Over the past two years, the problems of parliamentary expenses have tended to be dominated by stories affecting the House of Commons. The Daily Telegraph was at the forefront of revealing claims made by MPs. However, The Sunday Times identified problems with peers’ expenses and this acted as a wake-up call to the House. Since…
Yesterday, The Sunday Times carried an article by Jack Straw (‘Out with the Lords, in with the Senate’) explaining why he now supports an elected second chamber. Most of the article is taken up discussing the cross-party group he convened to discuss reform. Only in the last third does he offer arguments for an elected second chamber. His…
Lord Soley raises the important question of lobbying, that is, making representations in order to achieve a change in public policy. Lobbying is often used as a perjorative term, but it is intrinsic to a free society. In the USA, it enjoys constitutional protection. Lord Soley rightly identifies transparency as crucial to parliamentary lobbying: it…
Baroness Murphy has already commented on the allegations in The Sunday Times made against four peers. Both the Leader of the House, Baroness Royall, and the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Strathclyde, have said that the allegations are such as to justify an immediate and thorough inquiry. The House has in place the mechanism for…
In his farewell column in the Sunday Times, Simon Jenkins wrote: “This month Gordon Brown used the 2005 anti-terror law to seize the assets of Icelandic banks, an outrage that passed without protest from parliament and the courts.” Given that this was published on Sunday, the kindest thing that one can say about it is that…
