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A small cloud on the horizon for Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman-designate of IPSA, the .

As I mentioned last week, his appointment has to be formally approved by the Commons. Normally this sort of thing is done without debate.

At the end of a long day's legislating, a clerk will read out a series of outstanding bills and motions, and unless someone shouts "object" they go through on the nod.

It's an unobtrusive process. More gnarled readers may recall that, a couple of years ago, David Maclean's bill to exempt MPs from freedom of information legislation was nodded through to committee consideration, without a second reading debate, because, mysteriously, the whips who normally object to such things and consign them to oblivion, failed to do so. (That bill died an ignominious death, when no peer could be found to take it through the Lords.)

Track record

But those who know their procedural games are evidently ready to pounce. This morning , the doyen of the Tory awkward squad, signalled his interest by asking when the motion to appoint Sir Ian would appear. He has a track record. Earlier this year, he kept on objecting to a motion to allow the UK Youth Parliament to meet in the Commons chamber, until the powers-that-be gave up trying to slip the proposal through, and conceded it had to be debated. I suspect he has the same objective in mind - a debate on Sir Ian and by extension on IPSA and MPs expenses and all the rest.

A chance for the aggrieved to vent their fury?

Update

Parliament is now in limbo, but Friday's Today in Parliament carries manfully on.

At 11.30pm on Friday, Robert Orchard asks if it's last post for the Royal Mail - and he traces the long saga of the attempts to privatise it under Conservative and Labour governments. Michael Heseltine, Kenneth Clark and Richard Hooper - and a host of rebellious backbench MPs are among the guests.

Meanwhile blogging here will resume next week, when MPs return to Westminster.

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