A Proportionate Response

When Tony Blair as PM, commissioned Lord 'Woy' Jenkins* to investigate options for Proportional Representation in 1999, the objective was to effectively "lock out" the Conservatives by a leftist alliance of Labour and Lib-Dems. That estimable goal is not remotely achievable at present, as any electoral system would, based on opinion polls, still make the Tories the largest party and David Cameron the PM.

It is astonishing PR has risen from the bottom of the political pile to the top in just three weeks. Or perhaps not. However, no-one seems to be speaking much to the traditional custodians of the issue, the Lib-Dems - the media are much more interested in the views of the two main parties which will determine whether radical electoral reform will ever happen.

Labour progressives like Health Sec, Alan 'the Rocker' Johnson have been making the case for some while but without threatening to make an impact. Other heavyweights like Blunkett and Hain have recently taken a more pragmatic and opportunist view rather than Johnson's principled stance. Hain made a cogent case last week for moving to the Alternative Vote system (used for electing London Mayors) which also has the advantage of being able to be enacted in a matter of months.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/28/electoralreform-constitution

Cameron made clear in his long essay for the Guardian's New Politics this week; he considers PR to be contrary to the ideal of "redistributing power and control from the powerful to the powerless". How's that Dave? Labour's majority of 66 in 2005 was derived from just 36% of the vote. Cameron continued most unconvincingly, "PR would actually move us in the opposite direction ... [it] takes power away from the man and woman in the street and hands it to the political elites. Instead of voters choosing their government on the basis of the manifestos put before them in an election, party managers would choose a government on the basis of secret backroom deals".

Political horse-trading in smokey rooms is more akin to hung Parliaments in a first-past-the-post set-up, when Governments (like Wilson's in '74) have half an eye on calling another election to get an outright majority. It is elementary to read Cameron's sub-plot, "I would hardly abandon an electoral system which is about to deliver me colossal power." He also praised the values of "strong government," which could also be translated as "a tyranny determined by a few dozen marginals."

Brown, during his eccentric performance on the Andrew Marr Show (grimace, smile, grimace) said, he had, "always been very interested in PR," despite all evidence to the contrary. The Constitution Renewal Bill, still before Parliament, will allow all MPs to display their reforming zeal before a thoroughly sickened public. The legislation promises to be so amended as to be unrecognisable from the original.

The last word on the case for far-reaching electoral reform was put by the Scotland First Minister, Alex Salmond. He told Radio 4, he was amazed by MPs and commentators arguing the case for and against publishing expenses on-line, fixed term Parliaments and PR: "up here in Scotland we've got all that already; if it's good enough for us, why not Westminster?" Things must be worse then we thought when the, thoroughly pompous, Salmond starts sounding sensible.

* On a lighter note. Brussels bureaucrats in the late 70s, were often puzzled why the British diplomats were forever referring to King John XV. Eventually they realised 'Roi Jean Quinze' was in fact the President of the European Commission, Roy Jenkins.

Enduring Images

The sight of David Cameron's former PPS Andrew MacKay's sweaty, panicked, fake-tanned face, as he unsuccessfully claimed constituents' support, is another memorable image from the expenses scandal. Having emerged from a sultry, bad-tempered public meeting on Friday evening, MacKay tried to brazen it out by telling huge porkies before the very people who had witnessed his vilification. The British, once roused, are not so easily cowed. They turned on him and eloquently killed his political career. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8064642.stm

Cameron has 'wacked' several senior figures of the party over the last few days in a ruthless but necessary display of his political leadership. The pattern emerging is more widespread abuse and more ridiculous claims by Conservative members than Labour. The public are not finding it hard to find symbols of greed which typify the MPs' sense of invulnerability and aloofness: first, dog food, then moat cleaning and now an island for ducks.

Cameron knows each laughable yet still outrageous example threatens to re-toxify the party's 'green and socially responsible' brand. But a major cull would only confirm the old suspicions of a party dominated by Tory toffs living in another world by different rules. It's a tightrope moment for Dave.

Antony Steen's (Totnes) interview on World at One must have made Cameron erupt. Although, his deputy, William Hague made a penitent performance on Question Time saying, "we get it now," Steen ripped off this veneer by declaring his behaviour (expenses on the forestry on his estate) as "impeccable". He also broke the No.1 rule in politics - never insult your electorate. By reducing the public's motivation as purely driven by "jealousy", he signed his own political death warrant. He's not deselected yet but he has no hope of being an MP beyond next year.

Cams has proven to be more adept than Brown or Clegg at getting positive messages out throughout this Parliamentary cataclysm. He could seize the initiative again by throwing his weight behind big reforms like fixed-term Parliaments and a more elected second chamber. But more grandees' unapolagetic largesse at our expense threatens to curtail all the gains he has made with the public. And we've got a long memory down our way.

Now Hang on a Minute

There is worrying news filtering through the media today - Esther Rantzen is intending to stand as a Parliamentary candidate; this is perhaps the most disturbing development yet in the entire MPs expenses calamity.

Lynn Faulds-Wood of BBC's 'Wotch-Daaawg' has threatened similar intervention for the sake of the nation. Neither of them would seem, at first sight, to have the required patience for a 70-hour plus weekly workload, dealing with constituents' thoroughly mundane problems.

The obvious danger of a backlash against 'professional politicians' is adopting a US style admiration for candidates 'untainted by experience.' Looking on the bright side, Rantzen has said she wishes only to stand against Margaret 'dry-rot' Moran at the next election. The constituents of Luton South and the wider world need not fear the prospect of Esther's debut performance on the green benches just yet; Ms Moran is political toast. Mags's deselection is as imminent as another clutch of revelations of crimes and misdemenours by MPs in Aunty Telegraph.

Judging by today's 'scoops' the utterly knackered DT hacks seem to be running out of big front pagers. The stories on Bill Wiggin and James Purnell don't appear very robust. Many commentators have been journalistically blitzed by these abuses of power and have found it hard to respond with a strong coherent message for change. Even the Observer's formidable Andrew Rawnsley has struggled to narrow his aim with his usual eloquence, given so many targets worthy of scorn.

But the Guardian's Commentisfree editors made a worthy effort today to delineate the scope of issues needing radical reform if we, as a country, are to embrace a 'New Politics'. They have recruited an army of columnists, each assigned a huge subject such as PR, an elected second chamber or the small matter of a written constitution.

This is the arena where the public should derive a more workable and representative democracy from this chaos. Presenters of TV magazine programmes may be genuinely incensed by this scandal but restoring public trust in Parliamentary is a more complex process than exposing errant double-glazing salesmen.

Speak to Me

The only way MPs may address the chair of the Commons directly is through a POO or a Point of Order. Yesterday afternoon the chamber was knee-deep in POOs, Michael Martin must have been able to smell his moment in history, as the first deposed Speaker in 300 years.

Speaker Martin had lost his touch, such as it was and found himself making the speech he should have made last week including words of profound regret addressed to the whole country. He called Douglas 'Khazi' Carswell, the member who looks like a spitting image puppet and who had campaigned against the Speaker's tenure for some months. They argued on the technical point of whether his no confidence motion was substantive, requiring debate or merely an Early Day Motion which is simply a list of names supporting any subject under the sun.

Speaker Martin had to refer to the Clerk for clarification. He looked like an amateur, ill-prepared and bumbling. Disgruntled members now felt confident enough to heckle Martin like he was a dissolute magician whose every trick ending in confused failure.

David Winnick, with his unkempt white hair resembled a retired Hogwarts Professor, he repeatedly addressed Speaker as 'Sir' as he put the knife in. The actorial Richard Shepherd rose looking like a skeleton in a suit and was a lot more direct with his advice to the Speaker to depart forthwith.

Sir Patrick 'Paddy' Cormack made a slightly obscure reference to the Norway Debate which heralded the end of Chamberlain in 1940. In effect, it was an echo of an echo of Cromwell, "in the name of God, Go!"

So he took the hint and resigned today. There has already been a suggestion of Ann Widdecombe as an interim. There could not be a worse candidate in the whole House. It is time they gave it to a Lib-Dem so Minging Campbell would be the choice (please not Alan Beith). If it is Tory I would bet on Deputy Speaker Michael Lord. The job needs a huge amount of knowledge on procedure so often goes to a Deputy. Whoever it is I doubt we will miss much the plaintive Glaswegian call for 'Order' from soon to be plain old Mr Martin.

Ps and Qs at PQs

So farewell then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. She held her final Departmental questions yesterday before facing the inevitable boot down to Work and Pensions or Communities next month.

It was a strangely muted and rather empty session of HO questions, rather like an end of season match between two mid-division teams. No-one could get much of a steam up as the major event, the Speaker's statement, was to follow immediately after.

John Gummer, looking more and more like his own ghost, asked Home Sec why our signs at the borders were the "rudest" he had ever seen. Apparently immigration officials have seen fit to remove 'please' and 'thank you' from notices for those entering the country, obviously in line with our 'no-nonsense-tough-talking-approach' to keeping the buggers out.

Jacqui said, without irony, "the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point," and then went on to justify, in purely emotional terms, the decision to ban US 'shock jock' Michael Savage from UK.

The apt named Mr Savage incidentally has never expressed any desire to travel to the UK; to ban him from the country is like a spoilt girl at school, running round the playground, telling kids she doesn't know, they're not invited to her party.

John Stewart's Daily Show dealt with this official idiocy last week. Gets a bit silly.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=226609&title=Battle-of-the-Banned

At times Jacqui seemed to be affecting a 'posh' accent, surely not preparing herself for elevation to the Lords? No, it was her trying out a new idiom.

She was never going to be much of a Home Secretary. Her decision to wear all black, today, was particularly apposite.

My Brother Died

The long line of excuses from MPs for items claimed on expenses has been extra-ordinary and sickening in equal measure. It's as if they're now trying to convince themselves because the public, not even a small proportion, is buying it.
'Lemsip' Opik, Lib-Dem spokesperson for Astronomy and Meteors, reached new depths of moral degradation yesterday. A well-known self-publicist and ego-maniac, Lemsip admitted the £40 tax summons he submitted as an expense was "probably" not allowed and then went as far as describing this outrage as "provisionally a mistake". But when asked by the Beeb why he had felt justified in submitting it in the first place he sighed, "my brother died...suddenly...I took my eye off the ball".

What? What? It was six months later. Opik really did use his bereavement for submitting this expense. Watch this great Zepellin of arrogance for yourself.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/8047205.stm

Justice Minister, Shahid Malik was making a pretty robust defence of his actions this morning describing himself as," relaxed, content." He had been renting a house way below market rates and claimed up to the max on his 2nd home, filling it with other luxuries such as a £2,500 plasma TV. But two hours later he was told he should step down.

Neither Malik nor Elliott Morley were sacked by Brown and he continues to show precious little leadership allowing the Telegraph to dictate the entire agenda. Let us not forget Morely claiming £16K for a non-existent mortgage was prima facie fraud, worth at least two years in jug.

Brown's pitifully lame decision to delegate the review of claims to Member's Allowances Committee did not attract the contempt it deserved. First it will only assess whether the rules have been breached in invididual cases - hardly the point, John Maples was within the rules by claiming his Gentleman's Club as his main residence. Secondly the Chair of the Committee is Don Touhig who not only 'flipped' his house but organised backbenchers to vote against reform last July. It's like appointing Peter Doherty as the new Drug Czar.

MPs got a flavour of the nation's opprobrium on Question Time last night when the usually restrained British public began the serial booing of MPs. The Euro and local elections on 4 June will be historic, no-one has a clue what will happen but Labour should expect annihilation, Tories may fare a little better. When they see the numbers in black and white then they may just stir from this ethereal sense of superiority.

For Foulke's Sake

Baron 'George' Foulkes of Cumnock took to the airwaves and TV studios today to mount some vague and bitter defence of his old pal Speaker Martin and launch a pointless counter attack on the media over the expenses farrago.
It was probably his own idea; Foulkes captures the grubby, back-biting side of politics which the Government would not have chosen to have representing them at this difficult time. He began by berating Norman Baker MP on Radio 4 as if the general promise to 'fix the system' was sufficient to suppress all dissent.
His performance on BBC 24 a few minutes later, should have had No.10 comms unit on his mobile (if he has one) telling Foulkes to cease this media charade forthwith. When BBC newscaster, Carrie Gracie asked if MPs should pay some money back, all he could do was to turn his spiteful anger on her in a wholly 'ad feminam' manner'.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8045414.stm

Foulkes, still an MSP, has become a figure of fun north of the border. When a blogger started putting obviously spoof entries up about him, his reaction was to report the matter to the police. Not sure if the Constabulary in Ayrshire has a Blog Squad just yet.

Foulkes's manner is irksome at the best of times but his timing is atrocious. We are not pulling out of the worst of this scandal-of-scandals yet. If anything today's revelations are the worst so far. From the long list of staggering claims; Douglas Hogg had his moat cleared; James Arbuthnot had his swimming pool cleaned; Michael Spicer was paid for a chandelier to be installed, his claim for a Christmas tree was turned down.

But it's not all Conservatives. One exchange of correspodence with the Fees Office demonstrates the mental straight-jacket MPs got into over their entitlements. Labour's Tom Harris had £140 claim for baby equipment correctly refused, he responded testily, "perhaps you might be good enough to write to me explaining where my son should sleep next time he visits me in London." It obviously never entered his head that he might shell out the dosh for his son himself.

We are now at Day 5 and it is pretty gruelling at times just taking it all in. So far the focus has been on 50-60 frontbenchers and grandees. There are hundreds more excrutiating details to come from bankbenchers of all parties. Apologies have been forthcoming at least but no promise to pay anything significant back. All it would take would be one big act of remorse (millionaire Shaun Woodward's £100,000 mortgage payments would be a start) and the rest would be compelled to follow suit. So get on with it.

Role of Dishonour

Most MPs have now grasped the scale of the public's anger over their expense claims but I suspect the political storm still can still bring plenty of mayhem yet. The widespread nature of the avarice has perversely provided the guilty with a small degree of collective cover nationally but locally there is no hiding place. Even my timid local press felt emboldened to hammer John Gummer for the £9,090 he claimed for clearing moles and other critters from his Suffolk estate.

The lowlights over the weekend have included Luton South MP Margaret Moran claiming her second-home as a property in Southampton. Her defence that the house was necessary to "sustain her work" was not even substantial enough to describe as paper-thin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5305166/Margaret-Moran-claims-were-necessary-MPs-expenses.html

One of the biggest jaw-droppers came from massively wealthy Barbara Follett - not the £25k spent on security outside her Soho townhouse, but the £900 spent on insurance for her fine art paintings. Let's not forget Tory James Gray who claimed for a Remembrance Day wreath. Real classy, Jim.

Speaker Martin had the opportunity today to remind all Members of their duties to the public, to restore the integrity of the House etc. But instead he lost his temper with Norman Baker (pictured, pulling an honest pint) and Kate Hoey for suggesting that dragging the Met into Parliament again was bound to be waste of everyone's time. Martin's words to Baker who had actually raised a different point, "another member who is keen to say to the press what the press wants to hear" was particularly ill-judged. The Lib-Dems appear to be the only party who have displayed some degree of discipline over its members' expenses by ensuring their outer London members claim no second homes. Baker himself has led a lonely fight against the covetous and grasping MPs for some years.

In July, he spoke in favour of the comprehensive checking of members' expense claims, "to put audits on the same basis as other public bodies." Of course, the vote for strengthening controls was lost. Sir Patrick 'Curly' Cormack (Stafford) wanted at the time for the record to show, "the behaviour of the vast majority of members has been entirely proper". Oh, who could doubt it, Pat?

Don Touhig (Islwyn) asserted wildly such audits would cost, "millions of pounds" and would be a "waste of public money." He must be feeling a right Charlie now.

Naturally the party in power will suffer the most in public support from this catastrophic loss of trust in Parliament. The first opinion poll in MoS put Labour on 23%, their lowest ever poll in the history of polling. Even Michael 'Donkey Jacket' Foot scraped 29% in the 1983 election.

Phil 'Canute' Woolas was also singled out by Auntie Telegraph following his cack-handedness over the Gurkhas. His expense claim for nappies, kids comics and horrible wine was more pathetic than serial offending. However, unable to gauge the political temperature, as usual, he blamed the newspaper, calling the article "disgusting" and "actionable" based on information which was "stolen property".

Woolas exemplifies where Labour are now; impervious, defiant, arrogant, doomed.

House of Shame

When today's duty Press Officers entered No.10 for the first time, they probably did not envisage a day when he would be defending the PM over a plumbing invoice. The Daily Telegraph's first tranche of revelations over MPs claims for expenses was one of those truly jaw-dropping moments in politics. Journalistically they were, contrary to the protestations of Lord Mandy, entirely justified in focussing on members of Cabinet first. After all they are, at least in theory, in power and able to initiate reform. But they didn't.

Instead they got thoroughly stuck in. Hazel 'Gracie' Blears (pictured) popped up from behind her hedge in Salford this morning and said, with contrived candour, "I live here... and I have only ever had a small one-bedroomed flat in London". Then she bustled off without having the courage to answer any questions. The Telegraph's assertion that Blears had switched the designated second-home status back and forward from London to Manchester to claim a bomb in expenses rather shattered her image as an innocent, sentimental Lancashire lass. Her hard-pressed constituents are unlikely to swallow such patently, self-serving drivel.

The manifold reports, filling ten pages of broadsheet, exposed widespread yet not universal exploitation of the expenses system. Hillary Benn claimed about a piffling £140 of the maximum £24,000 second-homes allowance despite having a constituency in Leeds; his attitude only serves to highlight the unsated greed of his Cabinet colleagues. Benn must be under the impression a salary of £141,000 is quite adequate. Ed Milliband and Alan Johnson look equally monastic, certainly compared to NI Secretary Shaun Woodward. He claimed £100,000 in mortgage payments on his second home, hoping we would not recall the detail that he owns seven houses. Christ on a bike!

Brown gave the Beeb a 30-second interview and between several sickly grins, admitted the system was broke. His claims of over £6,500 for additional cleaning paid through his brother revealed a degree of nepotism together with hints of a disturbing obsession with hygiene. He's in it as deep as the rest and to blame the system is like a bunch of football hooligans decrying the glorification of violence.

They are all holding their breath for 24 hours as the focus will imminently fall on the Tories. In the meantime they simply repeat the mantra that all their claims are within the rules. Those same rules expect claims to be "beyond reproach" and demonstrate value for money. So much for that.

This is not even the end of the beginning. All we can be certain of is the public's anger will outlast their political careers.

Sorry Miss. Won't Do it Again.

There have been several entries in this blog over previous months about the pernicious treatment of the Gurkhas by UK Border Agency. I fear without Joanna Lumley's extraordinary media campaign, the issue would still be languishing at the bottom of page nine in most broadsheets. Although, the Opposition won the vote last week, it was in no way binding and these matters invariably slide inexorably back to the previous policy. Officials and Ministers know the might of Departmental inertia is very hard to overcome twice.
So Ms Lumley deserves immense praise for her tenacity in pushing PM into a corner on Wednesday then ambushing and de-bagging the hapless Immigration Minister, Phil Woolas yesterday. His sullen nodding to her every demand reduced Woolas to a schoolboy sobbing before an imperious and unforgiving school Ma'am.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8037181.stm

The Governmnent is now unable to offer Gurkhas anything less than full settlement rights without resuming the "cartwheel of emotion" as JL put it. Brown used Woolas's massively inflated figures of £1.6Bn settlement costs at PMQs last week to justify the block on Gurkhas moving to the UK. The total was based on the assumption all 36,000 Gurkhas plus at least three members of their family would re-settle here. Many are very elderly and too frail to start a new life. All would struggle to find the (non-refundable) cost of £585 for processing an application for residency plus air fares out of £150 a month pension.

David Blunkett warned Ministers had lost their political antennae on this issue thinking illiberal and tough-sounding immigration policies were always popular. But even the dim-witted Woolas should have realised it was time to reverse a policy which put a Labour Government to the right politically of the Mail and Telegraph.

Cracking Under the Strain

President Obama has made a bold and impressive start to his tenure in the White House. He has had to address some glaring national and international injustices and imbalances - many economic, several strategic and a few simply moral. The last of these has centred most recently on the release of legal memos from 2002 which the Bush Administration used to permit the CIA and military to carry out 'advanced interrogation techniques' - that's Orwellian code for torture. (Incidentally the FBI instantly recognised what these brutal tactics amounted to and refused to follow them).

The lead figures in the Republican Party had the opportunity to disown this dispreputable and criminal episode. But Rove, Cheney (left) and Limbaugh have not only justified the techniques as 'effective' they often also deny, contrary to all evidence, they amount to torture at all. The memos themselves acknowledge the general style of interrogation sanctioned derives from Chinese techniques used during the Korean War which at time Eisenhower and Nixon called 'brainwashing.' During 1945-7 the US authorities prosecuted and imprisoned several Japanese commanders for allowing these exact methods of torture.

The Al-Quaida terrorist, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was given waterboarding 183 times in a month, so on average six times daily. The reason given for such intensive 'questioning' was the failure of these 'operatives' to admit the (blindingly false) link between Al-Quaida and Sadam Hussein.

Former Judge Advocate General Wallach said, "waterboarding is often described as 'simulated drowning'... it is usually real drowning simulating death". Here Vanity Fair, journalist Christopher Hitchens, gets a taste for what it feels like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LPubUCJv58&feature=fvst

Dick 'Lon' Cheney has been wandering the TV studios to declare the release of the memos can only be understood in two ways. First, the Obama administration believes the torture methods were ineffective; naturally he can show that's not the case. Alternatively, he says Obama and Clinton must believe the US is no longer be under threat, which makes them naive, stupid or perhaps sympathetic to the enemy's cause.

There is of course a third possiblity which is that Obama knows torture is morally wrong, is contrary to International Conventions and amounts to a serious criminal offence. Some of it, like in Abu Gharaib prison, wasn't even used for interrogation and can only be seen as an example of "recreational sadism" as Hitchens himself puts it.

Many of the right's commentators, like Fox News, have tried to take the traditional political opposition against anything advocated by those pinko liberals, but for some it is become a tense internal battle. These guys are invariably proud patriots and at times can't stop themselves revealing how dismayed they are about this obvious moral degradation of American values.

Sheperd Smith has been a news anchor on Fox since the channel was launched in 1996. In the clip below (includes expletives) he can be seen at first wrestling mentally with the justification of torture - then his usual geniality suddenly breaks with spectacular results.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEtFMj6ZiHM&feature=related

Smith's colleague on Fox, Sean Hannity, has no such qualms and last week even volunteered to be waterboarded for charity, the money going to Army families. Those charities would be under huge pressure not to accept funds tainted by this shameful enterprise.

But clearly there is still plenty of room for breathtaking arrogance and crass insenstivity on the right even when the issue is torture. But for a few the moral principle is regaining prominence over the endless political gainsay.

Ooh, Shouldn't be Allowed

To the House of Commons to observe the Members' Allowances debate. Gordon Brown had initiated this event following his excrutiating venture into Youtubeland last week. If all things were equal, he would have been in the chamber himself. Yet, after the previous day's defeat over the Gurkhas right to settle in the UK, he must have thought, only more misery would coalesce around his presence.

So Harriet Harman opened, supported by her keen deputy Chris 'Underpants' Bryant. Opposing was the twinkle-toed and self-satisfied Alan 'Ewing' Duncan (left). Alan fancies himself as a bit of a gag-meister and impressionist and regularly makes a damn fool of himself on HIGNFY. (On last week's show, he said he would like to kill a particular homophobic campaigner - only he forgot to make a joke about it and Paul Merton just eyed him tensely). In the debate, Duncan looked under instruction to adopt a more dignified approach and so left his 1970s jokebook at home.

HH tried unsuccessfully to 'make progress' under a welter of interventions. The Government had set out a series of resolutions but before they could be debated effectively the House had to consider the amendment put down by the Standards and Privileges Committee. It is certainly very rare for an entire Committee to lay an amendment, but these are strange times. Essentially it said, ' it is this committee's role to continue its review into allowances: let us finish the job.'

Hattie then said, she was "minded to accept the amendment." In other words, complete capitulation. Brown's assertion, only eight day's before, there would be a flat rate attendance allowance, was stone dead.

But then a pall of confusion descended on the Opposition benches. Surely it meant all the resolutions and votes on receipts and staffing et al, were not needed now? Speaker Martin said no, even if it were inconsistent, the resolutions would stand for a vote. Duncan said gravely that, "we are entering the realm of lunacy...this is now a feverish shambles."

Brown's revised tactic was to be able to say at the end of the day's business, 'we have voted to make big changes'. So it went on. Most resolutions were quite straightforward; all receipts being recorded is unanswerable and could not cut across the Standards and Privileges Committee inquiry. But there were other more complex and strategic questions, such as whether all MPs' staff should be employed centrally by a new Commons HR Department. The issue involved about 2,500 staff, presumably their future administration would require determining common policies on pay, pensions, grading, terms and conditions. So much for the objective of saving money. They would also be expected to be 'politically neutral' like the Civil Service. No-one explained why.

Backbencher Meg Munn asked, so politely, what discussions had taken place with lawyers on the status of current contracts and the employees' rights. Lawyers, I am sure, would insist staff were at least consulted on the changes. Clearly that had not happened either.

The bearded David Heath, staked out the Lib-Dems objections. Heath, resembling a slightly batey gamesmaster, pointed out there was one matter which the whole house agreed needed reforming immediately - curtailing Ministers' ability to claim second home allowances when they were already provided with 'grace and favour' homes. Yet that point was not to be voted on; Brown decided the Ministerial Code should be amended accordingly - meaning the scope of the change remained in the PM's power.

Brown just couldn't get anything right. At present the PM is acting like a inebriated passenger, shouting directions at the driver as they hurtle unerringly into the darkness.