Monthly Archives: January 2008

On Tuesday, following a big row in the Commons the previous day, we were granted two and half hours to discuss amendments to the EU Treaty Bill on police, borders, criminal justice and immigration, instead of the derisory one and half the government originally offered. It was not enough, but clearly better than the first [...]

Last night I attended a dinner to discuss the railways. It turned out to be a lively and interesting event, moving on from the usual train spotter’s enthusiasm for the past and the anorak’s belief that the only way you can run a railway is the way Network Rail do it. I began my attempts [...]

The government has failed to give us the promised referendum on the EU Treaty. Now it is failing to give us the promised full Parliamentary scrutiny. Yesterday we had a bad tempered debate on how much time would be made available to go through all the powers transferred and the complexities of the EU proposals. [...]

Our water pipes are leaking, our gas pipes often need replacing, our telephone cables need expanding and even our electricity wires may need fixing. Each time one of the utilities needs to do such work, they have to dig up the streets. The government is aware of the frustration this causes. Its own highways legislation [...]