wakeham – who had…
Some schadenfreude watching the quarrels of IPSA (the new Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority) and MPs, tempered by the knowledge that IPSA wants to gets its teeth into us too. Many quangos end up bloated and self satisfied, but two weeks after birth is something of a record. IPSA does not need a full time chief…
On Tuesday, some parliamentarians may have been surprised when the Commons were summoned to the Lords not by Black Rod but by his deputy, the Yeoman Usher, Colonel E. Lloyd-Jukes. The reason was that Black Rod was taken seriously ill at the beginning of the week and his deputy had to stand in at the…
