Tabling questions to the Government can serve one of several purposes. One is is to ensure that an issue is drawn to the attention of a minister. The matter may be important but not one that has fully engaged the attention of ministers. The purpose is thus served before the minister has even come to the dispatch box.…
The Coroners and Justice Bill moves into the committee stages next week and those of us who are interested in it are at the stage of working up amendments, finding allies and trying to understand the Government’s intentions and deciding whether we agree with them or not. It’s not always obvious what the impact of…
The other evening, one of my friends was offering me his unsolicited comments on Britain’s Got Talent. He was impressed by some of the contestants, but clearly was not a great fan of one of the judges. “He’s so up himself”, he said, “and there’s no self-deprecating humour to offset it.” He added, without pausing…
A number of politicians have rushed in to argue that constitutional reform – be it proportional representation or an elected second chamber – is the answer to the current crisis. The logic of their argument is far from clear. The crisis is one of confidence in our political class, not in our basic constitutional framework. …
This week’s quiz questions. 1. How many current members of the House of Lords have held the post of Secretary of State for Education? Who are they? 2. I have edited a major newspaper. I have chaired the Arts Council of Great Britain. I have been on the BBC Board of Governors. Who am I?…
Forget politics, bills, allowances, expenses; I’m going to blog about my best news in years….I’m going get an office in the Palace of Westminster itself. Well, not quite yet, it’ll be after recess in October, and not to myself of course, it’ll be shared with three others but I find to my delight the other…
Sadly, Viscount Bledisloe, an eminent barrister, died on 12 May. Since he was a hereditary peer, a by-election follows automatically. This is a formal affair involving the Electoral Reform Services and a set of rules instituted during the 1999 House of Lords reforms. There are 29 hereditary peers among the 200-odd crossbenchers and all these…
I see we may be in for a form of reality politics. A number of celebrities (Esther Rantzen, Terry Waite, Simon Heffer) have suggested they may put themselves forward to fight seats as independents. The difficulty with having independent MPs is that there is no collective accountability to the electors. There is also often the problem…
I was speaking today at a seminar, organised by the Magna Carta Institute of Brunel University, on the European Parliament elections. What is notable about the elections is the extent to which they attract relatively little attention (nothing on them that I could see in this morning’s Times or Daily Telegraph) and what attention they…
