Parliament

Tonight at midnight, something will change in Parliament. All the MPs who lost their seats in last week’s elections will have their passes cancelled, to be replaced by a pass giving them more limited access to the Parliamentary estate. They’ve been sneaking through Westminster over the past few days to clear out their offices and make their staff redundant. Some look eerily cheery as they do this. Others scuttle along, avoiding conversation. As the new intake of MPs look up excitedly at the ornate ceilings and take pictures of Big Ben on their phones, swelling a little with excitement and pride, the old MPs keep their eyes fixed firmly down on

Well, Labour has started on its own mission of framing the post-election legitimacy debate. Responding to the Tory operation to prepare the public for what might happen from 8 May onwards, Ed Miliband’s party is now claiming that David Cameron is determined to stay in Downing Street even if his coalition loses its majority. A senior Labour official has told the Guardian: ‘All the noise coming out of the mouths of David Cameron and Nick Clegg is about how they can cling on to power even if their coalition loses its majority.’ Labour needs to set up a narrative of a desperate David Cameron holed up in Downing Street, refusing

Next week will see the dissolution of Parliament and the official start of the election campaign. With some MPs destined never to return to the House of Commons, offices are shut down and the keys to the country are handed over to the civil service for six or so weeks. So from 00:01 on Monday 30 March, there are no Members of Parliament and consequently they have to give up the title ‘Member of Parliament’ or ‘MP’. Nothing can convey the impression they are MPs, causing a major headache for the hundreds of members who have the initials in their Twitter name. Techno savvy Tory whips have been forced to

Only a third of the public think Parliament is effective in holding government to account: two thirds want improvement of our democratic institutions. We struggle to get more than two in three adults to cast a vote at a general election. It is widely held that anti-politics is the prevailing mood of our times. With depressing regularity though, discussions involving politicians and the media focus not on how to improve our democracy, but rather on how we can better communicate the brilliance of our achievements to those too cynical or ill-informed to see them. My eighteen years in the Commons have led me to a different conclusion: I think Parliament is weak, ineffective and in need of

What’s wrong with our politics? Now that more and people are turning to ‘anti-politics’ parties, this question is becoming steadily more fashionable and urgent. It’s now even got its own BBC Three documentary (the ultimate sign that an issue is dead serious, natch), called An Idiot’s Guide to Politics, presented by Jolyon Rubinstein from the Revolution Will Be Televised. The idea behind the programme was that Rubinstein would examine why people, particularly young adults, are so disengaged from politics and don’t want to vote, and why politics is in such a mess. The picture Rubinstein presented was rather depressing for two reasons. The first was that politicians do break promises

Speculation has been rife that John Bercow’s decision to let cameras into the commons for a BBC documentary will backfire on him. Reports have claimed that the Speaker of the Commons is to be depicted in a negative light in the series, Inside the Commons. Given this, Bercow has so far got off remarkably lightly in the first two episodes. However, Mr S hears that this should all change by next week, with the documentary maker Michael Cockerell confirming that Bercow’s ‘rift’ with Sir Robert Rogers will be explored in depth. ‘You will have to watch the series, but you wouldn’t expect me as a journalist not to deal with a fascinating story that happened on our watch. We

Coming in from the pouring rain, I make my way to the office on the eighth floor of City Hall. With its curving windows, many books and bust of Pericles tucked away in a corner, it reminds me both of a classroom and the cockpit of a spacecraft. Its occupant is waiting for me, looking a little crumpled but less dishevelled than I had expected. He greets me very pleasantly but this is what I’m thinking. Here is the most famous person I have ever interviewed. In his own way, he is almost as iconic as the Queen or Churchill, the nodding dog in those insurance commercials. He is Boris,