We all know about irregular verbs from when we learned French at school – I debate sensibly, you argue pointless, he/she rants aggressively. In politics now we have We scrutinise legislation carefully, They filibuster; We protect the Primacy of the Commons, They Ride Roughshod Over The Constitution.
Photo credit - Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
So whilst Labour peers have spent the last couple of weeks filibustering^Wcarefully scrutinising (including asking searching questions about why the proposed number of MPs in the new Commons of 600 does not correspond to any product of prime numbers – that’s important for democracy, I’m sure you’ll agree), what is the difference between what they are doing now and what the Tory peers did during the debates on the fox-hunting ban legislation?
The government, irritated at the possibility that the Labour peers might actually talk the legislation out of time rather than back down at the last minute – as is traditional – is talking about introducing a guillotine, for the first time in Parliament’s history, much to the outrage of the Labour side. But again, what might the difference be between that and, from the same fox-hunting bill, the Labour government’s invoking of the Parliament Acts to achieve the exact same result?
And politicians wonder why the public continues in its spiral of disengagement with party politics; when party politics too often is reduced to petty politics.
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