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Parliament's half-term break has begun - the Commons, the Lords, and this blog will resume on Monday 28 February.

There have been a couple of sulphurous comments attached to earlier posts mentioning the half-term, to the effect that lazy legislators should work just as hard as everybody else. Which rather assumes they're all off to assorted ski slopes, tropical paradises etc.

Some may indeed be holidaying - but I suspect rather a lot of MPs will be putting themselves about in their constituencies. In some cases, they will be campaigning for elections due in May - as any experienced agent will tell you, it's never too early, unless you're the voter whose favourite soap opera is interrupted by some politician on the doorstep. Others will be out and about in their constituencies, using the Westminster break as a chance to visit and be visible.

Bluntly, a lot of MPs are afraid of their constituents in a way that would shock previous parliamentary generations. So they want to be seen amongst their people, listening, connecting, campaigning. Even the most assiduous MP can't make it to every street and hamlet on their patch but many will be having a go - because their voters are now a hanging jury, and they have to take every possible chance to put the case for the defence.

I, on the other hand, am having a bit of a holiday. But first, here's a look at what will be happening over the break, and when Parliament comes back:

During the break, the , the Commons public spending watchdog, publishes a report on Defence Procurement. And given the tone of some of their hearings, expect a fairly brutal duffing-up for the MoD.

Monday 28 February

The main business in the Commons is a Backbench Business Committee debate on (drumroll)...the Big Society - a chance to examine David Cameron's big idea.

The Lords will be continuing their detailed scrutiny of the Public Bodies Bill - which gives the government sweeping powers to axe quangos. This may include the promised amendments to remove provisions to abolish the Forestry Commission, following the government's climbdown on that issue.

And on the committee corridor, the begins an investigation into Pfizer's decision to close its research and development facility in Sandwich. Witnesses include Pfizer management and the D-G of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry.

Tuesday 1 March

The Commons will be taking a look at the much-heralded Protection of Freedoms Bill (which is supposed to scrap all kinds of burdensome regulation and interference, from cowboy car clamping, to retention of DNA samples fingerprinting of schoolchildren).

In the Lords, peers feeling withdrawal symptoms after disposing of the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Act get a fresh fix of high-powered constitutional legislation with the second reading debate on the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill. Enjoy.

The begins its follow-up inquiry into NHS commissioning - this follows its hard-hitting report into commissioning issues earlier this year, which raised serious doubts about the government's restructuring of the health service.

The - shaping up as pretty aggressive interrogators - will have its first encounter with David Higgins, the new head of Network Rail. And the holds that pre-demonstration session ahead of the TUC's planned demo on 26 March. Key witnesses include Carl Roper, the chief steward for the march, and Assistant Commissioner Lynne Owens of the Metropolitan Police. (See earlier blogpost).

Wednesday 2 March

In the Commons, MPs will debate the annual motion to renew the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act - and opposition motions on Sure Start and HM Revenue and Customs. Meanwhile peers will be continuing their detailed scrutiny of the Energy Bill - which allows people to fund home insulation and other energy-saving measures from the savings to their, er, energy bills.

The opens its inquiry into the impact of the EU Directive banning battery cages for egg producers. The will be looking at public sector pensions and the will be quizzing ministers about the role and performance of the schools watchdog, Ofsted.

One minor oddity is a three-in-one appearance by Universities and Science Minister David Willetts who will be speaking to the Science and Technology Committee about (1) strategically important metals (2) the Pfizer closure (see entry above, for Monday) and (3) the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation.

Thursday 3 March

We will see a Commons debate chosen by the Democratic Unionist Party, while the Lords will be holding a debate tied to International Women's Day.

The only committee hearing I'm aware of is a look at the issues around student visas - with the star witness the omnipresent David Willetts.

Friday 4 March

Both Houses are sitting, with the Commons debating a series of private members' bills, starting with Jonathan Lord's Sports Ground Safety Authority Bill. It would rename the Football Licensing Authority as the Sports Grounds Safety Authority and enable it to provide advice about safety at sports grounds generally.

Next on the agenda are two bills from Conservative awkward squaddie Christopher Chope. First the Minimum Wage (Amendment) Bill - enabling the national minimum wage to be lowered to reflect local labour market conditions. And next, the Further and Higher Education (Access) Bill requiring all publicly funded universities and colleges to allocate student places purely on merit - effectively outlawing social or other quotas.

There are also private members' bills in the Lords - Lord Redesdale's Dog Control Bill (see earlier posting), Lord Clement-Jones' Live Music Bill and the Building Regulations (Review) Bill proposed by Lord Harrison.

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Walkies! Lord Redesdale's Dog Control Bill - which looked as if it had been humanely disposed of back in January - will now have its committee stage in the House of Lords on 4 March.

Lib Dem peer Lord Redesdale pulled the bill when last minute amendments were put down in January, making it impossible to complete its committee stage in the narrow time slot then scheduled. Now he'll have another go, delighting the organisations supporting his attempt to reform Ken Baker's 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act.

The Dog Control Bill would target the behaviour of any dog, and its owner, via Dog Control Notices - inevitably nicknamed DOGBOs. Backers of the bill say they're designed to identify potentially dangerous dogs, regardless of breed, before a serious attack happens. They argue that millions of pounds of public money and resources have been wasted by police authorities in seizing dogs simply for being of a particular breed, adding that £10m has been spent by the Metropolitan Police alone in the past three years simply to implement the Dangerous Dogs Act requirements relating to the seizure, kennelling and euthanasia of banned breeds.

The bill is backed by the Dangerous Dogs Act Study Group (DDASG), which includes animal welfare organisations, vets and local authorities.

Lord Redesdale is optimistic that the Lords will now pass his bill - but it will then need a sponsor to take it through the Commons. Governments are seldom enthusiastic about private members' legislation, but maybe this one will find favour, since it offers the prospect of some serious savings for cash-strapped police authorities. We shall see.

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So who won in the end?

Just before midnight on Wednesday, the Royal Assent was signified to the , putting a full stop on a saga stretching back to last November, when the Lords first debated it.

And after all the filibustering, brinkmanship and general bad temper the changes have, in fact, been rather modest.

In its final form, the bill allows for the public presentation of arguments about the re-drawing of parliamentary boundaries, although these do not amount to actual hearings, still less to public inquiries. And the Isle of Wight has gone from being under-represented in a Commons of 650 MPs, to being over-represented in a Commons of 600. Er, that's it.

The final "ping-pong" process removed the other major changes the Lords had pushed through - the 40% turnout threshold for the referendum on the voting system, and the exceptional 7.5% leeway from the standard size for Commons seats. Hmmm.

The government got its way on everything that mattered to it - but there were a few casualties along the way. Foremost among them is Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the Lords, who, it is murmured, should have spotted the developing deadlock and acted on it rather earlier than he did. His reputation for existing in mystic communion with the mood of the Lords has taken rather a knock - but perhaps unfairly.

The real problem was that the shape of the bill - now an Act - was set in stone in the Coalition Agreement, and there was very little flexibility for concessions to ease its passage through the Lords, despite the entreaties of the Coalition leadership in the Upper House. Incoming governments often take a while to realise that the business of getting legislation past their lordships is not always straightforward. The late Dennis Carter, chief whip in the Lords under Tony Blair, resorted to creating a form for ministers to fill out, explaining how they proposed to get bills through the Lords, in order to force them to think out a strategy. Maybe , the Coalition's chief whip in the Lords, should do the same.

Mark Harper, the minister overseeing the progress of the bill, has also emerged with a few contusions. As I blogged yesterday, some of the comments he made in the Commons were sued in evidence against him in the Lords - and helped fuel their continued defiance over the referendum threshold. Mr Harper, an impressive Commons operator, will have absorbed some painful lessons.

Meanwhile, Lord Falconer, Labour's constitutional spokesman, has won plaudits from his colleagues for some determined street-fighting, which threatened to derail a bill vital to the Coalition. And with the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill due before the Lords on 1 March, and the draft bill on Lords reform due to be published soon, he will have plenty more to chew on. Former Lord Chancellors are normally rather dignified figures - Lord Falconer shows no sign of wanting to go gently into that good night, and could yet eclipse Labour's official leader in the Lords, Lady Royall.

I'm not sure whether to put the crossbenchers into the winners or losers column. Their convenor, Lady D'Souza, worked hard to break the deadlock that brought proceedings to a halt in mid-committee stage, and several other crossbenchers put compromise amendments that moved debate forward. In the end most of these compromises were rejected by the Commons - and there is some muted concern that the crossbenchers were forced, by the threat of a government guillotine being imposed on the Lords, to act as honest brokers between Labour and the Coalition. The crossbenches hold the balance of power in the Lords, and there is some concern that that uncomfortable position is turning them into a kind of non-party party.

And finally, there's the Lord Speaker, Lady Hayman. She was unable to play any public role in resolving the biggest crisis in the workings of the Lords since her position was created. The question is now being asked, should her post remain a mainly ceremonial one? There's no appetite at all in the Lords for a Commons-style Speaker with sweeping powers over procedural issues. Yet. But a working party under the chairmanship of the former Commons chief whip, Lord Goodlad, is reviewing the procedures of the Lords.

Might it - or, more likely, some high-powered special committee - now suggest some safeguards against future filibusters; perhaps even an emergency timetabling procedure, should the Lords' normal self-regulation break down again?

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Fun in the Commons today, when Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman will deliver a statement withdrawing the government's plans to sell off some of the forests...

She's on a hiding to nothing after David Cameron rubbished her proposals at PMQs yesterday - and her days in the Cabinet may be numbered. There will also be a statement on the situation in Bahrain. So more excitement than MPs are used to on a Thursday.

Meanwhile, watch out for some rather technical devolution-related exchanges when MPs question the Leader of the House on future Commons business - because there's concern that Westminster's about to step on Holyrood's toes. which aims to extend the powers of the Scottish Parliament, including a very interesting extension of Scottish control over income tax, is due to start its committee stage after the half-term break. And because it's a major constitutional bill, that will be taken on the floor of the Commons - a committee of the whole House.

The trouble is that the committee stage will start before Holyrood has given its full verdict on the bill. When such matters are being considered by Westminster, the Scottish Parliament gives its assent through a "legislative consent motion" after having debated a report from a parliamentary committee. That report is expected to be out on 3 March - although close observers note that the committee in question is chaired by Labour's Wendy Alexander (sister of Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas) who has a reputation for, ahem, thoroughness - but will not be debated by the full Scottish Parliament for at least a week after that.

So Westminster will start getting to grips with the detail of the bill, before the parliament affected by it has given its detailed views. Or at least that's the present plan - and that plan may change later today when Sir George Young, the Leader of the Commons, announces the business of the House for the next couple of weeks.

The government's aim is to have the bill through the Commons before Holyrood dissolves for the Scottish elections in May - on the argument that Scottish voters will then have some idea of the kind of powers it will wield. And they do have some real difficulties with the scheduling of parliamentary business, with the knock-on effects of the long filibuster in the Lords, and more and more mega-bills emerging from the different departments (Iain Duncan Smith's benefits shake up is only the latest) finding three whole Commons days for the committee stage is no small matter.

I'm not sure there's a mega row lurking inside all this, but opposition parties will manufacture any controversy they can, and will doubtless seize the chance to accuse the government, once more, of a casual approach to constitutional reform. It may not be entirely their fault, but they've managed to generate a mini-row over a bill that is supported by all parties bar the SNP.

UPDATE: At Commons Business Questions today, Sir George Young announced that the first day of the Committee Stage would be held on Wednesday 7 March. He underlined that the government's intention was to get the bill through the Commons in time for the start of the Scottish elections - adding that Westminster would not normally be bound by the timetable of Holyrood. But he seemed to hint that the committee stage consideration of the key part of the bill, the power to vary income tax, was unlikely to take place before the Scottish Parliament had debated the forthcoming report on the bill.

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Kerpow! The by "insisting" (as they say in parliamentary jargon) on their amendment for a 40% threshold before a referendum on changing the voting system is automatically valid - if a smaller proportion of the electorate turns out and the referendum backs a change in the voting system, the matter is referred to Parliament for decision. Where whipping a "yes" decision on a small turnout through would be a nightmare for the government...

The original motion was only passed by a single vote; the Lords "insisted" by 277 votes to 215. So it looks as if the crucial crossbench vote is turning out against the government. And so are some Tory veterans like Lords , and

Peers are cross because they don't believe their amendment was fairly described by the Constitutional Reform Minister Mark Harper - they say it is not a wrecking amendment because the referendum does not fail on the 40% threshold: it merely leads to the decision being referred to Parliament. And they also indulged in a fair bit of Lib Dem bashing.

It may also be that the normally adroit Mr Harper has given a double hostage to fortune first by mentioning the strong majority in the Lords for keeping the Isle of Wight as a single seat as a reason for the government's concessions on that point (see posts below); words which are now being taken as an invitation for peers to stage an emphatic show of strength on every disagreement with the Commons.

Second, some peers believe the Wight concession abandons the principle of uniform-sized constituencies, strengthening the arguments for allowing more flexibility in constituency size.

And Mr Harper's just had a very narrow squeak on that very point. The crossbench peer, Lord Pannick, moved that peers should again insist on his amendment providing an exceptional 7.5% variation in the size of constituencies - and lost by a single vote.

So the Commons will now have to disagree with the Lords again, and see what happens. That clock is ticking, and it could be a long parliamentary night after all.

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Not long now - MPs are bracing themselves for the final act of the tonight.

Scene One: timetabled to last for four hours, will consist of Commons consideration of Lords amendments, in which MPs decide whether to accept or reject the changes made to the bill during its marathon passage of the Lords, which ended last night when the bill at last secured its third reading after five amendments were discussed in a mere hour's debate.

Already there's been an important concession: the long-standing problem of the Isle of Wight is to be resolved by creating two parliamentary seats there - rather than by attaching a chunk of the isle to a mainland constituency. At the moment it is the biggest parliamentary seat with 110,000 voters - but there is strong local resistance to diluting its identity by sharing some voters with some seat across the Solent.

This has a knock on effect, taking Wight out of the overall calculation on which the standard size of a parliamentary constituency is based, so every other seat (apart from the similarly exempted Western Isles and Orkney and Shetland) will now be a little bit bigger. And the two Wight seats will each still be bigger than Orkney and Shetland with 32,000 voters and Western Isles with 22,000.

Then there are some amendments around the referendum on changing the voting system. Labour wants to keep the amendment won in the Lords, that the referendum would be non-binding if the electorate vote for a change, but the turnout is less than 40%; in those circumstances the issue would be thrown back to Parliament, where MPs and peers would take the result under advisement. This is completely unacceptable to the Coalition. Even more so is the proposal from the veteran Eurosceptic, Bill Cash, who has an amendment down which would mean that the voting system could not be changed unless the 40% threshold was passed.

Interestingly, some of his normal ideological allies dislike that idea, because they believe we are heading for a politics in which referendums happen more often, and they don't want to fetter the public will. They would hate to see a referendum on Britain leaving the EU fail to deliver withdrawal because of a similar threshold clause. And I doubt Labour would swallow the change either.

Labour will doubtless also seek to keep the other key change made in the Lords - the greater leeway on the size of Commons constituencies, introduced by the crossbench peer, Lord Pannick. And here we may see the biggest clash in the ping-pong between the two Houses (see below for an explanation of this arcane process). Their lordships can vote to insist on their amendments and bounce them back to the Commons, to see if MPs will keep seeking to reverse them; but only if the supporters of those amendments can maintain their majority. And it may be that some crossbench peers, who were crucial in passing the amendments in the first place, either don't turn up, or decide not to keep defying the will of the elected house.

And if things get tight, and the Wednesday deadline for passing the bill looms, the government does have the option of keeping the Lords sitting on Thursday, when they're supposed to have disappeared for the half-term. Remember, Wednesday is only the last possible day on which the bill could be passed, because the Lords depart on Thursday: keep them sitting - and cancel part of their break - and the bill can be passed a bit later, without losing the referendum on the voting system in May.

One other thought - the interest in the referendum is rising at the moment because the polling numbers from suggest that the voters might just decided to favour a changing in the electoral system. The latest poll suggests the "yes" vote running 10% ahead of the "no" vote - 40% to 30%. Although with 30% of the country in the "don't know" camp, anything could happen.

Which raises an interesting question - what would be more destabilising for the Coalition, a "yes" to AV, or a "no"?

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Is the grande finale now in sight in the seemingly endless battle over the ? One way or another we'll learn the fate of the much battled-over measure this week - and deciding the issue will dominate the parliamentary week. The bill has to be passed by Wednesday if the promised referendum on changing the voting system is to be held in May. That's because the law requires 10 clear weeks for the various phases of the campaign to take place.

(The minor catch is that Wednesday is the deadline because the Parliamentary half term is looming and the Lords depart that day... it is within the power of the government to keep Parliament going, even at the price of spoiling a few people's plans for an agreeable city break.)

So, assuming the third reading stage of the bill goes through without a hitch on Monday - and amendments can be put in a Lords third reading, unlike the Commons - the next big hurdle is getting both houses to agree the final version of the bill. This is what's known as "Parliamentary ping-pong".

Ping! And the bill flies over the net to the Commons where MPs have to decide whether to accept or reject the various amendments the Lords have made. Pong! They reverse some, accept others, and send the bill back to the Lords.

And if the Lords don't agree, there's another ping, and they send another revised version of the bill back to MPs. And so the process goes till both Houses agree. This can be a fairly dramatic cliffhanging exercise, when there's a deadline, as there is in this case, or right at the end of a parliamentary session. And the Commons will differ with the Lords.

The amendment the Coalition absolutely can't accept is the 40% threshold clause, added to the referendum provisions by their lordships. This would mean a vote to change the electoral system to the Alternative Vote in May would only be automatically valid if 40% of voters took part. The government regards that as a wrecking clause - and there is no way on earth the Liberal Democrats would acquiesce to it remaining, because it would kill the chances of changing to a voting system they find more congenial. Labour also voted against threshold clauses when they were debated in the Commons, so their MPs would have to turn an impressive somersault in order to vote to keep it in.

I gather the Coalition will also seek to overturn the greater leeway over the variation in the size of Commons constituencies, voted through in the Lords. They fear the amendment proposed by the Crossbench legal eagle Lord Pannick will allow endless legal challenges to the boundary redrawing process required to cut the number of MPs.

And they are even inclined to reverse the exemption voted through for the Isle of Wight - which would mean that part of the Isle would not be attached to a mainland constituency. So the question then becomes whether the Lords will dig their heels in. If they do, the bill will ping and pong back between the Houses until someone blinks - with that deadline coming ever closer.

But the Coalition side doubts this will go to the wire. The 40% threshold was only just carried and some of the other government defeats were pretty close run as well - and they calculate that many crossbenchers will balk at defying the will of the Commons again, and some may have slipped off early for their half term. If they're right, the government will have got its way on pretty much everything (bar some provision for public hearings on constituency boundaries) despite all the sound and fury, late nights and interminable speeches. But perhaps they'll be too exhausted to enjoy it.

So what else is going on? On Monday, MPs begin the week with Work and Pensions Questions, then turn their attention to the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill - which puts the new government finances watchdog on a legislative footing. Over in the Lords, as mentioned above, peers will be looking at the final day of the Parliamentary Voting Bill at third reading.

Committee-wise, the mmittee will be hearing from ministers Paul Burstow (Health) and Greg Clark (Communities and Local Government) on localism.

On Tuesday, MPs will have before them the Parliamentary Voting Bill. But those who were captivated by the debate on prisoners' voting rights will want to pay attention to Justice Questions first thing on Tuesday. Ken Clarke will be answering MPs' queries, and it's inconceivable that Labour backbenchers won't hesitate to make merry over the difference between his stance (expressed on the Today programme) and the views of Conservative backbenchers, and indeed the prime minister. In the Lords, after questions, peers will be debating the Pensions Bill at second reading - and, no doubt, keeping an eye out for messages about the Parliamentary Voting etc Bill from those oiks in the Commons.

All that activity may distract, unfairly, from Committee Corridor where there are plenty of meaty hearings scheduled. The will be asking some searching questions about the adverse weather conditions this winter. "There'll be standing room only," titters one source. The will be looking once again at litigation and complaints against the NHS, with the Health Service Ombudsman Ann Abraham. will be investigating football governance - with (gasp!) the chance to question a real life footballer, Brede Hangeland. will be discussing the significance of Turkey joining the EU - would Turkish accession mean more access to Britain for people traffickers and organised crime? The witnesses include the Serious and Organised Crime Agency and the Poppy Project which helps women caught up in the sex trade.

Wednesday's PMQs follows questions to the International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell and then the afternoon will be taken up with an Opposition Day debate; the subject of which is yet to be announced.

In the Lords, peers will first listen to questions. Lord Barnett (he of the famous funding formula) will be asking about the relationship between the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England - a fascinating subject on which the former Treasury minister Lord B has much expertise. Then peers will debate the Postal Services Bill, which allows for the privatisation of the Royal Mail, at second reading.

Again, there's plenty of committee action: the will be looking at funding of the voluntary sector - questioning ministers Nick Hurd and Justine Greening - with the issue of funding cuts vs the Big Society bound to come up. will be looking at the unpromising sounding subject of planning policy on waste water - and the scheme for a storm drain for London passing under the Thames. Also of interest: the looking at the Scotland Bill, the looking at legal aid reforms and the questioning Lord Heseltine on Northern Ireland as an enterprise zone.

Thursday is the final day before half term and MPs will be discussing motions relating to the Social Security Benefits Up-rating Order and draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2011. The Lords will not be sitting; and as far as committees go, one is of interest - the looking at the response to the Pakistan floods, with evidence from Medecines Sans Frontieres, Islamic Relief - and International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.

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The Commons is basking in the praise of the tabloids this morning; a novel experience for MPs. But yesterday's debate on prisoner voting, which ended with a resounding vote against the ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, saw the House asserting itself in a way ministers would doubtless prefer had not happened.

That is what the Wright Reforms of the last parliament were designed to achieve - a House of Commons not completely in thrall to the executive. To be sure, MPs had the wind of public and press opinion in their sails, and the prudent declaration of a free vote, by David Cameron, meant that there would be no penalty from the party machine for taking a stand. But in the previous era, MPs would not have had this debate at all.

If the issue had been raised on an Opposition Day, it would immediately have become party politicised, and the whips would have swung into action. The new Backbench Business Committee has provided a space where real debate can take place and where the whips tread with some caution. And it is telling that two of the wiliest operators in Parliament, David Davis and Jack Straw have spotted and seized the opportunities provided by that space. Others will follow.

Of course, there is small print to read. Thursday's vote will not bind the government not to give some UK prisoners the vote - although it is a considerable warning shot across ministerial bows and increases the risks of ignoring Commons opinion. It may even be that having a fight with a European institution (it may not matter much that the ECHR is not an organ of the EU) on this particular ground is rather good internal politics for a prime minister regarded by a sizeable portion of his troops as being suspect on Europe.

But a sterner test of the backbench business system will doubtless come. There will be issues where MPs feel deeply, but the tabloids are not cheering them on and the government is actively opposed. The fact that this debate has been held, and that MPs have rather enjoyed it, and been praised for it, should embolden the Backbench Business Committee to dare the wrath of ministers.

The bottom line is that yesterday parliamentary scrutiny became a bit better and a bit more powerful.

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Wherever you look - in the NHS, in policing, in schools, in town halls, the benefit system, housing or even the constitution - Coalition ministers are attempting to deliver far-reaching change at breakneck speed.

And this week, in a fascinating, if rather tekky session of the , the two ministers in the engine room at the centre of government described how they are attempting to manage this legislative blitzkrieg.

is the Cabinet Office minister in charge of oiling the machinery of government. He's the architect of the new system which has replaced New Labour's Public Service Agreements and Performance Indicators - by which the centre of government attempted to drive the different departments in the Blair/Brown years.

Mr Letwin has been heard to claim that he has mapped out every major policy initiative for the next two years - so that all the Coalition's big changes will be in place and, he hopes, delivering tangible improvements, in good time for the voters to take note before the next election. He told the PAC he has a whiteboard in his office on which a vast number of departmental objectives and milestones are listed. In due course ministers and officials will be summoned to account for their performance, or lack of it, against these objectives. And, most important of all, all those objectives and milestones have been made public, in business plans published by each department and updated at regular intervals.

Mr Letwin works closely with the Lib Dem , who holds the central purse-strings as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. They are an amiable double act. But the fate of the government depends on whether they can make this system work - and in particular can ensure their programme is not frustrated by a sheer lack of money. The PAC members, particularly, but not exclusively, on the Labour side, were sceptical about whether enough funding was being provided for the changes the Coalition wants. The new free schools and the proposal to replace the present Police Authorities with elected Police Commissioners were two examples where they probed hard.

And the duo retorted that they were reshaping the system to squeeze out more bang for the buck. Mr Letwin insisted that electing the people in charge of policing policy, coupled with the publication of online "crime maps," showing what offences were committed where, plus localised accountability at "beat meetings" would drive a revolution in police priorities - and give local people the policing they wanted. And both ministers argued that publishing much more information about what government spends would force politicians to make dramatic improvements in their performance. All this accountability through business plans, and transparency through freedom of information would be, they admitted, a stick for the government's collective back, but both insisted it would be bracing, and ultimately good for them.

So expect to hear a lot more about the business plans - especially when ministers miss their milestones.

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Here's an interesting innovation. You've heard of pre-legislative scrutiny, where MPs look at a bill before it's fed into the parliamentary sausage machine?

Well, now the MPs and peers of the are to attempt pre-demo scrutiny.

With a TUC demonstration against government cuts planned for 26 March, the JCHR is calling in the organisers and the Metropolitan Police to discuss the human rights aspects of the policing arrangements, before the event. With all the complaints about violence from some demonstrators at earlier protests, and about police tactics like "kettling" this could be a fascinating session - possibly even a kind of al-fresco negotiation between the two sides, under the beady eyes of the assembled former judges and super-lawyers of this very high-powered committee.

One of the emerging trends among select committees - pioneered by the under Margaret Hodge - is to try to get ahead of events, rather than eviscerate the culprits behind some disaster, long afterwards. This is very direct and interventionist parliamentary scrutiny. Who knows where it may lead?

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Another night of attrition in the Lords - with a very big turnout for the key vote on the kind of public hearings that should be held where there is controversy over the boundary proposals for a parliamentary constituency.

This was one of the big rows remaining in the seemingly perpetual debate on the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill (see earlier posts for more explanation on why this matters for the Coalition). And in the end it was a damned close run thing - with the government defeating a Labour amendment by just four votes (as noted by Mikl in the comments on my previous post). That suggests Labour is winning a lot of crossbench support for some of the points it is making - and a quick look at the voting list reveals that yesterday the convenor of the crossbenchers, , plus and the former Lord Chief Justice, , sided with them in the vote on amendment 27GA.

Labour's Lord Falconer stood the accusations that more wide-ranging public hearings would mean more delays in the boundary redrawing exercise, and argued that the government's proposals would lead to more judicial reviews of boundary decisions - and hence more delay. "The government is beyond reason on this," sighed one Labour source.

Today sees another clash on another outstanding issue - the permitted variation in the size of constituencies. Lord Pannick's amendment allowing a 7.5% variation in exceptional cases (the normal leeway will still be 5%) could produce another very tight vote. Having lost on the 40% turnout threshold for a valid referendum on changing the voting system, (again, see below), the government may be wary of having two major changes to the bill to overturn, when it returns to the Commons. This bill is now up against a very tight deadline - and ministers may yet be forced to compromise to get it through in time to hold that referendum in May.

One final thought: one of Labour's amendments last night was to peg the size of the Commons at 650 seats, rather than reduce it to 600, as the Coalition wants. Winding up, succumbed to size-ism and commented that the leader of the Lords, , might argue that 600 was a nice round figure and Lord Strathclyde was a "nice round man". Pots? Kettles? Anyone?

* Apologies incidentally, for the incessant blogging on this bill - I promise I'll write about something else soon!

UPDATE: The Lord Pannick amendment has just been passed by 275 votes to 257. So another important change against the Coaltion's will, and possibly another issue where they will attempt to reverse the changes when the bill goes back before MPs.

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Charlie Falconer has succeeded in tying the Coalition in knots. Again.

, inserting a "threshold clause" into the bill for a referendum on the voting system would effectively wreck the bill as far as the Lib Dems are concerned. The requirement that 40% of the electorate should turn out, before a vote to change the electoral system could be valid, looks unattainable.

There's solid polling data on this. A big ICM poll by the Yes to Fairer Votes Campaign found that 49% of respondents in areas due to hold elections in May were certain to vote. But only 36% were certain to vote in the referendum - which the government wants to hold alongside those elections. If that was born out by events, the attempt to change the voting system would flounder then and there. Students of history will recall that a failure to meet a threshold was precisely what defeated the Callaghan government's proposals for Scottish devolution in March 1979 - and ultimately led to the fall of that government.

So if this vital part of the Coalition Agreement is to be implemented, the threshold has to be removed from the bill. I gather that it is at least technically possible to attempt this at the next stage of consideration - Third Reading. But it is more likely that the government will simply ask the House of Commons to remove it when it comes to consider the amendments made by their lordships, probably on Monday. There, they expect backing from a huge majority in the Commons - not least because Labour opposed a similar amendment on thresholds from Conservative Bill Cash in the Committee stage there on 2 November last year.

This was what Labour's spokesman Chris Bryant had to say when he debated the issue with Mr Cash:

"I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman about thresholds in referendums because, broadly, they are not a good idea. As these amendments have shown, it is difficult to know whether the threshold should relate to the turnout - the number of people who vote -or the turnout of those who express a preference. In other words, should it leave out or include those who spoiled their ballot paper? Alternatively, should it relate to those who vote yes to change."

But even assuming Labour don't switch sides on this issue (and Mr Bryant did leave himself some wriggle room), the need to reject, rather than simply accept, a Lords amendment takes the bill perilously close to the wire - it has to be signed into law by the Queen by next Wednesday (16 February). Two days margin would normally provide sufficient time for this kind of thing - but I wonder; if the Lords remain obdurate, the bill could bounce between the two Houses for quite a while, and possibly miss that deadline.

Meanwhile, less angst is predicted today as the report stage continues, with the government putting down some compromise changes to provide for public hearings on controversial changes to parliamentary boundaries. (The Coalition side remain distinctly nervous about the possibility that they have just handed Labour a weapon with which they can disrupt the process and prevent new constituency boundaries being in place in time for a 2015 election - while the amendments include safeguards to prevent abuse; but in this fallen world, they sigh, opponents of the changes may find a way.)

But controversy may resume on Wednesday, when the amendment proposed by the Crossbencher Lord Pannick comes to the wicket. He wants to allow a little more leeway in redrawing constituency boundaries in exceptional circumstances. At the moment, the bill insists on no more than 5% variation from the standard size. Lord Pannick proposes allowing 7.5% in exceptional circumstances. Could the result be a host of further arguments about what constitutes exceptional circumstances, complete with applications for judicial review? The result could be another late-night sitting, while the issue is fought out.

Which brings me back to the former Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer. He has made the government's life immensely difficult and he hasn't finished yet. The AV bill has yet to get through, the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill arrives in the Upper House soon, and the long-awaited draft bill on Lords reform is waiting in the wings - all guaranteeing further opportunities for Lord Falconer to make merry. There are murmurings that he is set to eclipse Labour's official leader in the Lords, Lady Royall - but the party leader in most trouble may be the Conservatives' Lord Strathclyde.

The one-vote majority for the threshold amendment last night will not have gone unnoticed, and will doubtless be regarded as a failure of whipping. If the bill does get delayed or wrecked, Lord Strathclyde and his team could end up carrying the can.

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It seems the sticking point in the Lords deadlock over the is how much bigger or smaller than average MPs' constituencies should be.

The bill is supposed to address one of the Conservatives' key grievances over the current electoral system - that Labour seats are often much smaller than Conservative seats - and so Labour are over-represented in the Commons. So they want the constituency map redrawn so that the electorate of most constituencies (there are a few exceptions, Orkney and Shetland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Wight) are kept to within 5% of a standard size - what's known in the trade as the electoral quota.

Labour thinks that is too inflexible and will lead to illogical and even ridiculous constituency boundaries. They have argued for some way of relaxing the 5% rule in exceptional circumstances. And following the precedent by which the other two major conflicts in the bill have been resolved (over some form of public hearing for controversial boundary changes and over whether there should be some independent assessment of how many MPs there should be in the House of Commons) they have asked the Crossbench or independent peers to come up with a proposal.

So far the has come up with two draft amendments setting out what would be considered exceptional circumstances in which greater variation would be permissible. And the government has not accepted either.

So it may well be that the issue has to be fought out in the chamber next week. But if that battle is time consuming, or if Labour peers once again dig their heels in, the bill may not be passed in time to allow the proposed referendum on changing the voting system to be held in May.

Or, alternatively, the government may judge that it has enough support to break with the Lords' long tradition and impose a timetable on the remainder of the bill to force it through by the Monday after next. The whole idea of limiting their debates in this way horrifies almost all peers - they normally revel in their ability to debate at length, but with self-discipline, so that everything they want to examine is examined - but legislation goes through on time. If that tradition were to be scrapped, it would be a huge constitutional change. Life would go on, the earth would not shudder on its axis: but while the immediate effects would be intangible, in the end they would be quite profound. The Lords would process legislation in a different way, and therefore produce different, and possibly worse law. And in the long term, that could matter rather a lot.

UPDATE: Lord Pannick has confirmed that he has put down his amendment - but without government endorsement. Another key vote now looms next week.

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Along with forestry, the price of fuel is exercising rural MPs - and next week, they will have a chance to debate it. Monday sees an Opposition half day debate, with the SNP/Plaid discussing government policy on the cost of fuel. Cue outrage from MPs with (geographically) large constituencies, and calls for some kind of rural rebate.

It follows Education Questions; and is then followed by motions relating to the Standards and Privileges Committee on a couple of mildly interesting topics: the running of all party groups, which can sometimes become Trojan horses for special interests; and the registration of MPs' income from outside employment.

Their lordships will be settling in for another week of...yes, the Parliamentary Voting Bill. But this time, it's report stage and (see blog posts) we could be looking at a resumption of hostilities. The Lords will also be discussing the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill at third reading. This is the bill that puts the Office for Budget Responsibility, the new public finances watchdog, on a statutory footing.

On Monday, too, William Hague will be appearing in front of the , to answer questions about the work of the department - this was supposed to be a fairly teccy session about the impact of new institutions like the National Security Council, but questions about Egypt are certain to come up. And the will be examining the implications of the impending abolition of another financial watchdog, the Audit Commission, for the policing of local councils' finances.

On Tuesday, George Osborne will be answering Treasury Questions, then, after Robert Halfon's Ten Minute Rule Motion proposing that ´óÏó´«Ã½ licence fee payers should have online voting rights on policy issues and on the election of top ´óÏó´«Ã½ folk, the chamber will debate Michael Gove's Education Bill at second reading. This gives schools more autonomy and introduces a "pupil premium" which will provide extra funding for the education of disadvantaged children.

Lords' oral questions include two interesting ones: the gap between rich and poor in the UK (from Lord Smith of Clifton) and opting out of the police and justice provision in the Lisbon Treaty (UKIP's Lord Pearson of Rannoch). Then their lordships will knuckle down to day two of report stage of the Parliamentary Voting Bill.

On committee corridor, there's plenty to watch. The will be talking about the proposed cuts to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency - a subject of much consternation, which Opposition parties are warning could turn into an aquatic version of the fiasco over regionalising the fire service. The will be tackling (tee-hee) the subject of football governance: witnesses include the former chairman of the FA, Lord Triesman. The will be looking at the vexed subject of student visas (having visited colleges in Brighton on Monday); the will be continuing its look at proposed cuts to legal aid and advice services and the will be discussing the counter-terrorism review. And that's just the highlights: Tuesday is a busy day for committee members.

On Wednesday, after PMQs, Tom Blenkinsop will introduce another Ten Minute Rule Motion on former metal mines. Then MPs will debate motions on the Police Grant and Local Government Finance Reports - this is normally a whinge-athon in which MP after MP rises to demand more dosh for their particular path. The Lords will be discussing the Parliamentary Voting Bill again - after oral questions; one of which will be about the Big Society. Will Lord Wei, David Cameron's Big Society guru, who recently announced he was spending more time on paid work, be there?

A good committee to watch should be the . Chair Margaret Hodge will be looking at departmental business plans - not a dry subject when the witnesses for examination include Oliver Letwin, Cabinet Office minister, and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury. It's very unusual for ministers rather than officials to be under the PAC microscope - but delivering the government's financial objectives is a huge and complicated task, so this could be a very revealing session. Another may be the s hearing on the performance of the MoD - especially after the Treasury claimed that it had lost control of its finances.

And on Thursday, after Energy and Climate Change Questions and the Business Statement, the backbench business motion will be relating to voting by prisoners. This debate was secured by the former Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Conservative rebel for all seasons, David Davis - the objective is to "fire a warning shot" against the European Court of Human Rights, whose requirement that the UK concede some prisoner voting has infuriated MPs. Alas, one of the key figures behind the debate, the Conservative international law expert Dominic Raab, won't be present, because he has been unable to reschedule a hip operation.

The Lords will be discussing marriage and marriage support, the future of Nato and a report on radioactive waste management in a day of backbench debates.

And the will be looking at the Parliamentary Voting Bill. "Enough!" I hear you cry? But the committee will be talking to the Electoral Commission and all sorts of light might be shed on timetables, implications and potential traps in the referendum process.

And finally, Friday next week is another private members' bill day. Top of the list is Harriett Baldwin, whose Territorial Extent Bill will get its second reading.

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The peace which broke out in the House of Lords on Monday is beginning to look more like a temporary armistice.

To be sure, the committee stage of the is over, after 17 long days, and exhausted peers are doubtless thankful for that. But they shouldn't pack away their camp beds and spare toothbrushes quite yet. There's still no agreement on timetabling the next part of the bill's parliamentary journey, the report stage, so as to guarantee it clears the Lords next week.

That would allow MPs to process the amendments their lordships have made and send the bill off for the Royal Assent by 16 February. That is the deadline by which the bill must become law if the referendum on changing the voting system, a key part of the Coalition Agreement, is to be held in May.

And that deadline is what makes the Coalition vulnerable.

Labour's price for agreeing a timetable could well be further concessions. Perhaps on reviewing the number of MPs in the Commons, perhaps on the permissible variation in the size of constituencies - or perhaps on other matters, like cutting the number of ministers in proportion to the cut in the size of the Commons.

Lord Strathclyde, the leader of the Lords, feels the government has already made enough concessions - the details are to be published over the weekend - and he is loath to offer any more. Not least because he is worried about encouraging similar "bad behaviour" on future bills. He says the Upper House now stands on a precipice - and if it jumps, by wrecking the government's plans, the result would be a clash with the Commons and ultimately fundamental and far-reaching Lords reform of a kind most peers would hate.

If the government thinks that wrecking tactics are going to be applied to more of its bills, it would have a pretext for such changes. The is coming down the track - and Labour peers look certain to try to change it in a number of ways, notably reducing the lifetime of a parliament from the five years approved in the Commons to four years. Again, they would be striking at a keystone of the Coalition's founding deal.

And then there will be Lords reform and a further bill covering such matters as recall of MPs, more bills that could face serious amendment. This fight is now about much more than this bill. It may be very low key, and decorously polite, but a very serious constitutional clash is under way in that gilded chamber.

* A couple of commentators below disagree with my suggestion that allowing public inquiries (or some form of public hearing) into the boundary changes needed to reduce the number of Commons constituencies could allow a determined Opposition to prevent them taking effect before the 2015 election - if they work hard at gumming up the works. Some Coalition peers are worried that they have opened up a Pandora's box...and a Trojan horse has leapt out. Others, in fairness, are not. I find it hard to believe that the peers who kept talking for so many hours were doing so to secure a modest procedural improvement....and some have said as much over a sherry in the Bishops' Bar. But there was a lot of legal work done last weekend to inject suitable safeguards into the amendment, to prevent such shenanigans, so we shall have to wait and see.

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As MPs await the publication of the latest tranche of their expenses claims - 25,000 or so, from the autumn - the Leader of the Commons, Sir George Young has published his views on the whole system.

His submission to the review being conducted by IPSA, the expenses watchdog, suggests the current scheme, loathed by most MPs, is in serious need of an overhaul.

Here's the key section:

"Although an MP's heavy workload is by no means unique, the pattern of their working life - requiring them to run two separate offices in London and their constituency - is unusual. To carry out these roles effectively, and to ensure that MPs from all backgrounds can provide an equal service to their constituents, MPs need an appropriate, accessible, efficient and cost-effective expenses system.

"This is not a personal benefit for MPs. The system should enable them to meet, among other things, the costs of running a constituency office, of engaging effectively with their constituents, of travelling between their constituency and Westminster (and to carry out constituency duties in different parts of their constituency), and of employing and equipping staff to support them in their Parliamentary work. MPs who represent constituencies outside London also need to meet the cost of spending a significant part of the week away from their main home. In addition to resourcing MPs to enable them to do their job, the system should not be so complex or intrusive as to divert MPs and their staff from their duties, or from seeking reimbursement for legitimate expenditure.

"I believe that the current expenses scheme, as designed, implemented and administered by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, is failing in many respects adequately to support MPs to undertake their responsibilities. There are some highly unsatisfactory features of the scheme that are at best distracting, and at worst impeding, MPs from doing their jobs. In addition, some aspects of the new regime are in danger of deterring people from less affluent backgrounds from becoming - and in some cases remaining - Members of Parliament and are also placing undue pressure on some MPs' family lives. This is unsustainable and it would be unacceptable to the House, if Parliament is to perform the task the country expects."

Sir George underlines his continued support for the principle of independent regulation and transparency - the problem for him and the Commons in general is that if they want an independent watchdog to guarantee their probity to a sceptical cynical public, they can't keep jerking the poor beast's chain, every time they are unhappy, and still expect it to be seen as independent.

Which is why real problems will arise if IPSA doesn't come up with changes which pacify MPs.

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Is the new about to make some serious enemies?

This new-fangled innovation has done pretty well so far, in allocating a chunk of Commons debating time on behalf of ordinary MPs rather than the government or Opposition. It controls 35 days in total, at least 27 of which are in the main chamber, and it has allowed the , and a debate which pushed the government hard on compensation for people who were given contaminated blood. Next week, it will facilitate a vote on the contentious question of whether inmates in UK prisons should have the vote.

It has also attempted to give some shape to the end of term adjournment debates, which had previously been pretty pointless and amorphous affairs.

But some tough questions are looming. The ´óÏó´«Ã½OM, as it's known in the trade, controls the time previously allocated to big set-piece debates like those normally held before EU summits, or the annual Welsh Affairs Debate, or the annual International Women's Day debate. And those last two are coming up soon - the Welsh debate is normally held on or near to St David's Day (1 March), and International Women's Day is 8 March.

This week both the Welsh and the women lobbied for debating time at ´óÏó´«Ã½OM's Tuesday "dragon's den" session. And they won't get an answer till next week.

Both will be pretty peeved to be deprived of their regular debate. "There'll be hell to pay," murmured one Welsh MP. But both seemed surprised at the level of scepticism which greeted their applications - the Conservative ´óÏó´«Ã½OM member Phillip Hollobone was particularly unimpressed by the arguments and suggested that while women MPs were willing to support having the debate, many didn't turn up - a view strongly rejected at the committee hearing by his Conservative colleague Eleanor Laing and Labour's Joan Ruddock.

Equally, some of the ´óÏó´«Ã½OM members clearly thought the Welsh Affairs Debate would need to be more focused, not just a general ramble round any subject to do with Wales. That point has been met by the proponents of the debate, who want a specific discussion on the impact of this blog's old friend, the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill, on representation in Wales.

In December, the committee put a few noses out of joint by relegating (as some would see it) the annual Commons debate on fisheries to Westminster Hall, the Commons parallel chamber, which is the venue for non-contentious debates.

Doing the same to either of these subjects would be almost as upsetting for their backers as having no debate at all - but ´óÏó´«Ã½OM juggles with limited time, and does not want to allocate precious days in the Commons chamber to essentially non-contentious debates. Its members already feel a little bruised by the debate on the work of the Public Accounts Committee in December, which was not particularly well attended, and where the only speakers were current or emeritus members of the PAC. So it increasingly insists on sharp focus and the promise of plenty of MPs who want to speak. But it is a new institution - and if it puts too many noses out of joint it may be a short-lived one.

So far the chair, Labour's Natascha Engel has steered it between the Scylla of blandness and the Charybdis of confrontation. Now she has a new navigational hazard to contend with: the expectations of influential lobbies.

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The Fat Lady's not tuning up in the House of Lords quite yet. Yesterday's compromise vote appears to have eased the deadlock in the Upper House...but it still remains distinctly possible that hostilities could resume.

Thanks to the intervention of the Convenor of the Crossbench peers, Lady D'Souza, the parties have now agreed a timetable to allow the completion of the seemingly endless committee stage of the . Her compromise amendment on one of the key issues - whether or not there could be public inquiries into controversial changes to constituency boundaries - injected sufficient good will into the debate to allow some forward motion.

The committee stage should finish this Wednesday - and the next stage, report, should then take place next week, and the whole bill should be returned to the Commons to allow MPs to debate the amendments made by their lordships, and send the bill off for the royal assent.

This agreement has persuaded Lord Strathclyde, the Leader of the House, to back off from going nuclear and proposing a timetable resolution to force the bill through. That is doubtless a relief for him, because he's a Lords traditionalist and would have hated to even attempt such a dramatic and fundamental change to the conventions of the House.

But it's not all over yet. Labour's Constitutional Affairs Spokesman, the former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, immediately noted that Labour acceptance of a timetable for the report stage of the bill would depend on "further agreement between the parties on substantive issues".

In other words, the filibuster could resume, unless he gets further concessions. Now the Companion, the guide to Lords procedure, does make it clear that report stage debates should not be a rehash of debates already held at committee stage - but since Labour Peers were cunning enough not to push many of their amendments to a vote in committee, it may well be open to them to do so at report. So it could be déjà vu all over again, if Labour isn't happy. Oppositions have very little leverage - but Labour has used the rules brilliantly, and ruthlessly, to fight their corner.

And the D'Souza amendment does present them with a major prize. It may not sound like a very big deal, but conceding public inquiries where there is controversy over the redrawing of constituency boundaries could open the way to legal delaying tactics which could ultimately prevent the new constituencies being in place in time for the next election.

Suppose there is great public resistance to the new shape of the Backbenchshire South constituency, because it would include several wards from a nearby city. The Boundary Commission would have the power to grant a public hearing - but might decide that the controversy was not sufficient to justify one. Could that decision then be challenged at judicial review? And what if similar challenges were made for a couple of hundred seats? The whole system could be bunged up with legal challenges...

Remember, the bill is quite clear that its two components are co-dependent. If the new constituency boundaries are not in place, the next election cannot be held on a new voting system, even if a referendum has been held and has approved a change to the alternative vote. In other words, if Labour delay things enough, they may be able to fight the next elections under the existing constituency boundaries and under the present electoral system. Which would certainly strengthen their prospects of winning.

And despite the vociferous denials, that is what I believe the shenanigans of the last months have really been about.

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