Paid advocacy in the House of Commons and the Resolution of 2 May 1695

In the recent debates over the report of the Standards and Privileges committee on the Owen Paterson case frequent reference has been made to the House of Commons’ foundational resolution of 2 May 1695 on lobbying. The resolution runs as follows: That the Offer of any Money, or other Advantage, to any Member of Parliament,…

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Lies, Personalities and Unparliamentary Expressions

It often puzzles people that accusing someone of lying in parliament seems to be taken more seriously than actually lying – at least that there is some consequence. The member who has made the accusation is called on to withdraw, or rephrase, the allegation; whereas it is rare that anything is done to reprove the…

The Smoking Room of the House of Commons

The smoking room of the House of Commons has long intrigued commentators on and spectators of politics: one of the places where knots of members get together to weigh reputations, exchange gossip, spread discontent, foment revolts, hatch conspiracies.

Parliamentary Privilege and Libel, Part II: from Wilkes to 1835

This is a series of three blogs about Parliament and Libel. The first, Privilege, Libel and the long road to Stockdale v. Hansard, Part I: from Strode’s Case to Article IX, dealt with the earliest encounters, in the seventeenth century, between parliamentarians and the court over the publication of material that the parliamentarians believed was…

Zoom and the Technology of Parliamentary Debate

The current controversy over the extension of the house of commons emergency procedures is very much sui generis. The technology to enable parliament to debate and vote without most members being physically present is only a few years old and was of course not available when previous public health crises of this order occurred: the…

The Zircon Affair, Parliament and the Courts

The Zircon Affair The Zircon affair concerned a BBC programme made in 1986 by the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell. It covered a secret defence project, an intelligence-gathering satellite named Zircon, and particularly the failure to submit it to parliamentary scrutiny. The BBC, under pressure from the government and its governors, decided not to screen it.…

Yonge, Haxey, and the Privilege of Freedom of Speech in Parliament

These days, the parliamentary privilege of free speech is regarded as deriving from the assertion in Article IX of the 1689 Bill of Rights that ‘Freedom of Speech and Debates or Proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any Court or Place out of Parliament’. That it is considerably older than that is certain, but how old, very much not so.

The Spectacular Pantomime of the Budget

Proceedings in parliament are often described in theatrical terms; and the budget is one of the most theatrical of all parliamentary performances.

Black Rod and the Door of the House of Commons

  Image: UK Parliament via Flickr CC The earliest description of the ceremony in which the Commons are summoned to the Lords by Black Rod comes in a notebook that belonged to Sir Thomas Duppa, who filled the position between 1683 and 1694, and had been deputy to his predecessor, Sir Edward Carteret, from 1675.…

The Address in reply to the Queen’s Speech

Though a speech from the monarch or the chancellor at the opening of the session had long been one of the main rituals of each session of parliament, the process of giving formal thanks for the speech is not recorded in the Commons journal before the Restoration in 1660. It became common in the 1660s…