Friday 12 December 2008

Parliament, Privileges & Principles

Whilst political commentators have made much of the lack of content in the Queen's Speech and pondered on the reason for this, the real reason seemed to have been ignored. As most of the policy areas on which Parliament used to legislate have now been passed to our real government in Brussels, it leaves our MPs with ever less to do.

In fact, after the Queen's Speech the matter which seemed to be of far more importance to our MPs was the Damien Green affair. Leaving aside for one moment the question whether the MP has committed any offense, all the MPs appeared to be concerned with was the perceived infringement by the police of their status.

On Monday last, the House of Commons debated the 'privileges of Parliament' which naturally included MP's own self-important belief of their position in our democracy. When discussing their 'privileges' and that of Parliament, they failed to consider the loss of their greatest privilege namely the right to make the laws of Britain, which has now with their consent, but not ours, been given away to the European Union?

Having mentioned the Damien Green affair, it is also worth remembering that members of the present Government are the same people, who when in Opposition, specialised in exploiting leaks about the Conservative governments of the 80s and 90s. The two main exponents of this were Gordon Brown and Peter Manelson, now Lord Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartelpool in the County of Durham (what queer - and I use the word deliberately - names the ennobled choose).

As Simon Heffer stated in his columns yesterday, in the Daily Telegraph, it would appear that both men have changed their tune since their time in opposition, as men without scruple or conventional morality are wont to do.

No comments: