Westminster

From time to time, pundits wail about the demise of our Parliament, its collapse in the face of an over-mighty executive. One might point, for example, for evidence, to the fact that the chattering classes - school teachers at my secondary school even - once used to read the extensive, daily reporting of parliamentary debates in their newspapers. And that the daily copies of Hansard - for both Lords and Commons - were once looked at, if not actually read, by quite junior civil servants; people like myself. Debates were important.

One response to which might be the abysmal performance of the House of Commons over Brexit. It eventually worked itself up into action, but was quite unable to agree on a way forward. With the result that we now have Baby Trump and his trumpeting of no deal, rather than the May deal which most of us - even remainers - would have settled for. For which bad result I think Corbyn must bear a lot of the responsibility.

Then on Wednesday, the Guardian reports that the House of Commons has seen fit to make Jeremy Hunt the chairman of the select committee for health and social care - one of those committees which still have some pull over the executive. The catch is that Hunt, while no doubt able and experienced, was on the bridge of the Health Department until quite recently and so has a serious conflict of interest. The sort of conflict of interest which means that the boss of the police complaints outfit is not allowed to have ever been a policeman, as noticed at reference 2.

In the good old days, even when the governing party had a big majority, our members of Parliament took their duties more seriously. Which did not mean just doing whatever the Prime Minister of the day happened to want.

PS: while yesterday, the Guardian was wailing about the possible demise of the North London Latin Market. I think all to do with developers wanting to redevelop a site, presently not paying enough rent. Very probably the place noticed at the beginning of the post at reference 1. A place with quite a big Bing footprint.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/2010/05/north-london-progress.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2020/02/huddersfield.html.

Reference 3: https://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/health-and-social-care-committee/.