That was a little out of order, Madam Speaker

MADAM SPEAKER has had a busy week. It began with her opening Harrods' summer sale. In the course of the event Mr Mohamed Fayed, the proprietor of the enterprise, presented her with a cheque for the Red Cross. The Speaker's office is keen to emphasise this charitable element in the occasion. Indeed, when someone suggested on the wireless that the Speaker of the House of Commons was not there to open sales in a shop - for that, after all, is what Harrods is, not a government department, or even an ancient monument - a quick telephone call was made to the broadcasters pointing out the Red Cross connection.

I am not sure that this ought to make any difference. It would mean that an event could be turned into a charitable occasion, the attendance of some public figure secured and legitimised, simply by signing a cheque. Madam Speaker adorned the Rugby League Cup Final, and she was not even playing. That was different: a national sporting occasion, not a summer sale. No doubt the sensible solution, according with the spirit of the age, is to privatise the Speakership or, at least, to hand over the office to an outside agency, which would then charge for the Speaker's public appearances.

Returned from Harrods, Miss Boothroyd proceeded to limit drastically the scope of political controversy. It all started when Mr John Patten, answering questions, said he was becoming 'more and more perplexed' about how it was possible for Ms Harriet Harman to sit in the same Shadow Cabinet as Mrs Ann Taylor. The reason for the minister's perplexity, he told the House, was that Ms Harman was sending her son to a grant- maintained (or opted-out) school in September; whereas Mrs Taylor, he said, wanted to abolish these schools.

There the matter rested until Mr Derek Enright raised a point of order. He said that grant-maintained schools were state, not private, schools. Moreover, the lad was to go to the same school as his father had attended.

'Is it not scandalous,' Mr Enright concluded, 'that that sort of . . .'

But he was anticipated by the Speaker, who could evidently contain herself no longer. 'Order,' she said. 'It is totally outrageous that members' children, on whichever side of the House their parents may sit, should be used in politics across the floor of the House.'

On the contrary: it has always seemed to me entirely proper to raise - in the House, in articles or on other occasions - what politicians in practice do about their children's education. It is, I know, possible logically to argue that, while you may have a vision of what the country's educational system ought to be like, you intend to do the best you can for your own children until that vision is substantially realised. Mr Enright did not try to make this case, relying instead on the family connection and the difference between grant- maintained and private schools.

No matter. The truth is that where people send their children has long been recognised as an element in political combat at Westminster. It is no part of Madam Speaker's function to improve the moral tone of the place.

This, unhappily, is the impression she had conveyed 10 minutes before, making a statement on the two MPs discovered by the Sunday Times to be prepared to table a question for pounds 1,000. Indeed, so solemn was her demeanour that most of the newspapers reported that it was she who was referring the matter to the Committee of Privileges. It was a pardonable error. For the procedure is complicated.

The House had traditionally made a fool of itself over breach of privilege. In 1978 the procedure was changed, to erect obstacles in the path of self-important and malignant members such as Sydney Silverman and George Wigg. First there must be a private complaint by a member. Then the Speaker must consider it overnight. If she considers there is a case - in particular whether there has been 'substantial interference' with the functions of the House - she says so publicly on the following day. Rejected complaints remain unpublicised. There is then a debate next day on a motion about whether the matter should go to the committee.

On Wednesday the Leader of the House, Mr Tony Newton, confined himself to more or less formally seconding Labour's Mr Nick Brown. He had proposed in an admirably controlled speech that the affair should go to the committee. After Mr Newton's brief contribution Mr Patrick Cormack sensibly proposed 'that the Question be now put'. Madam Speaker misguidedly said that she was not prepared to accept Mr Cormack's motion. Before 1978 no debate would normally have occurred. There would have been one only if, as sometimes happened, a group of backbenchers wished to prevent the matter from going forward.

In this respect it was a better way of arranging things. The committee's report could be debated after publication, as it can be still, and any proposed penalty rejected. This happened in 1975. A draft report of the Committee on a Wealth Tax was leaked to the Economist. The Committee of Privileges recommended that the journalists concerned should be excluded from the premises for six months. This was a bit like the competition which offered a week's holiday in Merthyr Tydfil as first prize, and two weeks' holiday as second prize. The House voted down the recommendation. On the evidence of Wednesday's debate, there may be an attempt to impose a similar punishment on the Sunday Times.

A speech by Mr Tony Benn apart, it was a lamentable occasion. We cannot blame Miss Boothroyd. We all love a character. It is no accident that the three best known - and, in many respects, the best - Speakers of recent times have retained, even exaggerated, their national or regional characteristics: W S Morrison from Scotland, George Thomas from Wales, Betty Boothroyd from Yorkshire. But the trouble with characters is that after a time they come to play their own part. We have seen this with H D ('Dicky') Bird, the cricket umpire, John McEnroe, the tennis player, Evelyn Waugh, the novelist.

Speakers are not always content to be Speakers. Thomas liked to give the impression that he was in charge of a particularly refractory 5b. Miss Boothroyd oftens seems to be the landlady of the 'Rover's Return'. When she says 'Time's up' after Prime Minister's Questions at 3.30 she might be about to place the dishcloths purposefully over the beer handles.

Long may she prosper] She is, I should guess, one of the most popular public figures in the land. She is perhaps the sole politician who is held in any measure of respect, no doubt because she is seen as someone who tries to keep the other politicians in order. She has made only a few mistakes, such as failing to shut up Mr Michael Mates in the Asil Nadir business. On the other hand, her handling of the Maastricht Bill was virtually faultless, both courageous and correct. I hope she has a nice holiday, and returns in the autumn determined to have a quieter time in the coming parliamentary year.