Ed Vaizey

Don’t you just love parliamentary language?  He passed every one.

For the more prosaic, we were actually voting on whether Parliament should sit in September; whether MPs  should have a £10,000 communication budget; and whether notice of amendments to Bills should be extended from two days to three.

I voted against every motion.  September sittings is particularly contentious, as people feel MPs only work when Parliament is sitting.  This is simply not true.  These days, MPs work all year round, and September is a very valuable month when you can spend time in the constituency.  Of course, I can get to my constituency from London very easily.  BUt for MPs in the north, the month is very valuable, giving them an extended period for constituency work.  Of course, the newspapers won’t agree.

There are three reasons why I am reluctant to criticise the Speaker for his ruling today.  First, the Speaker is our referee, and I take a dim view of managers who criticise the ref, so I would do so only very reluctantly.  Secondly, for every “bad call” the ref makes against your team, he normally makes an equally “bad” call against the other side - and indeed, the Speaker has shut Blair up several times when he has gone on about Tory policy.  Finally, naked self-interest plays a part.  The Speaker controls who speaks, so if you irritate him you don’t get to speak.

Having said all that…As you may be aware, the Speaker ruled that David Cameron could not ask Tony Blair about who should succeed himm, as the leadership of the Labour party was an internal Labour party matter.  This may be technically true, but it is, in my view, wrong in spirit.  Unless there is a general election, whoever becomes leader of the Labour party next year becomes PM.  And waiting for the succession means that the Government is completely paralysed.  All Blair has to say is “Yes, I want Brown to succeed me”, in order for Government to begin to funtion again.  So, in my very humble view, David Cameron is right to ask the PM to tell us who he wants to be the next leader of the Labour party…