The picture shows a Central Lobby with no members of the public present. I use it as a means of raising the question: how concerned should we be that the public take a limited interest in what Parliament does? I have raised this question before in two contexts. One relates to the work of select…
I have just returned from a visit to Southern Afghanistan as a guest of the military in Camp Bastion and Kandahar – two enormous sites separated by about 30 minutes flight time. I have been a fairly regular visitor to Afghanistan since the early 1980s but this was completely different. The purpose of our small…
The other night I appeared on BBC News 24 Television. I was asked my views on the current banking crisis. Before this year, some of us may have been forgiven for thinking ‘the crunch’ was a type of chocolate bar. Now we are sadly all too familiar with the phrase credit crunch. Until recently Wall…
The wit of Lord Hart in seconding the loyal address at the start of the session was not confined to the quote I gave in an earlier post. His speech was littered with extremely funny reflections on his period working as special adviser to Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine and his successor Lord Falconer: They both had huge energy…
The Apprentice, like Parliament, is taking a break. I, like the 9.5 million who watched the last episode, eagerly await the next series. This is reality television at its best and it makes a welcome change from the countless programmes that fall into the “worst” bin. As The Daily Telegraph said: it is “the most…
My desk in the Lords In my earlier post (‘If only…’) I mentioned that we had to work in limited space. There is not the capacity in the Lords for each peer to have an office. The most one can hope for is desk space. I thought I would illustrate the point with a picture…
In response to my post on the problems of a long recess, two readers – Adrian Kidney and James Clarke – expressed distrust in the media. I pointed out that Eurobarometer data reveal that they are not alone. The data show low – and declining – levels of trust in the press. Eurabarometer 69 (Spring…
I continue to be fascinated by some of the search-engine terms that result in people being directed to this site. Among recent terms are ‘puzzling questions in the bible’ and ‘men’s massage parlour + cochin’! Other terms are more straightforward and raise queries that are clearly relevant to the Lords and, more generally, Parliament. One…
I have already commented on the fact that the long recess has meant that MPs and peers have not been able to question ministers on events in Georgia. Had Parliament been sitting since the end of July, we would have had statements on a range of issues, including the economy, events in Georgia, world trade talks,…
