Category: The Commons Weekly
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The Commons said farewell to Sir Keir at PMQs, but the Chamber had been dominated over the previous week by the completion of the “Hillsborough Law”, discussion of the Immigration & Asylum Bill, triggering of the Clacton by-election, reflections on the murder of Anne Widdecombe and exasperation with the haphazard conduct of the US-Iran War…
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The Commons seems to be spinning its wheels without direction or purpose. Impassioned speeches asking difficult questions are routinely ignored. Motions asking for urgent action are passed unanimously with no suggestion of any Governmental response. The Member for Makerfield has been absent from the benches, as has the Prime Minister. The train chugs on serenely…
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The House has already moved on – reflecting the mood in the country quite accurately. Sir Keir is done, the Member for Makerfield is most notable by his absence and his avoidance of questions. The House thunders on, but now, at a time where there are real and significant problems, the Commons feels that is…
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To say that there has been a sea-change in the environment in the Chamber is something of an understatement. The Labour benches are taken up with self-positioning for preferment under the Member for Makerfield’s likely new Ministry, while the Tories are obviously saving their most explosive ammunition for the time when the King of the…
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With the PM off on holiday at G7 in Évian-les-Bains, DPMQs featured a new Conservative challenger, Claire Coutinho (East Surrey,Conservative) Shadow EngNZSec, taking on the deeply unenthusiastic David Lammy (Tottenham, Labour) DepPM. Wednesday 17th June Resignations to right of them, resignations to left of them… (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson.) Mrs Coutinho, perhaps predictably…
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The Commons has a strange “end of term” feel about it. Strange because not even a month has passed since the King’s Speech marked the shiny new legislative ambitions of a new Parliamentary session and just 23 months in to a Government that was elected with a landslide 174-seat majority. But it definitely feels “over”,…
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Having got British History 1930-’97 under the belt, TWOP can turn back to the House of Commons after it returned from its Whitsun break on Monday. PMQs was strangely undramatic in the first week back because of the structural effect of Henry Nowak’s murder and the “two-tier policing” issue which the PM, LotO and even…
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Parliament returned to work with the ceremonial portrayal of calm and order of the State Opening and the King’s Speech floating, surreally, on top of the turbulent threat to Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership. An (over-)ambitious legislative programme then commenced the traditional five days of debate against a backdrop that provided further copious evidence of Sir…
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With the Clock of Prorogation ticking down to the End of Term and with no route to any effective form of Parliamentary challenge to the Prime Minister’s Reign of Avoidance, LoTO moved off the Mandelson Agenda for PMQs. Nevertheless, the Force of Evasion is strong with this one and, true to form, the Prime Minister…
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It was inevitable that Mrs Badenoch (North-West Essex, Conservative) LoTO would concentrate on the Mandelson Affair at PMQs. She did not disappoint. What transpired, however, was an astonishing demonstration of how isolated from reality the Prime Minister seems to have become: “Sir Olly Robbins… puts to bed all the allegations levelled at me by those opposite…
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Following Tuesday evening’s Edward Heath Lecture in Salisbury by very fed up Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, it was not astonishing that LoTO focused all six of her questions on Defence Spending. Mrs Badenoch rose at 12:03:05 and asked: Mr Speaker intervened in apparent embarrassment to cut off Sir Keir’s third avoidance of these successive…
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It was with the greatest difficulty that I persuaded the Editorial Board (in this massive global organisation of 1) not to make the pic of the PM with his head in his hands at PMQs the photo lead today. It’s an Open Goal Keir! Open Goal. No-one cares. Starmer II: the Caretaker Years has opened…
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The Prime Minister almost succeeded in breaking PMQs on 18th March. Backbencher Andrew Snowden (Fylde, Conservative) summed up the problem: “Every week the Prime Minister comes here and reads out this pre-scripted nonsense that bears no resemblance to the questions he is actually asked. The Leader of the Opposition asked him about Peter Mandelson and…
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PMQs really have become a farce. In other news, we have decided to present The Commons Weekly in reverse date order starting with the most recent news from the cockpit of brilliance and so usually starting with PMQs. At PMQs the Speaker briefly awoke from his slumbers to rebuke the PM for trying to reconfigure…
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Special education: In trying to set out the Government’s proposed changes to SEND policy Bridget Phillipson (Houghton & Sunderland South, Labour) Secretary of State for Education, outlined how a “new” £4bn will be spent on Individual Support Plans over the rest of this Parliament. SEND certainly needs radical reform, but these changes seem unlikely to…
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After last week’s ‘umble addressing and PM-skewering it was perhaps inevitable that the Chamber would be a little less frenetic as it ran down to the Half Term Recess on Thursday 12th February. Although the bulk of the political comedy continued outside the Chamber, there were some opportunities for further PM-baiting and Labour squirming. Jesse…
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What a consequential week it was! Winding down to the weekend (who works Fridays after all?) and with the PM kow-towing having bi-lats with President Xi in Peking Bejing, Pat McFadden made a statement to the House on Thursday 29th January setting out the government’s totally unsurprising decision not to pay the WASPI women compensation…
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The Commons Weekly… is going to be a new concise political briefing that breaks down the most important developments in the House of Commons each week. We hope that it will provide readers with an accessible overview of parliamentary debates, party tensions, leadership dynamics and key policy discussions. Each edition highlights the stories shaping Westminster,…