Quote of the week

I don't always agree with Chris Mullin, the former Labour MP (that is something of a understatement) but his diaries have often been entertaining, interesting, and insightful.

If you want to order them from Amazon, follow these links to the first volume: "A View from the Foothills" or the newly published second installment, "Decline and Fall."

I was particularly amused this week to read Mullin's account of a comment by Nicholas Soames MP, who has one of the best senses of humour in the Commons. (On an occasion when I did myself great damage through giving too much rein to my sense of humour, Nick Soames was the only person in the room who got the best joke, so much so that he nearly fell off his chair laughing.)

Anyway, Mullin quotes Nick Soames on the idea that the House of Commons is operated like a gentleman' club as follows:

"I run a gentleman's club which has been in existence since 1712, and if it was run the way this place is run it would have died 200 years ago."

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