I’m pleased Buckingham Palace is going for the Photographer as well as the magazine. This is nothing to do with a right to publish. It is everything to do with a couple on holiday with a friend having the right to privacy. Perhaps the real answer is to get the name and address of the…
I was giving evidence yesterday to the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee in the Commons, alongside Lord Maclennan and MP Nick Raynsford, as part of the the committee’s inquiry into legislative standards. The committee is examining whether, among other things, a commitee on legislative standards should be established. I was keen to argue that such a…
Much talk, debate and passion has been spilt over the cause of House of Lords reform in the last few months; however, now that the government will not be pursuing this cause, how does it intend to fill the parliamentary time Lords reform would have taken? A noticeable gap in putting into law the Coalition’s…
Just before the House’s recess I received an answer to a Written Question that had been languishing unanswered for quite some time. In the answer, Lord Hill of Oareford, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, apologised on behalf of Department of Education officials for providing incorrect information on the school visits of the Secretary of…
The debate about the need for a third runway at Heathrow is hotting up. Before discussing the merits, I think we all need a health warning when reading all the comments on the lines of ‘they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ We now have five airports around London – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London…
I have made the point before that the House is much more than the chamber. The fact the House may not be sitting does not mean members are not getting on with work. Letters continue to flow in and so do e-mails, the latter nowadays more so than the former. Members continue to table questions. …
Having been wowed by all the Olympics and now by Murray I have to say the British are suddenly a sporting nation again. Whoopee!! But as someone who is profoundly ignorant about sport can anyone tell me who the British women were who won the grand slam in the US? I have been assuming that…
The Director of the Office for Fair Access is Prof. “Les” Ebdon, grammar school boy and, until very recently, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire (ranked 102/117 by the Guardian University Guide, and 88/116 by the Times Good University Guide, fees £9K, drop out rate 11%, compared with national rate of 7.2%). He is reported as…
