There was an absolute furore last week over violence of our political discourse.
I can quite understand why this is upsetting, after all, I’ve been at the receiving end of a considerable measure of it.
Frankly, I think it has always been there, but the absence of technology restricted its circulation to bores banging on about politics in a pub or canteen, and unable to express themselves without profanities. Now however, they can get onto Facebook, Twitter or whatever, and broadcast bile to ever wider audiences.

In addition, as I have observed before, many people will say things whilst typing away at their laptop or mobile telephone, that they would never have dreamed of putting on paper and sending in a letter. Rather in the same way that motorists will shout at other drivers in the privacy of their own car, using language that they would be most unlikely to use in public.

I have definitely seen the temperature rising over the last year. There is at the root an anger and frustration at the apparent unwillingness of elected politicians to implement the result of the referendum. Parliament was explicit when it passed the legislation for a referendum in 2016: it clearly stated that the future of our membership of the EU, in or out, would be decided by the voters themselves, and that Parliament would implement their decision, whichever way it went.
Since when we have seen political parties renege from that commitment, some openly and honestly, others by a pretence.
The anger and frustration that this has caused is as understandable as the stridency and volume of protests, and even the threats, have become worrying.

I am not persuaded that, as is alleged, it is the language used by politicians themselves that has set the nation alight and corroded the public discourse. We have always enjoyed robust political language in our debates. Prime Minister’s question time has, for as long as I have been in Parliament, been a popular spectacle, in a way that proceedings in foreign assemblies rarely match.
I note that those who complained loudest about the PM’s use of language last week, were themselves amongst the worst habitual offenders.

Argument focussed on the term ‘surrender act’ as the PM’s chosen description of the European Union Number 2 Act 2019. The reason he calls it a surrender act is because it requires him to ask for a further extension of our EU membership and to accept whatever terms the EU demands in return for that extension. ‘Surrender’ is the best description, and the reason the opposition is so angry about the language is because they know how effective it is.

Those who want to prevent BREXIT have spotted that Boris is the last obstacle standing in their way, so absolutely everything is to be thrown at him. I fear that the temperature of political discourse has further to climb.

The Supreme Court was only created in 2009. For centuries we managed without one. I do not claim to be an objective observer: I believe that the enterprise was misconceived, particularly when it comes to political questions.

The USA needs a supreme court because it has a legal, written constitution. This includes a defined separation of powers between the executive branch (the President) and the legislature (the Congress).

The UK however, has a completely different settlement. Our constitution is predominantly political and the executive (government ministers) themselves are members of Parliament just like any other member of the legislature. The executive and legislature don’t enjoy separate electoral mandates, and their functions are all mixed-up together.

The Supreme court is guilty of grabbing power that has hitherto been reserved to Parliament: the power to deliberate over what happens in Parliament. In doing so, it breaches a much older piece of constitutional legislation, the Bill of Rights 1689, which denies any court the right to question proceedings in Parliament.
The new principle that the Court has established is that it has the power to determine whether a prorogation is lawful, on the basis of judging it on a test of reasonableness. That test will include the length of the prorogation, the ‘temperature’ of the political climate (how pressing the great issues of the day are), and the legislation that would be lost if Parliament is prorogued.
All of these are ‘proceedings in Parliament’.

The court has intruded into our elected Parliament’s business.
Parliament had notice that the Government intended to prorogue it. It was open to the Commons, assisted by Mr Speaker, to debate motions against prorogation, or to stop it dead by carrying a motion of no confidence.
It chose to do neither.

The Court’s intrusion is indeed a coup against the proper role of Parliament.
The President of the Court, Lady Hale, insists that the ruling has nothing to do with BREXIT, which is a measure of her naiveite. It is all about BREXIT. Their own judgement finds that, despite what the PM said about a new Queen’s Speech, he really sought to avoid scrutiny -over BREXIT.

The Court has stepped right into our greatest political row for decades: Parliament’s unwillingness to allow the Government to deliver BREXIT in accordance with the decision of the referendum.
In vain the 11 justices insist that theirs is a legal and not a political judgement, but they have intruded into the greatest political issue of our time.
They are guilty as charged.

Apparently, I have received an offer from the BREXIT Party. I have had no direct contact, I only know about it because a journalist asked me for my reaction.
The substance of the offer, as I understand it, is that if I pledge only to support and vote for a no-deal Brexit, then I will not be opposed by a BREXIT Party candidate at the next election.
Sorry, but no-deal.
Apart from my labour in their interests, the principal thing that I owe to my constituents is my judgement. I need to exercise that judgement in circumstances that develop unpredictably and I mustn’t be fettered by entering into a commitment to a particular lobby.
I support Boris in his determination to leave the EU at the end of October whether we can get an acceptable deal or not (It isn’t clear to me however, how this can be achieved given the law passed by our REMAINER Parliament earlier this month which binds our PM to seek a further extension of EU membership).

To those who are opposed in principle to any deal, and demand my commitment to that end, I remind them that it is my job to represent all my constituents and not just them.
They tell me that in the referendum that they didn’t vote for a deal, they just voted to leave.
Well, only they know exactly what they voted for. 57% of my constituents voted to leave, but I suspect that most of them did so in the expectation of some sort of deal with the EU. At one point during the referendum even Nigel Farage was touting a deal along the lines of that enjoyed by Norway.

Notwithstanding the very serious drawbacks with Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement that I detailed in this column, I stand by my decision to vote for it and to leave the EU on 29th March. It would have been better had we done so, rather than to have had to endure the current uncertainty about ever achieving BREXIT at all.

I suspect that Justin Trudeau’s cringing apology for blacking himself  ‘blinded by his own white privilege’ has done him rather more harm than the original offence.
It was a themed ‘Arabian Nights’ fancy-dress party for heaven’s sake!
It comes to something when you can’t dress-up as Aladdin without attracting the opprobrium of the ‘great and good’. He would have done better to have said it was an entirely acceptable bit of fun and refused to apologise.
I once went to a ‘Blues Brothers’ themed fancy-dress party as James Brown. I went to some trouble to be as authentic as possible. I can assure readers of this column that I have no intention of apologising.
Constituents often write to me having been infuriated by some latest absurdity of political correctness. I tell them that the best response is simply to laugh at it.
Here’s one to amuse them: last week academics attended a conference at Roehampton University entitled “Thinking beyond Transversal Transfeminisms” and wearing badges informing each other if they were happy to chat, or prefer not to be spoken to at all.
Barking -or what?

Notwithstanding the rather crass and misjudged statement in this blog that I had no intention of apologising, nevertheless I did do so when contacted by the media. I make it clear that I am sorry for any offence that I gave, none was intended.

More recently I received two letters from constituents with ethnic minority backgrounds, setting out in moving testimony why they had been offended by the blog and giving insight from their own experience.
This prompted me to read Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge, and I am accordingly resolved to be much more sensitive in future.

Individually Members of Parliament may remain polite, even friendly and collegiate with one another across the great divide (which is more than can be said for some families and friends outside Parliament), nevertheless the scenes in the Commons in the early hours of Tuesday morning were shocking, with those of us proceeding to hear the Queen’s speech read by her Commission in the House of Lords, jeered by those remaining in the Commons, who then sang that socialist anthem The Red Flag whilst the Queen’s speech was being read.

My correspondence reveals that the division in Parliament is just as pronounced in the New Forest.
Some of my constituents remind me that the Referendum of 2016 was only ‘advisory’ and that I should not take the result as binding instruction. My response is always to say that I am inclined to abide by the ‘advice’ that my constituents gave me in that referendum.

This issue of an ‘advisory referendum’ however, goes to the heart of the question now dividing the nation.
In terms of pure constitutional theory my correspondents are correct: Parliament is sovereign and is not bound by any expression of public opinion, even when given in a lawfully and properly organised referendum.
Practical political realities are rather different: Parliament and Government clearly indicated to the voters that the issue of EU membership would be settled by the outcome of the 2016 referendum.
Most voters, whichever way they voted, were prepared to accept that.
What has so angered the nation and prolonged the agonising process is an ‘establishment’, so over-represented in Parliament, and determined to reverse the decision that we made in 2016.

From the very start this ‘fifth column’ has sought to undermine the Government’s negotiations by signalling to the EU that concessions were unnecessary because any agreement would be rejected in Parliament. The intention has been to prolong the process, exasperating and boring the public in equal measure, until the authority of the 2016 referendum is sufficiently eroded.

This really is now a question of Parliament against the people. It is too soon to know which will prevail. Were Parliament to succeed in preventing BREXIT, the damage to our democracy would be profound. We would awake and find ourselves in a different country, a country where democracy had been defeated. Many would not trouble themselves to vote again, the process having been proven to be pointless.
The stakes are very high indeed

I’ve had a large correspondence applauding the PM’s action in removing the whip from a score of Tory rebels. A minority have complained however, that the action was disproportionally harsh given that many in the Government were rebels previously and were never so sanctioned. Indeed, I’ve rebelled on occasion with not so much as a harsh word from my whip.

Political parties are, under our electoral system, ‘broad churches’ that share a general approach to political and social issues but nevertheless there are bound to be disagreements about some policies or the details of their implementation. No-one should be punished for such disagreement.

When I was a whip my only expectation was that those colleagues for whom I was responsible, would inform me with reasonable notice that they had difficulty with a forthcoming vote. I would organise a meeting with the responsible minister to see if their reservations could be addressed.
If they still objected and voted against, well that was all there was to it.

It is a different story however, if the vote in question is actually an issue of fundamental confidence in the Government itself. In which case potential rebels are warned -in terms- that the consequence of rebellion will be the removal of the whip. This was the case with respect to the vote on Tuesday night: they were warned.
(Those former serial rebels, now in the Government, never breached party unity on an issue of confidence.)

So why did the Government treat the vote as an issue of confidence?
The vote on Tuesday night was not just an issue of policy. It was a vote to take away the Government’s power to govern and hand that power to an alliance of opposition parties.
They then subsequently used the power so given to them, to enact a law forbidding the Prime Minister from pursuing his clearly stated policy of leaving the EU on 31 October irrespective of whether a deal had been agreed or not.
This pledge by the PM was the basis on which he so recently won the leadership backed by two thirds of his party and his MPs.
It is hard to see how the rebels could have remained in the governing party after doing this and given the warning they had received.

The result the action on Tuesday and Wednesday is an act of surrender to any terms the EU may impose: The PM is instructed and bound by Parliament, so that if no new agreement is reached, to ask the EU for a further extension of our membership and accept whatever terms they attach to it.
It takes away whatever negotiating cards we have. Why would the EU even consider new proposals when they have been guaranteed such an outcome, with every prospect of our continuing payments, and a the possibility of our leaving being put-off indefinitely?

As politicians breathe fire about the ‘constitutional outrage’ of proroguing Parliament, can I remind readers of this column that I first suggested this strategy to the former Prime Minister on the floor of the Commons in December of last year. My suggestion was tongue-in-cheek, because the circumstance then would indeed have been an outrage: proroguing parliament purely to avoid being defeated in a parliamentary vote.
Let me give an example of such an outrage: Suppose that either a vote of confidence, or proceedings on a bill to prevent a no-deal BREXIT were scheduled to be debated the Commons later next week, and the Government -in fear of defeat, announced the prorogation of Parliament on the eve of the debate. Yes, that would indeed be a constitutional outrage!

My generation will remember the Mysterons: aliens from Mars that waged war on Earth, which was defended by Captain Scarlet. It was a Children’s TV drama using puppets not dissimilar to Joe 90 or Fireball XL5.
At the start of each episode the Mysterons abandoned any concept of surprise by publicly announcing their plan, giving Captain Scarlet every opportunity to thwart it.
The Government has just adopted the Mysteron strategy: no subterfuge; no surprise; it has clearly laid out the Parliamentary timetable, giving notice to its opponents how and when to organise in order to prevent a no-deal BREXIT. In effect, the Government has thrown down a challenge to its opponents.
In terms of the planned siting days that will now be lost, the three days in question are hardly worth the fuss that is being made of them. With our ‘activist’ Speaker, there will be no shortage of time for the Government’s opponents to rise to this challenge.

In my estimate the Government’s action further reduces the possibility of leaving the EU without an agreement, because it sends an even stronger signal of the Government’s determination to leave on 31st October whatever the circumstance.
The EU, never hitherto believing that we would do it (a belief re-enforced by the parliamentary ‘5th column’ insisting that they would prevent it), now has to -for the first time- contemplate this real possibility and negotiate to avert it.
As I have always said, taking no-deal off the table, increased the possibility of a no-deal BREXIT because it reduced the strength of our negotiating hand to secure a deal that could get through Parliament.
It is ironic that most of those who are most vehement in their opposition to no-deal, were overwhelmingly the ones who voted against the current Withdrawal Agreement. For so many of them, what they really oppose is our leaving the EU at all.

Good luck to the Mysterons, it’s time they had a win.

Now think of the Government Pairing Whip -with the majority reduced to one.
I’ve done that job too, and much worse than Accommodation Whip (described in last weeks column) who, at least has a relatively quiet time between reshuffles and the immediate aftermath of an election.
For the Pairing whip there is no relief: you are responsible for the Government’s majority in votes throughout the day, and every day you are besieged with requests from colleagues to be ‘slipped’ from votes in order to deal with essential government business, attend events in their constituencies, parental duties, I even remember one current very senior whip asking me to be allowed to go home because his dog had just died.
Invariably the number of requests vastly exceeded my capacity to grant them, and still to retain a working majority present at Westminster.

Under the coalition government we had a paper majority of nearly 80, but one quickly discovered that some colleagues could not be relied on at all, and this had to be factored into my daily headcount.
I could always get some additional flexibility by accommodating ministerial business overseas through maintaining a good working relationship with my Labour opposite number, we would ‘pair’ the absent ministers with Labour absentees. It is always harder for the Opposition to keep its members at Westminster: if you are likely to lose votes, does it really matter if you lose by one more.

The real difficulty was the prospect of rebellions. These were frequent because of the very nature of the coalition. A significant minority of Tories were never reconciled to it and opposed many of what they considered its Liberal Democrat tendencies.
The moment there was a whiff of a rebellion, Labour -to maximise the pressure- would withdraw the pairing, and I would hit the phones to get ministers back from abroad and colleagues from wherever else they’d got to. Most were very understanding. William Hague was a real gentleman about it. Others were less so. There were even some cads whose business always seemed to count for more that the Government’s majority.
The problem was that I had to act at the first sign of trouble: if you have to get ministers back from Asia, Africa, and the Americas you cannot afford to wait. 48 hours or so later, with the problem vote imminent, the whipping operation having been in overdrive, many of the rebels had been ‘burnt-off’, but I couldn’t have known that at the early stages of the operation. Consequently, one could end up winning embarrassingly easily, but having put one’s colleagues to enormous trouble.

In reality, the current pairing whip will have a much easier ride. It was my very ability to be flexible that made for the work and the agonising choices. With a majority of only one, the fellow will not be able to let anyone out, what is more, colleagues will understand this, so they probably won’t ask.

Gavin Barwell, lately chief of staff at 10 Downing Street, tells a story of overhearing me on the phone to an absent colleague with an important vote approaching,
“yes, I know your wife has just died…but you’re okay aren’t you”
I deny it. He is suffering from false memory syndrome

One parliamentarian who will be having a particularly grizzly summer is the Government Accommodation Whip in whose gift are the offices for members and their staff within the parliamentary estate.

Far from being a position of power and patronage, it is a miserable chore. I was once the Accommodation Whip, so I know from bitter experience.

There is insufficient office space on the parliamentary estate, and what there is, varies from the truly grand to the absolutely frightful, pokey, cramped and windowless. Some are close by, but others are a hike.
Furthermore, there is a financial incentive to cram as many staff into the estate as possible because there is no rent payable, whereas if you accommodate your staff in your constituency you will have to rent an office for them to work in.

The Accommodation Whip is constantly badgered by colleagues who believe that they deserve a better office than the one they’ve got. The simple fact is that you have no stock of empty rooms, and quite a few members are having to share rooms with one another.

The worst time for the Accommodation Whip is the aftermath of a large government reshuffle such as the one that Boris has just implemented.
When you become a minister you give up your Commons office, because you are the ‘cat that got the cream’ and you are going to get a grand office elsewhere in Whitehall in your new department of state. So, in the Commons you are allocated little more than a booth on the ministerial corridor (and some are a lot better than others).
The difficulty presented by a reshuffle is the mismatch in circumstances between those being promoted and those being sacked. The latter tend to be more senior, their pride has already taken a substantial knock, and they want to be comforted by getting a decent Commons office appropriate to their seniority. Alas, those being promoted into their places tend to be junior and consequently are vacating the least desirable accommodation in the Commons. Arranging this swap-over is a nightmare.

But I’m alright Jack!
It’s been six years since I was the Accommodation Whip, and I have a convenient and well-appointed office that was once occupied by the nineteenth century Irish Nationalist Charles Stewart Parnell. I understand that he had a reputation as a lothario, so who knows what might have gone on in that office.
Anyway I’m staying, and the only whip that can get me out of it are the voters of the New Forest.

I was glad to see that Jacob Rees-Mogg, the excellent new Leader of the House of Commons, has issued a memorandum to his private office setting out some standards for written English including a restricted vocabulary.

When I was a minister, I didn’t issue a written instruction, but I certainly made it clear that low-grade managerial ‘newspeak’ was off-limits in anything  given me to read or to sign. I am glad to see that there is a significant overlap in the words and phrases that I banned and that Rees-Mogg has now banned, including the frightful ‘ongoing’, but -for the life of me- I cannot see what he has against ‘very’.
My own bete noir was our widely-shared habit of turning nouns into verbs. Although I am often guilty myself, I detest it in others.
The word ‘showcasing’ would drive me into an apoplectic fit and my staff quickly learnt to avoid it.

I must have been a dreadful pedant as a schoolmaster. It was some time ago. Indeed, 39 years ago I taught at Charterhouse where Jeremy Hunt, lately Foreign Secretary, was a mere junior boy and too young to attend any of my classes. Now he joins me on the back benches.

A number of colleagues and constituents wished me well as the reshuffle commenced. Of course, one wouldn’t be a politician without the desire to rule one day. As Arthur Miller said “a salesman’s got to dream boy, it comes with the territory”.
The luxury however, of not anticipating any crumbs to fall from the table, was that when parliamentary business ended early last Tuesday and Wednesday and whilst anxious colleagues were continually fretting and checking their phones, I relaxed in Hyde Park reading Andrew Robert’s excellent biography of Churchill, confident that I could catch-up with events listening to Ritala Shah on the wireless at ten o’clock.

I thoroughly enjoyed being a minister and there are aspects of it I miss. I recall however, that Digby Jones, the businessman and former head of the CBI, was made a minister by Gordon Brown. When Jones resigned 18 month later he was reported as saying it was a most “dehumanising experience” .
I know what he meant.
As a minister you are confined to your own brief which can be very frustrating when great events -the focus of the nations attention- are taking place beyond it and you may not give your own commentary. Equally, you can sometimes become aware that matters at the heart of your brief -on which you have become the nation’s expert- have been decided above your head and you weren’t even asked your opinion. It happens

After 5 years as David Cameron’s parliamentary secretary in the frustration of opposition, we finally got into Downing Street in 2010. Not so long afterwards, I recall observing in conversation with him that we still seemed to spend half our time finding out what the Government was doing, and the other half trying to stop it