Naturally I cannot share the glee of fellow contributors to this blog that the Coalition’s Lords Reform plans have been dropped, after neither Labour nor the Conservatives were able to sow sufficient unity among their MPs to implement clear manifesto commitments shared by all three parties. I have been involved in the campaign for reform…
The sorry state of the Government’s reform plans on both the House of Lords and the constituency boundaries reminds me that constitutional reforms like this are more likely to be achieved if a serious effort is made to get cross party consensus. I am not surprised that it has ended in tears. For the immediate…
I never thought that my second blog would be about sport. But as a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Tennis (couch-potato division), I wanted to mark Andy Murray’s achievements at the Olympics. I was lucky enough to be cheering him on on Murray’s Mount (surely no longer Henman Hill?) on Sunday and…
I agree with all of Lord Faulkner’s suggestions to reform the House from the inside, overhauling the makeup and setting a retirement age. The need for these reforms, and their superiority over the plans for an elected House, were evident a long time ago, and I don’t know why it has taken this long for the right…
The newspapers and news channels are bulging with criticism of the United Nations for ‘failing to halt the bloodshed in Syria.’ They are right to be outraged but the target of that frustration which we all share should be the member states not the institution of the UN. Consider one small matter—the Olympic Truce which…
Please see my Questions and their Ministerial replies on human right issues in a) China, b) Iran, and c: Middle East and North Africa.
I don’t think there have been any questions in Parliament this year on urban foxes, probably because there have been no recent reports of fox attacks on children. But there are as many foxes about as ever, and the recent hot weather has encouraged them to party through the night in our gardens. I live…
The Olympics have brought Twitter into the news, as millions of spectators give their instant opinions on the games and the athletes. Some of it is illiterate and hurtful, but there is little control, and freedom of speech is gaining ground as the internet principle. It was reported recently that a man who tweeted in frustration…
