“I’d rather take advice from my valet than from the Conservative Party Conference“, said Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour at the beginning of the last century. Most Conservative Peers seem to agree. I counted a trio of former Tory Chief Whips, and at least a dozen former Cabinet Members, in the Chamber today, and there…
The Constitution Committee has published a report on the Health and Social Care Bill. The remit of the committee is confined to the constitutional implications of the Bill and we are concerned that the Bill, in its current form, risks diluting the Government’s constitutional responsibilities with regard to the NHS. You can read the report…
We are living through a time of rapid and dramatic political and economic change. The financial crisis that hit the West has done enormous damage not just to the world economy but also to the reputation of the West as economic managers. Britain suffered additional problems because of the central importance of London as an…
I have just come from a conference on ‘European Disunion: The Multidimensional Power Struggles’, so I thought that the topic of the European Union would be a good base for this week’s quiz. As usual, the first two readers to supply the correct answers will be the winners. 1. Name at least four members of the…
I continue to hear people speculating as to whether or not there will be an early election. However, much of this appears to be based on the assumption that the Prime Minister can simply decide to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament and call an election. What this overlooks is that two weeks ago, on…
My last blog on the breakdown of the Usual Channels generated a torrent of comments on the Welfare Reform Bill. This is fine, indeed very welcome but as a result of organisations passing on my parliamentary e-mail address I have now received a torrent of messages to which I am simply unable to respond adequately…
The recent spat over whether a Bill should be taken in Grand Committee or on the floor of the House rather masks the more important limitation of committee scrutiny. Whether a Bill is taken for committee stage in Grand Committee or on the floor is not a major issue. Grand Committee is not a committee in…
David Cameron’s blunt but essential message to the United Nations yesterday that it must not just be “united in condemnation, but united in action” and continued,“You can sign every human rights declaration in the world. But if you stand by and watch people being slaughtered in their own country, when you could act, then what…
Baroness Murphy is right – the Usual Channels do seem to have broken down at the moment. Why has this happened? What are the Usual Channels for in the Lords? In a self regulating Chamber and without a powerful Speaker to make the kind of decisions taken by Mr Speaker in the Commons, the Usual…
