Will Parliament wake up?  

Yesterday saw the return of the government’s Constitutional Reform Bill. The government could not resist two more studied insults to the Parliament they have done so much to destroy. The first was another ridiculous guillotine or “timetable motion”. All previous governments have followed the convention that MPs should have as much time as it needs to debate constitutional Bills. Not this one. We were given just five hours to consider more than 50 pages of amendments and new clauses, many of them produced by the government itself. We protested, we pleaded. We pointed out that if the government wishes to be taken seriously in its new found role of believer in a strong Parliament the very least it should do is to allow sufficient time on major matters for criticism, debate and proposed improvements. We should have known better. Once again, the government...