This week has been particularly hectic – meetings from morning to night, which explains why I have not been particularly prolific with posts. However, I thought I would do a post or two on some of the meetings. On Wednesday evening, I attended the launch of the Opposition Studies Forum, a research group designed – as the name…
We had a statement on counter terrorism policy yesterday. It makes sober reading. I intervened with a question (or my own statement!) pointing out that some vulnerable people and young people were targeted by terror groups using the argument that because bad things happen in a democracy we are therefore no better than some of…
Today the House of Lords Appointments Commission published measures to strengthen the criteria for appointment to the House. In future instead of vaguely agreeing to attend, future nominees have to commit the time necessary to make an effective contribution: they must be resident in the UK for tax purposes and they have to confirm that…
In preparation for a speech about the Victorian author Anthony Trollope I have been searching high and low, through every source I can think of (books, articles and the internet) for a quotation. Asked how he liked to relax, Harold Macmillan is reputed to have replied to the effect that “I take a good Trollope…
I left for Cairo on Friday morning and on arrival was immediately plunged into a discourse between the two parts of the Egyptian bicameral parliament, the People’s Assembly and the Shura (Consultative) Council. I was there at the invitation of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Egyptian based Alliance for Arab Women to talk about…
Last night I went to the launch of a new All Party Parliamentary Group, on Wellbeing Economics. I went along out of interest, having been fascinated by Lord Layard’s writings about population wellbeing and mental health. But really I knew next to nothing about it and in spite of being unanimously elected Vice Chair (almost…
Very interesting statistics appeared in the the House Magazine of 23rd March this week (p11) of the attendance figures for the year 07-08. (Source: House of Lords Information Office statistics, see below). I was surprised and not a little disappointed to see how low the attendance figures were for crossbenchers, even those of us who…
I was asked to contribute a short article to the latest issue of Total Politics on whether or not political scientists (or what the magazine calls political academics) live in the real world. I argued that they do. Labour MP Peter Kilfoyle was invited to put the argument that that they don’t. It wasn’t a…
Taking advantage of the fine weather the other day I went on the terrace of the House for a drink. There was a small speedboat coming under Westminster Bridge and towards the House. Now in these troubled times that gets a little police attention. Suddenly a river police boat appeared at a fair rate of…
