With 5 minutes to go, and after 4 hours 55 minutes of opposing filibuster, the Bill's author, David Maclean, called for a vote (technically, I think, a Motion for Closure). With the tacit support of the Labour party (whose Parliamentary Committee emailed Labour MPs to encourage them to vote in favour), the Motion was passed, and the Bill will now go to the House of Lords.
Revealingly, the Wikipedia article on Private Member's Bills notes that "in some cases, measures that a government does not want to take responsibility for may be introduced by backbenchers, with the government secretly or openly backing the measure and ensuring its passage."
It's impossible to resist the conclusion that the Labour government wants this legislation to go through, despite the fact that it undermines a major piece of their own legislation (the Freedom of Information Act) and runs counter to their stated policy. That they can do so by means of a Conservative Private Member's Bill, thus keeping their legislative hands 'clean', must be a source of some glee.
I think Mr Brown has just missed the first opportunity (of his acknowledged leadership, at least) to reclaim the public's trust in his party. But then, during his time in the political wings, he has made an art of being absent or silent, when presence or speech might have obliged him to take a public position one way or the other.
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Posted by John Sandell on May 18, 2007 at 06:01 PM GMT+00:00 #
It's something which "should just work", provided the person in question is guided by that other characteristically English thing, a sense of fairness. The flipside of that, of course, is that there are few, if any, formal safeguards against the role being comprehensively abused if you find a big enough bastard. Not that I am alleging anything of the sort about the current office-holder, about whom I know close to nothing.
All I can base a judgement on is the visible outcome. Look at the majority of the 'Aye' voters, and the party the represent. Look at the PLP Committee's email encouraging support for the Bill. Look at the exceptional circumstances under which a PMB got this degree of parliamentary air-time. Look at the arbitrary way in which it either gets or doesn't get a 'motion for closure' from a Labour Chair.
The protests of neutrality are simply incredible, and the whole thing reeks of self-serving abuse of process.
Posted by Robin Wilton on May 18, 2007 at 06:53 PM GMT+00:00 #