Book review: Perfect parliamentary rules will not encourage able people to seek election as MPs

Hannah White, of the Institute for Government, refers in passing to “the UK’s infamous ‘unwritten’ constitution”. What is “infamous” about it?

Toby Young: Free speech includes the right to be offensive, Mr Speaker

Hoyle is within his rights to disapprove of the media reporting Commons gossip about Rayner, but not to summon journalists.

Bercow was never fit to be Speaker, and MPs must shoulder a share of the blame for him

Guilty of bullying and banned for life from Parliament; a grim denouement to an abysmal term in the Chair.

Daniel Hannan: Powdered wigs, knee breeches, frock coats – all part of a vanished age. But I rejoice that male MPs must still wear ties.

The Speaker recognises that formal attire serves an important purposes, for legislator and official alike. If only his predecessors had done so.

Bella Wallersteiner: As a parliamentary staffer, I’m appalled by the double standards on who has to wear a mask

Furthermore, I will not attend the Conservative Party Conference if vaccine passports are required.

Today’s aid amendment. The champions of 0.7 per cent will win either way – if not in the Commons, then in court.

Which is what comes of the virtue-signalling practice of setting targets in law, rather than having MPs vote on expenditure. 

How Zoom has accelerated the decline of the Commons – and how the damage can be reversed

Parliamentary ‘debates’ often devolve into collections of short, unconnected speeches that are basically being read into Hansard. That must change.

Whatever the flaws in the Government’s approach to the Lords, it has at least not sent Bercow there

The disruption to Parliament from Covid-19 has obscured and delayed the important work of undoing the damage wrought by his Speakership.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Johnson seduces the House, and talks away his mistakes, by promising a rosy future

There were moments when the PM made everyone from the Speaker down laugh, and most of his listeners were grateful for light relief from the crisis.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: The Speaker is furious and the Prime Minister refuses to put his arms round Starmer

Johnson contradicts his message of national togetherness, and antagonises MPs, by appearing to regard criticism as disloyal.

The rejection of Johnson’s York proposal shows the enduring power of Parliament

The permanent crisis of the May years is not what holding the Government to account normally looks like.

Why the Government is keen to get the Commons sitting again

Ministers’ efforts to get schools and businesses to re-open won’t be helped if MPs are visibly unwilling to return to Westminster.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Johnson bids a solemn farewell to Corbyn, and promises action asap

But there were a couple of moments of levity – though both men agreed that this is no time for it.

Andrew Gimson’s PMQs sketch: Johnson steps forward as the leader of a National Government

To the astonishment of those who see him as an incorrigible buffoon, the Prime Minister looked and sounded unremittingly sombre.

WATCH: “Parliament is a better place without John Bercow” – Jenrick

He adds that he wouldn’t offer the former speaker a peerage, as he responds to comments made by Dawn Butler.