Above: St Stephen's Tavern (on the left). Just across the road from the Houses of Parliament. When I first joined the agency I was warned about Terry (our MD): "...and don't whatever you do get him started on what he said to Sir Ronald Bell in the dive bar of St Stephen's Tavern back in seventy-eight..."
A very hurried lunch today, but I went up to the Board Room to join Terry watching Prime Minister's Questions on BBC2.
The bench behind the Prime Minister looked far too cramped, with a sort of jostling and elbowing going on ("there's far too many MPs" said Terry). Gordon Brown read out the latest casualties in Afghanistan but saved his sincere tones for valedictory praise of the Speaker (who announced his resignation yesterday). As the Prime Minister addressed the Speaker's chair it seemed like one lost cause saluting another.
The Prime Minister looked very ill at ease in this session. He made an unfortunate slip about the post office losing millions of letters. He meant losing the business, but it sounded as if the Royal Mail had actually lost that number of items, leading to guffaws of unkind laughter from the Opposition (just to one side of the Prime Minister we could see Harriet Harman narrow her eyes, as if willing him to get a grip).
David Cameron asked again and again when there would be a General Election. Gordon Brown should have been better prepared for this onslaught. Even the most junior PR on our top floor could have predicted these questions and come up with some lines.
One Labour backbench MP referred to those brave British soldiers who "died in the cause of Afghanistan" which made me wonder what exactly is "the cause" that must be mentioned so obliquely.
Conservative Stewart Jackson stood up to talk about fairness and equality in the cause of grandparent's rights ("surprised he has the nerve to show his face" said Terry - Stewart Jackson was disgraced in the on-going expenses scandal).
Labour's Keith Vaz got up to point his finger righteously over the issue of human trafficking. On the bench behind Diane Abbott MP had a worried look on her face, as if concerned for him. Mr Vaz was wearing a lime green tie, and I wondered idly whether it was silk, and if so whether we had paid for it (Keith Vaz had used taxpayers' money to buy luxurious silk cushions for his second home - there is no mention on Google of this money being paid back).
An excellent question on the building of a high speed rail network.
An interesting question by Martin Linton on the Citizen's Convention (but who would trust this lot to "reform" the constitution - they would only gerrymander the whole process to suit themselves).
But mostly I thought how unimportant and irrelevant all this was. I used to look forward to Prime Minister's Questions each week. Now I just felt what a charade it all is.
Disgusting people (most of them, but not all).
Above: have just watched the start of Newsnight. A Conservative MP has been forced to "stand down" because he has spent £2,000 of taxpayers' money on an in-lake "duck house". There was some debate about what a duck house might look like. One of our neighbours has a lake duck house which I photographed recently (see above). It seems a reasonable use of tax payers' money, although it should be expenditure authorised by the Department of Environment rather than the House of Commons Fees Office. An in-lake duck house keeps the ducks safe from foxes, which is reasonable.
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