The Sketch: When it comes to this Bill, we'll all be Bleared

"Madam Speaker," the Home Secretary addressed the chair in a moment of rare Commons pleasure. What had been going on in Charles Clarke's head? The previous speaker - but not the Speaker - had been Gwynneth Dunwoody. In the election gone by, she had stood as candidate (and obvious first choice) for Speaker. Did the minister's faux pas reveal a glimpse of that election and how he wanted it to have turned out. Was it a delicious Freudian slip?

But, just to put a word in on the old booby's part, he's not nearly as bad as he used to be. Michael Martin has stamped his authority on the House. He is popular among the MPs. And he does occasionally stop ministerial blether (though we were only at question four, half way through the Home Office hour). Having said that, he does little to actively promote the Commons at the expense of the executive, he goes through his gently-bred staff at an alarming rate, and he isn't up to the job intellectually. His natural position is that of a dormouse in a teapot presiding over, or sleeping through, a Hatter's tea party. Is that enough abuse for the start of the week?

Ms Dunwoody had been voicing her doubts about the massive police reorganisation they're planning. She's not alone, doubting. Her colleague David Taylor stood up and both of them landed a very satisfying pop on the ministerial snout (we'll come to that). New Nick Herbert for the Tories claimed that the cost of centralising and amalgamating and rationalising and economising was half a billion quid and that the minister had only allocated £125m.

Hazel bleared. She entirely rejected this. She was absolutely determined that. It was totally imperative. The accuracy, the rigour. And as for the reprioritising. Yes, the independent analysts who were helping them reprioritise were benefit the costs more accurately and rigorously because that's what voters were demanding. It was unblearable.

Practically in the midst of this, David Taylor declared an interest to the House. He was a member of this independent evaluation body that had just been bleared from the front bench. He said that, in his opinion, the costs of reorganisation were vast, the savings were insignificant and that the minister was talking five parts drivel to one part rubble. He phrased it more carefully but his meaning was clear. In response, he was bleared. She bleared him good and proper. Don't feel too comfortable, we'll all be bleared, in due course.

Over to the Lords for five seconds where they were debating the costs of the identity card scheme. They still want it, you know. Mockery, satire, rational argument - nothing has worked. These people can't run a sex offenders' register with just 30,000 people. How will they manage the boiling profusion of 40 million British citizens? Blearily, is the answer.

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