Dame Angela Eagle
MP for Wallasey · Labour · United Kingdom
“The Kremlin increasingly relies on proxy organisations to pursue its objectives, seeking to undermine our security while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. The so-called GRU Volunteer Corps is a clear example of that approach. It is not an independent force or a loose collection of volunteers.”
“This Government have introduced support for the Jewish communities who have been threatened and directly targeted by IRGC proxies. Just a couple of days ago, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced an extra £250 million for policing to ensure that we can support and protect our Jewish communities.”
“I will move on to the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right. The IMCR has publicly claimed seven attacks at UK locations linked to Jewish and Israeli communities and to Persian-language media, including the antisemitic arson attack on four Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green on 23 March.”
“We expect platforms to act responsibly and not to provide space for state threat-linked activity, propaganda or recruitment. We will be keeping a close eye on that, as well as liaising with social media companies to tell them about how this law impacts them.”
“The IRGC Quds Force and the IRGC Intelligence Organisation, together with the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, form the Iranian intelligence apparatus. As a key component of the Iranian state’s security apparatus, the IRGC is answerable directly to Iran’s Supreme Leader.”
“It provides a targeted and proportionate means of disrupting those involved in foreign power threat activity based on the recommendations of Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of state threat legislation. To answer the hon.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,924 lines we hold for Dame Angela Eagle, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 72 of 119.
“As the passport agency descended into chaos, the Government first tried denial, then played the blame game, and now have been forced into a series of emergency measures. The head of the agency denied that there was a backlog only on Monday; the Home Secretary was boasting that it was meeting its service targets on Tuesday; by Wednesday the Prime Minister was forced to admit that it has been trying to clear the backlog for weeks; and overnight we found out that Ministers were not even aware that vital security checks have been scaled back to speed up the process. Even if the Home Secretary was unaware, the Leader of the House acknowledged the problem last week and promised a written ministerial statement. Seven days later, we have not had one, and my colleague the right hon.”
“Can the Leader of the House tell us when the Government’s latest version of the recall Bill will actually be published? A report from the National Audit Office has revealed that the Government’s armed forces restructuring is in chaos. The plans are already six years behind schedule, and instead of making savings of nearly £11 billion, it looks like these changes are going to cost the public purse more. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has rightly described the additional cost as scandalous. The changes risk exposing a dangerous capability gap in the nation’s defences, so will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Defence Secretary so he can explain these failings in his Department?”
“I note from the Leader of the House’s comments that the Foreign Secretary is due to give us a statement on his conference on sexual violence, which is very welcome, on Monday, but we all watched in horror as militant extremists overran swathes of north-western and central Iraq yesterday, and they are now reported to be within 50 miles of Baghdad. Over half a million people have had to flee, and the country has been forced to declare a state of emergency. Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Foreign Secretary to keep the House fully informed as this deeply worrying situation develops? In future business there is an eerie silence on the recall Bill, and the Deputy Prime Minister managed, in true Lib Dem fashion, to disagree with his own draft Bill only last week.”
“I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business, and may I also take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) on her unopposed re-election as Chair of the Backbench Business Committee? She is doing such a good job that no one even thought she should be replaced. We could not say the same about many Government Ministers. I would also like to wish the England football team good luck in their first World cup game on Saturday. We are all convinced that they are going to have a great tournament and we will all be watching their every move, as usual, from behind the sofa.”
“Then we were treated to an excruciating show of enforced unity between the Deputy Prime Minister and the Business Secretary over a pint down the pub. I must say that they looked like they were enjoying each other’s company about as much as they were enjoying the beer. They were in a pub called No Hope and No Anchor. I have thought of a suitable pub for this Government, too: it is called Cock and Bull, serves only bitter and the British public cannot wait for last orders to be called.”
“Her Majesty might just as well have said, “Members of the Commons and Lords, my Government will switch between chillaxing and playing Fruit Ninja from now until the general election.” We are well used to this coalition fighting, but things have now got so bad that both parties are turning on themselves. The Education Secretary is openly disparaging the Home Secretary, and she is briefing against him. I know he is classically trained, but I think he should beware the ides of May. The Liberal Democrats have been as successful at organising a coup as they are at everything else. Lord Oakeshott has stormed off, denouncing his party for having “no roots, no principles and no values.” I think many of us would agree with that statement.”
“Yesterday we heard this Government’s last-gasp legislative programme before the general election, but they have been so busy briefing and counter-briefing over whether the Queen’s Speech is blue rinse or yellow round the edges that they have left the big strategic questions that our country faces completely unanswered. This was a programme that failed to rise to the challenge. Plastic bags were in, but the crisis in the NHS was not even mentioned. There was no mention of immigration, no action on energy prices and no sign of the promised restrictions on cigarette packaging. The programme outlined yesterday was so modest that even The Daily Telegraph could only call it “light touch”.”
“It appears that separate approaches are being pursued in two different Government Departments, while the Communities Secretary is nowhere to be seen. The briefing is poisonous and the Prime Minister is said to be furious. The Government should be protecting our young people from coming under the influence of extremist ideas. Instead, they appear to be preoccupied with conducting a proxy leadership battle in the Conservative party. Does the Leader of the House agree that this is too important to be treated in this contemptuous way? May we have a statement from the Prime Minister on which of his warring Cabinet Ministers is actually in charge of this vital issue that is crucial to our national security?”
“Following yesterday’s point of order by my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and your ruling, Mr Speaker, may I thank the Leader of the House for making generally available the No. 10 press briefing on the Gracious Speech? I see that he has just received his own briefing on this question. However, can he tell us why it took a point of order and your ruling for the Government to give to MPs what they had already freely given to the world’s media? Will the Leader of the House now confirm that he will make simultaneously available to this House any future press briefings, especially on the autumn statement and next year’s Budget? The front pages have been full of the unedifying war between the Home Secretary and the Education Secretary on the Government’s strategy to combat extremism.”
“Tomorrow we will remember the 70th anniversary of the Normandy landings, when 160,000 allied troops crossed the channel to liberate Europe. Thousands of men gave their lives to help free Europe from fascist tyranny. We must never forget their bravery and their achievement. I thank the Leader of the House for giving us next week’s business. Will he confirm that after the debate on the Queen’s Speech he plans to carry on much as he left off by leaving the Opposition and the Backbench Business Committee to provide half the business each week? There is a G7 meeting taking place in Brussels today at which the continuing crisis in Ukraine will be the main item on the agenda. Can the Leader of the House confirm that either the Prime Minister or the Foreign Secretary intends to come to this House on Monday with a statement?”
“I think they might be safer on the roof than they would be on the doorstep. What about those Liberal Democrat achievements? The Deputy Prime Minister promised to scrap tuition fees, but he trebled them. He promised he would not raise VAT, but he raised it. He promised fair taxes, but he gave tax breaks to millionaires while everyone else pays more. This week, scientists have discovered a new dinosaur with a very long nose, and they have named it Pinocchio rex. I think maybe they should just have called it Nick.”
“Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Health Secretary so that he can urgently clarify the status of the better care fund? There are now just two weeks to go until the local and European elections. The Conservative party has frantically been trying to paint the Leader of the Opposition as a mixture of Karl Marx and Hugo Chávez, the UK Independence party has been hiring eastern Europeans to deliver its anti-immigration leaflets, and the Deputy Prime Minister appears to have resorted to backing a report that calls for the legalisation of cannabis. I suppose mind-altering drugs are the only thing that might persuade people to vote for him. At his campaign launch on Monday, he was reduced to pleading with his activists to shout from the rooftops about Liberal Democrat achievements.”
“But when April 2014 arrived, fewer than 4,000 people were on a pale imitation of the proposed regime. In July 2007, the current Leader of the House said in a press release that there would be no top-down reorganisations of the NHS, but four years into this Government, what do we have? We have a disastrous and expensive top-down reorganisation of the NHS. This week, we have learned that the much trumpeted NHS better care fund has been delayed, after a Whitehall review declared that it would not work, would not help balance the budget and would not bring about the promised revolution in patient care. Is not the truth that the better care fund was a knee-jerk reaction to Labour’s policy on the integration of health and social care, and that the Government’s own legislation is standing in the way of proper integration?”
“To provide reassurance and transparency, will the Leader of the House tell us whether he supports the Institute for Government’s sensible calls for the publication of civil service engagement rules for this final year so that we can have both clarity and oversight of the Government’s behaviour? Does he also agree with the institute that: “The access that the two coalition parties will have to the civil service in the pre-election period strengthens the case for offering more extensive civil service support to the Opposition”? The Government’s habit of believing that policy delivery ends with sending out the press release just gets worse. In November 2011, the Department for Work and Pensions said: “Over one million people will be claiming Universal Credit by April 2014”.”
“Will he arrange for the Business Secretary to come to the House so that he can tell us exactly what the Government’s position now is on this crucial issue? Coalition chaos on AstraZeneca is just the tip of the iceberg according to a report published yesterday by the Institute for Government. It warns that the Government are in danger of seizing up altogether as the election approaches. Some of us think that they already have. There are now credible complaints that civil service impartiality is being compromised by the partisan and inappropriate demands for policy advice from warring coalition parties.”
“On Tuesday, the Business Secretary told the House that he will not “rule out intervention” on Pfizer’s attempted takeover of AstraZeneca, which may threaten UK jobs in the strategically important pharmaceutical sector, but the Prime Minister seems to be a cheerleader for it. At Prime Minister’s questions yesterday, he failed to tell the House whether he would work with the Opposition to deliver a public interest test. That would need only secondary legislation, so perhaps the Leader of the House could tell us now: will the Government work with us to introduce such a test quickly so that the UK can safeguard its strategic interests in this sector, which is so crucial both to our research and development and our science base?”
“I thank the Leader of the House for what looks to be the last business statement before the end of this Session. Will he confirm that the House now looks likely to prorogue more than a week before the recess date that he originally announced? The horrific kidnap of nearly 300 schoolgirls by a terrorist group in Nigeria has rightly been condemned by leaders across the international community. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement from the Foreign Secretary so that he can tell us what support the UK Government are offering to help locate and rescue these young women?”
“The commissioner is right to say that Patrick Mercer inflicted “significant reputational damage on the House and its Members.” In the light of these unambiguous findings, the Committee was right to recommend the sanctions it did. I also believe that the former Member for Newark was right to take the action he took last week when he resigned his seat forthwith.”
“The Committee’s report notes that it is “not aware of a case relating to a sitting MP which has involved such a sustained and pervasive breach of the House’s rules on registration, declaration and paid advocacy” and concludes that the second-longest suspension since 1947 was the correct sanction for such a grievous breach. It is right to have taken this strong position. The details of the case are shocking. Patrick Mercer failed to register his commercial agreement; failed to declare an interest when he tabled a series of parliamentary questions and an early-day motion; failed, more likely than not, to declare an interest to the all-party parliamentary group that he had established, as it turned out, for his own financial gain; and, most seriously, used his position as a Member of the House to further his own personal financial interests.”
“Let me add my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Kevin Barron) and to the other members of the Standards Committee for this detailed report and for their firm position on an appalling breach of clear and long-standing parliamentary rules. I support the motion before us, which says that the House “approves the Eleventh Report from the Committee on Standard…endorses the recommendation in paragraph 29; and notes that Patrick Mercer has been disqualified as a Member of this House.” Of course, it is now also the case that the former Member has resigned his seat and there will be a by-election in Newark on 5 June.”
“It is good to see the Leader of the House congenitally relaxing in the Chamber. Looking back at the record, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is only since the second world war that we decided to choose so few amendments to the Queen’s Speech. It was, in fact, a regular occurrence previously to see six or eight amendments—or even 13 in 1904. Why has he picked on four for today’s motion?”
“However, his amendment rather pre-empts the work that we should be asking the Procedure Committee to do on the way forward, so I am happy to support the motion unamended, but that does not mean I disagree with every aspect of what he says.”
“Last week, he seemed to be on a collision course with three House Committees about the appropriate way forward, in a reprise of his feat on the lobbying Act. He has thankfully backed off a little and agreed the compromise motion we have before us. It is certainly one solution to suggest that e-petitions are jointly run between Parliament and the Government, and I am encouraged at the prospect of members of the public having a greater clarity and a clearer path to influencing the Government as well as Parliament with their petitions. There is, though, also a strong case for handing the e-petitions system over to Parliament in its entirety. Indeed, that is the case made in the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen), who chairs the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee.”
“Understandably, it also raised false expectations among members of the public who organised petitions about what might be the effect of reaching 100,000 signatures for their proposition. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), who chairs the Backbench Business Committee, which has a role in trying to schedule some of these debates, has long had to cope with the anger and disappointment of those members of the public who felt that they were misled by what the Procedure Committee identified as the “failure, on the part of the Government, adequately to explain the process to petitioners.” So after two years of prevarication about how to improve the e-petitions system, we have now had a sudden late flurry of activity from the Leader of the House, and it seems to have taken some of our Select Committee colleagues by surprise.”
“In the 21st century, it is surely right to facilitate the use of digital access to Parliament and Government, and may I take this opportunity to congratulate the Government on introducing an e-petitions site on the No. 10 web pages, which has proved very popular? Indeed, some important issues have been debated in the House as a result of the new process—not least the Hillsborough disaster and the subsequent injustices faced by the victims’ families. The problem has been the misunderstandings that the Government’s e-petitions site has fostered among the public. As the Procedure Committee pointed out in its seventh report in the 2010 to 2012 Session, the way in which the Government established the e-petitions system caused a great deal of confusion in the public mind between the Executive and the legislature.”
“I will address each motion in turn, although it is a bit unfortunate that the Leader of the House has chosen to shoehorn all these quite disparate reports into one short debate, because it makes it hard for us to do justice to the detail in the time allowed. However, I shall do what I can to achieve that. If we are to make our proceedings more transparent, understandable and accessible to the general public, Parliament must always be open to making changes to its more arcane procedures. At a time when there is increasing alienation and disengagement from politics, it is crucial to foster positive engagement and make the case for reinvigorating a lively and vibrant democratic debate with the Commons at its centre. We should judge the motions before us against that aspiration. The first motion is on e-petitions.”
“Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) helpfully pointed out, it is in the interests of a healthy parliamentary democracy that MPs can speak on the Floor of the House without fear of being sued for libel by powerful interests which may be seeking to silence them—that is an example of how this principle is applied in practice. In many ways, I feel that the term “privilege” could almost have been invented to be misunderstood as meaning some kind of privilege for individuals—Members of this House—which puts them above the rights of others. We have that capacity to speak in this way only so that we can represent the interests of our constituents and those who voted to send us to this place. That is surely in the interests of robust democracy. The term “privilege” is often very misunderstood by people outside in a very unhelpful way.”
“Today’s motion implicitly accepts that and instead suggests a few minor but sensible clarifications of existing practice. The motion accepts the Joint Committee’s suggestion in paragraphs 226 and 227 of its report that any legislation which creates individual rights that might impinge on the activities of both Houses should, for the avoidance of doubt, expressly say so. That will reinforce official guidance issued by the Treasury Solicitor in 2002, which has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. It is certainly desirable that there is consistency across government about the way in which Bills are drafted when they may impinge on this issue, and the Opposition support this clarification. As the hon.”
“The Conservative party began this in opposition by promising a parliamentary privilege Act to make sure that MPs cannot “claim parliamentary privilege to evade justice”. That intention was repeated in the Conservative manifesto and in the subsequent coalition agreement. Since then, it has become clear from the outcome of court cases, especially the Chaytor judgment, that MPs cannot use parliamentary privilege to evade justice, and that the current Government were actually tilting at windmills when they were in opposition. Following the Government’s Green Paper on privilege and the work of the Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, which was published in June 2013, it has become clear that there is no need for a parliamentary privilege Act.”
“This Government came to office making some very grand promises about the “biggest shake-up” of British democracy since the Great Reform Act 1832, but the reality has been somewhat smaller in scope than that vainglorious ambition: we have had a failed attempt to reform the Lords, a massive and clearly partisan increase in the number of unelected peers, and a lobbying Act so bad it should actually have been described as a charter for lobbyists. Ranged against the massive failure of delivery, making welcome but small and slow progress on e-petitions seems a very small improvement, although a welcome one. That brings me on to the second motion, which concerns the outcome of the Government’s work on parliamentary privilege.”
“I am looking forward to my hon. Friend’s speech, in which I believe he will go into the detail of the work we all hope the Procedure Committee will be doing as it looks to the future. I hope it will be able to come up with recommendations that the whole House can agree on as to how to make the e-petitions system more robust, transparent and understandable to members of the public. I know that he will have important points to make about that. The Opposition look forward to working with the Procedure Committee as it drafts proposals for implementation at the start of the next Parliament. We must be careful not to see e-petitions as some kind of silver bullet that will help us to solve the crisis of political engagement in our country. Undoubtedly they have a part to play, but we have to keep things in perspective.”
“The hon. Gentleman, who served on the Committee on Standards, makes an extremely good point: the term “privilege” applies not only to Members of Parliament, but, much more appropriately, to proceedings of this Parliament. That is there to protect our democracy from being undermined by powerful forces which may have more finance at their disposal to try to intimidate those who wish to represent their constituents robustly.”
“I suspect that will not do, because of the history of how parliamentary privilege has developed. The Joint Committee did think about looking at a review of previous Acts of Parliament so that we could deal with this point and concluded that it would actually cause more trouble and anomalies than it would solve.”
“The hon. Gentleman is right. It is a knotty and a thorny issue. I suspect that we need a translation of the term, so that lay people who are not technically proficient in constitutional law can understand that it is a good thing rather than something that gives Members of Parliament, or others who may be giving evidence in the House, a significant advantage.”
“It was inserted into a Bill at the last minute during its House of Lords stages. The Bill then returned to the Commons, but our amendments were effectively talked out. We were able to debate the board’s abolition in the Chamber on an Opposition day, but by then the legislation had already been passed.”
“The third motion relates to a proposed trial of new arrangements for the tabling of amendments to Bills on Report. I welcome the suggested earlier deadline, and agree that it is important to ensure that we have enough time to draft a detailed supplementary programme motion that will enable us to debate all the groups of amendments. During the current Parliament, too much legislation has been passed without the House having had an adequate chance to debate it. The Government have also got into the habit of dropping controversial changes to their Bills into the legislative stages in the Lords, thereby avoiding effective scrutiny in the Commons. The abolition of the Agricultural Wages Board is perhaps the most egregious example of that wholly regrettable practice.”
“The Joint Committee suggested in its report that the Government should repeal section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996, which might more accurately have been named “the Hamilton amendment”. It was disgracefully inserted by the last Conservative Government to facilitate the issuing of a libel action in the “cash for questions” scandal by the then Conservative Member of Parliament, now UKIP fundraiser, Neil Hamilton, allowing him to waive privilege in order to sue The Guardian. The Joint Committee observed that that had created indefensible anomalies which should not be allowed to continue, and I agree. Perhaps, when he winds up the debate, the Deputy Leader of the House will confirm that the Government intend to repeal section 13 through the Deregulation Bill, which is due to be debated in the House on Wednesday.”
“I always worry about iconoclasm. There have been certain ages in our history when it has played an interesting role. Perhaps Members should embark on a tour immediately to explain to people out there how important these concepts are to the health of our democracy. I think we all agree on that, but we need to translate it into phrases that can be easily understood by those who do not have a degree in constitutional law. As I have said, we are more than happy to support the general view that the Government have now reached, after much work. They have sensibly declined to introduce a codification of parliamentary privilege, and have provided helpful clarifications. However, I have one further question to ask before I leave the issue of privilege.”
“There is always tension between the time that is allowed for a Bill to pass through its stages and the tactical game-playing in which Oppositions, Governments or large groups of Back Benchers—or, indeed, small groups—may engage in order to have a particular effect on a Bill. I think it important for us to try to ensure that groups of amendments have at least a reasonable chance of being debated.”
“I am not trying to suggest that the issue rests solely with the current Government. In fact, it has arisen because of the issue of timetabling itself. I am long enough in the tooth to have been in the House before there was any timetabling, although there were guillotines, which could not be applied until a Bill had been debated for three hours. That system had advantages and disadvantages. Programming also has advantages and disadvantages, but I think that, if we are to have it, we must try to ensure that games are not played, and it is not possible for swathes of Bills to be passed without debate because the end of the timetable has been reached.”
“This shows we have a Prime Minister who is more interested in managing his own unruly party than acting in Britain’s national interest, but it also demonstrates that his own Back Benchers are running scared of UKIP and do not believe a word he says on Europe. In the light of last year’s debacle, it is no wonder the Government are so keen to limit the number of Queen’s Speech amendments and it is ironic that the threat of mutiny on their Back Benches, supported by the Opposition, is what forced the Leader of the House to concede that he should now perhaps agree with the Procedure Committee’s figure of four, rather than his original number of three.”
“That extends by one the number to which the Government were originally determined to limit you, and it represents a welcome Government climbdown in the face of a likely defeat. We naturally support it, with good grace and, perhaps, a little snigger. I am sure that Members will recall last year’s Queen’s Speech, when nearly 100 Conservative Eurosceptic Back Benchers tabled an amendment to “respectfully regret” their own Government’s legislative programme, and 130 Members backed it in what was a humiliating blow to the Prime Minister’s authority. The amendment forced the Prime Minister to commit to legislating for a referendum in this Parliament on possible European Union treaty changes which have not yet even been talked about and which may or may not happen.”
“Perhaps the Deputy Leader of the House will tell us whether he would consider extending the trial and giving the Government a deadline perhaps a day before that given to other Members, so that opposition Members—be they small groups of Government Members, large groups of Government Members, or members of the Official Opposition—have a chance to respond to Government amendments in a sensible way. The final motion proposes changes to Standing Order No. 33, which relates to amendments to the Queen’s Speech. To date, Mr Speaker, you have had discretion to decide which amendments will be called in the debate following the Queen’s Speech, which sets out the Government’s legislative programme for the parliamentary Session. The amendment to the Standing Order proposes to change that by limiting the number of amendments that you may call to four.”
“The Opposition and other Members ought to be allowed to scrutinise Bills adequately as well, and it is with that balance that we are wrestling now. Another issue that I raised in a letter to the Chair of the Procedure Committee about the proposed trial is the importance of giving Opposition parties enough time to respond to Government amendments when they are tabled. I know the Government say that they try to table amendments a week before the deadline, but that happens too infrequently.”
“That is an important point. In this House, simply because the Government normally have a majority and because timetabling exists, there is the capacity for Bills pass through their stages fairly quickly. No such capacity exists in the other place, and the Government of the day are therefore tempted to try to get their Bills through this House as rapidly as possible and then fix them in the other House. That is a real problem when the other House is not democratic. I think that we must see what we can do to improve the capacity of this House to scrutinise legislation, albeit in the context of the generally accepted view that, in the British political system, the Government should be allowed to secure their legislation.”
“33 may once again come under the microscope. At least he has accepted the inevitable and changed his motion, and because of that we are more than happy to support him should there be a vote today.”
“I cannot recall the intricacies of what happened. The hon. Gentleman is always assiduous in these things, but I think there was somebody on the Labour Benches who objected at the same time. The hon. Gentleman has a very loud voice and has a lot more practice in objecting to these motions than almost anyone else in the House, which is why he probably got his objection in first. I accept that the Leader of the House has now backed down on this, and because he has, we are happy to accept the motion before us today, which will limit, for now, the number of amendments to four. I listened with interest to the earlier debate about how that might change and I welcome the Leader of the House’s admission that if the composition of the House were to change or the circumstances of a future Parliament were different, Standing Order No.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his final remark. What I was trying to say was that there is an issue with timetabling in general. I have been in the House at the time when we had no timetabling, apart from guillotining on specific Bills. That is certainly one way of working, but it leads to 80-hour working weeks. I have experienced them; I do not know whether he would like us to go back to that. Given that we have a timetabling structure now, we have to make certain that we can get away from some of the game-playing with timetabling that leaves large swathes of legislation not discussed in the Commons. As the Minister who took through two extremely important constitutional Bills at a rapid rate, perhaps he should get his own House in order.”
“The Chief Secretary to the Treasury recently declared that the Cornish were now a national minority; I think it is about time that he also declared that the Liberal Democrats are now a national joke.”
“With just three weeks to go until the local and European elections, the race is hotting up. The Prime Minister, on the campaign trail in Essex, could not tell his Chelmsfords from his Colchesters—which proves that with this Prime Minister it is not “The Only Way is Essex” but more like “Made in Chelsea”. Meanwhile, in their bunker, the Liberal Democrats are eagerly awaiting the verdict of the electorate. The number of candidates they are putting up is significantly down, the hon. Member for Taunton Deane (Mr Browne) has described his own party as “largely pointless”, and the Deputy Prime Minister must be fondly reminiscing about the days when everyone thought he was the man who was going to change British politics.”