Andy McSmith's Diary: Quiet by-election reconnects family with the Lords

26 people participated in the vote that saw Patrick Lawrence enter the House of Lords

Lord Chief Justice Alfred Lawrence pictured here in 1922. It is his great grandson, Patrick, who is the newest member of the House of Lords (Rex)

I don’t know how it happened, but I completely missed a by-election contest whose result was declared last week.

It came about because Viscount Montgomery, the 87-year-old son of the victor of Alamein, retired from the House of Lords, creating a vacancy which, by law, had to be filled through an election in which only the holders of hereditary titles could stand or vote.

Three candidates stood, 26 votes were cast, and the winner was Patrick Lawrence, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey. The Trevethin part of the family peerage came about through a political stitch up by David Lloyd George, who wanted one of his ministers to be Lord Chief Justice, but not straight away because he was needed in the Commons.

So a 77-year-old Welsh judge named Alfred Lawrence was given the job and became a hereditary peer, but had to furnish Lloyd George with an undated letter of resignation. The story goes that one morning in April 1922, he opened a newspaper and learnt that he had resigned. It is his great grandson who is the newest member of the House of Lords.

A fragment of the story

The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments exists to prevent the kind of sleaze or corruption that might arise if minister, adviser or senior civil servant were allowed to set government policy one day and on the next go to work for a private company that has benefitted from that policy. To give us confidence that nothing fishy is happening, its minutes and decisions are published on the web. There is a section from the recently posted minutes of the committee’s June meeting which begins “Two particularly difficult cases have come before the Committee recently.”

Frustratingly, every other detail is redacted. I wonder what those two cases are.

Wittering matters

Peter Bone, an eccentric Tory backbencher, put a question to the Defence minister Philip Dunne during a Commons debate on Friday which bears reproducing in full. He said: “I have not heard most of the minister’s speech because it has gone on for more than one hour and 20 minutes, but the thrust of it is that the Bill is a waste of time because what it proposes is already happening, and we do not want to take up valuable parliamentary time. If we do not want to take up valuable parliamentary time, why is he still wittering on?”

Mr Dunne wittered on for another quarter of an hour.

Dorries inspired by Clarke

The Tory MP Nadine Dorries was not impressed by the weekend television performances of those old Tory war horses, Lord Heseltine and Kenneth Clarke. “Ken Clarke and Michael Heseltine. You couldn’t make them up,” she tweeted. “They are the reason I once tore up a newspaper and decided to become an MP.”

Setting Dorries on the path to Parliament is a heavy thing to sit on anyone’s conscience.

Supporter fails to listen

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have insisted they are not going to wage a campaign to remove Labour MPs who do not share their views, but has that message got through to their supporters? Labour Party members in Darlington have been surprised to receive an anonymous email about their Blairite MP, Jenny Chapman, which asks “Is Jenny Chapman too right wing for Darlington?” Among other questions it asks why she does not use the word “socialism” when speaking in Parliament. She told The Northern Echo: “I’m happy to answer the questions in the email but found it strange that anyone would feel the need to organise perfectly reasonable questions anonymously.”