Parliament

Abstract

If it is a big day in Parliament you may have to queue to get in, but often you can stroll into the building (where it faces Old Palace Yard), follow the trickle of people to the desk where you ask for a pass, climb some stairs, push open a door and you are in the Strangers’ Gallery of the House of Commons. There is the Minister of This or That with his feet propped up on a table; there is an opposition speaker denouncing him; there are the guardians of our liberties, spread along the benches in varying degrees of attention and inattention. No drama, no verbal fireworks. A routine Bill is making its slow way towards becoming the law of the land.