The Speaker’s decision to rule out an amendment which would have forced a vote on international aid cuts tells us a number of important things about the current situation in Westminster.
The first is of course that Lindsay Hoyle is not John Bercow, who was prepared to ride roughshod over the advice of the clerks and convention in order to manufacture certain political confrontations and drama. Indeed, the Speaker today very pointedly opened his statement on the amendment by saying ‘I respect and trust the advice from clerks in this House’. Hoyle made clear when he campaigned to be Speaker that he wanted to stop some of the games that Bercow had been playing, and that parliament deserved more respect.
That is why it is not correct in any way to see his ruling today as being helpful to the government.
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