Given the bizarre coalition of eco-warriors, NIMBY conservatives and students who form the bulk of the opposition to the expansion, it’s an odd pose for them to strike…

Still, serious kudos for actually doing it. The Tories are whinging that this illegal protest got much more coverage than their completely legal lobbying of MPs today. Are they really surprised? Theirs was a dull, dry affair of pleading with MPs who have probably already been converted. This was a daring move by a small team of activists against one of the toughest security complexes in London - and targetted at everyone.

Theirs was over an issue which the public are quite possibly sick to death of - and not even a particularly enthralling one. They’re not protesting against Europe. That might well gain much attention, if loud enough. They’re protesting against the government very possibly, if debatabley, going back on something it said in its manifesto. They’re quibbling over petty party points, not the real issue at stake - which is, of course, European integration.

This was over a deeply emotive issue which, the campaigners argue, could blight many people’s lives - and affect them in a physical way which people can picture.

In short, theirs was a dull affair of talking quietly with MPs inside over an issue so removed from the actual assue as to be buttock-acheingly dull. This was an emotive protest over an emotive issue, shouting out to everyone as loud as it gets.

It’s not a media conspiracy that the Referendum lobby didn’t get coverage. It’s their own fault for being so completely dusty. If they’d climbed Parliament and, say, stuck a massive Union Jack on the top, claiming that since Labour had sold out it was necessary, or some such, you could guarantee they’d get attention.

Actually, if they even began by campaigning against the Treaty rather than for a referendum, they’d probably get more attention.

So, are they really surprised?

Prime Minister’s Questions was a fairly forgettable half-hour today.  Nothing much was said.  Punches were thrown from all sides, but none of them stuck.  Clegg seemed to get a bit more ballsy, and, if memory serves me, Brown failed to wave him away with a cheap shot at the LibDems’ distinct lack of support.  Cameron tried too hard with the laughs, and the only decent gag was an impromptu wordplay.  Brown continued to refuse to answer questions, continued to go on about Tory policy.  Mercifully, we were spared mention of Norman Lamont.  Overall, everyone came away a loser today.

See what I did there?  I made a judgement about the most media-covered debate of the political week.  Many people do that each week: the BBC runs the Daily Politics for 90 minutes on a Wednesday, and gets high-level guests on, whereas many bloggers give instant reactions to the weekly Punch and Judy-fest.  I wonder if anyone reads just one of these reports and is misinformed by it.

Fraser Nelson, Spectator | It’s like it’s 1995 all over again. Brown is an attack machine, never happier than when he’s behind a machine gun firing off statistics into men wearing blue rosettes. That’s the position he now assumes at PMQs.

ConservativeHome | Emphatic victory for David Cameron.  He talked about the big issues of the week - Northern Rock and economic weakness. He made the Prime Minister look evasive because he failed to answer questions about taxpayer exposure.

Bob Piper | Six questions, peppered with pre-written ‘jokes’ including a piss-poor attempt to copy Cable’s Mr Bean quip with an Del Boy joke (that would please you if your savings or job was at risk) and none of them giving even a hint as to what the Tories would do if they were in office. that’s a clever strategy Dave. Take on a man who has been Chancellor for 10 years and what do you decide the challenge him on? The economy… stupid! Brown parried each question easily and smacked it back with venom.

James Kirkup, Telegraph | Very bad say for Nick Clegg. He too went on Northern Rock, but sounded underpowered compared to Mr Cameron.  And his suggestion that Labour is “running scared of the Conservatives” suggests he needs to shoot whoever writes his lines, and soon. Result: a win for Cameron, but only with help.

Each of these sources has their biases (I’ll refrain from using the very un-parliamentary “piss-poor” to describe them), and it is difficult to see who would listen to their opinions on the subject.  I can understand why ConservativeHome would consider today a good day for Cameron, but it wasn’t.  I know why the Spectator wants to compare Brown to Major, but things simply aren’t that bad yet.  James Kirkup is right on the money with his comments, I think, but while Clegg is shooting his inept scriptwriter he might want to pick off Bob Piper who seems to have watched a different spectacle to the one I did: Brown doesn’t do “venom”.

It is good and healthy for a range of opinions on the same event to be heard, but it is would be regrettable for anyone to be misled on the subject.  I hope people think twice before forming opinions from one or a combination of blogs or media sources.  I hope people aren’t influenced by unfounded victory calls.  Knee-jerk analysis is fun, but not informative.  Put simply, where the outcome of PMQs is so subjective, I hope nobody expects and objective view of proceedings.

There is, of course, the important question of whether PMQs is remotely important.  But I’ll save that for another time.

I have long argued the merits of William Hague.  He is a consistently brilliant performer in the House of Commons, able to make important points in an entertaining and engaging way.  He also manages to bat off opponents with fantastic one-liners that could sound nasty but seem nothing more than cheeky from his mouth.

Mr. Browne: In 18 years in government, the Conservatives never once had a referendum on Europe. The last time there was a referendum on the European Union I was in primary school, and some Members of the House were not even born. The leader of the Liberal Democrats favours a referendum on whether we are, or are not, in Europe. Why does not the Conservative party back that promise?

Mr. Hague: That is apparently the Liberal Democrats’ position, and they tried to put it in a reasoned amendment for tonight’s debate—but it turned out that it is so crashingly irrelevant to the issue that the amendment was not in order. They therefore have the distinction of having adopted a policy so irrelevant to the debate that they will at no stage have the opportunity to vote for it. Even those in primary school could have worked that one out.

It is in the longer, less interrupted sections that Hague shows off his real skill, however.  I make no apologies for copying the Hansard text for Monday’s opening to the Second Reading of the EU Reform Treaty Bill.  I have taken the liberty of not clogging the front page with it, though.

(more…)

I’m deeply sceptical about this first vote on the Lisbon Treaty. Here’s why:

This is an important vote for both sides of the debate.  They are thus likely to try and muster as many MPs as possible, and to whip them.

Labour has 352 MPs.  Of these, 18 are declared rebels, and will vote against the reform.  100 are said to be unhappy that there’s been no referendum.  However, most of these will probably also be unhappy with breaking the whip.  Even if this many do rebel, that’ll leave the government with some 220-230 votes, give or take several tens.

The majority of Tories are against the Treaty - both on the grounds that they, “want a referendum,”* and because they disapprove of the reform itself.  There are, at most, 194 of them.

The Lib Dems are abstaining en masse, calling for a debate on European membership itself instead.

There are 4 nationalist MPs who have signed the same amendment as the Labour rebels.  They will presumably vote against the Treaty.

As for the rest of the independents and minor parties, I’m not aware that any of them have declared a position.  Similarly, I’m not particularly sure their votes would amount to much significant anyway.

Viewed that way, the government should be able to pass this without too much trouble, even accepting a large Labour rebellion is possible.  The most that might change, I suspect, is that such a rebellion, if it happened, might make the government reconsider its position and derail the legislation somewhat.  But that seems unlikely too.

I don’t like parliament functioning this way, as it shouldn’t do - but I suspect it will.

*I maintain that, actually, they want to humiliate the government and indulge their eurosceptic egos rather than actually give the people a choice.

Recently, the MP for Harwich, Douglas Carswell, made an interesting proposal. Writing in a blog during a Commons debate in which he wasn’t able to speak, he called for a 3-minute time limit on speeches in parliament. This would be to cut waffling, encourage sponteneity and make debates more useful.

At first, it’s easy to sympathise. I’ve watched ordinary debates in the House of Commons. With a few, notable exceptions (PMQs, major bills and some ministerial questions), they are deathly dull. Imposing a time limit on speeches would make debates far more entertaining. At the very least, they might stop a few MPs from indulging in their usual (very poor) oratorical masturbation and ask some decent questions.

He also raises the entirely valid point that, because most debates are so duly pointless, very few MPs turn up to them. This means that, often, apparently minor legislation can pass through parliament without the scrutiny it perhaps deserves. Would the government have been able to introduce quite so many new, small, questionable offences if people had actually been paying attention? I do wonder.

However, Carswell’s proposals are deeply flawed. He describes his logic as such: “They have done it for cricket with the 20/20 rules. They should now do it for Parliament.” Much of his phrasing revolves around long speeches being bad because they’re boring for spectators in the galleries. In this, he misses one crucial matter…

Parliamentary debating isn’t a spectator sport.

Parliamentary debating is many things - most prominently the drafting of legislation. The public can watch from the galleries, and on television. But this is because the electorate has a right to know what its representatives are saying, not because it’s some form of sport. It should be full and useful before it’s gripping.

Of course, Carswell’s suggestion is meant to make debates more useful. His point that dull debating reduces the effectiveness of scrutiny but cutting down the number of questions asked is fair. But wouldn’t his proposals have the same effect? Instead of not asking enough questions because they’re not paying attention, MPs might not have enough time to ask enough questions in their 3 minutes. The debate could be just as impaired.

The issue undoubtedly needs attention. But reducing speeches to 3 minutes isn’t the way to do it. That’s just not enough time. A more generous limit, or multiple (spread out) speeches, I could perhaps support - or perhaps something at the Speaker’s discretion. Either that, or assigning all scrutiny of the details of a bill to committees (even more so than now) and reserving chamber debates for principle alone.

But I’m not sure that would work either.