Watching the parliamentary year dribble towards the Christmas recess this week, three glaring reasons for Britain’s political malaise shone out as a dark December afternoon unfolded. One is that too many MPs have the wrong priorities. Another is that too many lack the right competence. The third is that too many simply behave badly. All of these are connected.
Priorities first. On Tuesday, the House of Commons debated something important. The Post Office (Horizon system) Compensation bill goes some way to compensate victims of the Post Office’s 16-year wrongful prosecution of more than 700 post office operators over false accounting. The case is a national scandal. But get this. There are 650 MPs at Westminster. At no time did I count more than 17 MPs in the chamber to debate it.
