I made the mistake of carrying on reading. The next speaker was the Labour MP for Stirling, Anne McGuire. She began:

I congratulate all Members who have delivered their maiden speeches. I was going to say that my contribution would be an older maiden speech, but one of those adjectives would not quite be appropriate. I shall now launch forward while leaving Members to work out the meaning of that remark.

Please send the mind bleach.

• From House of Cards:
  • Charles Henry Collingridge – Margaret Thatcher’s successor, who makes the mistake of leaving Francis Urquhart unpromoted
  • Francis Urquhart – F.U. himself, a ruthless right-wing PM brought brilliantly to life by Ian Richardson
• Maureen Graty – the British PM who appears briefly in the sixth season of The West Wing, played by Pamela Salem – and as far as I know, fact fans, she’s the only actor from either Doctor Who or Blake’s 7 to have appeared in The West Wing
• Michael Phillips – Robert Bathurst’s occupant of Number 10 in the BBC sitcom My Dad’s the Prime Minister
• Tom Davis – second PM (and the first named) in The Thick of It, although he’s not seen on screen
• From the Doctor Who universe:
  • “Jeremy” – the PM during The Green Death – assumed to be former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe
  • “Madam” – there’s a female PM on the phone in Terror of the Zygons – possibly Shirley Williams
  • Joseph Green – MP for Hartley Dale and acting PM in World War Three, although he’s actually Jocrassa Fel Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen in disguise
  • Harriet Jones – Penelope Wilton’s MP for Flydale North, she is Prime Minister in The Christmas Invasion
  • Harold Saxon – John Simm as the Master, perhaps having benefited from the Doctor’s quiet overthrowing of Harriet Jones
  • Brian Green – played by Nicholas Farrell (also of To Play the King), he was PM during Torchwood: Children of Earth
• Kevin Pork – in Whoops Apocalypse, portrayed by Peter Jones
• Ros Pritchard – Jane Horrocks’s eponymous character in The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (which prompted a lot of discussion on Lib Dem Voice)
• From The Pallisers:
  • Joshua Monk – Liberal PM in Trollope’s The Duke’s Children, played by Bryan Pringle
  • The Duke of Omnium – from Trollope’s The Prime Minster, played by Philip Latham
• Michael Stevens – Anthony Head’s PM in Little Britain
• Harry Perkins – the star of A Very British Coup, Ray McAnally’s socialist PM is almost the diametrical opposite of Francis Urquhart (the book was by Chris Mullin, subsequently a Labour MP himself but standing down this year)
• Jim Hacker – last but by no means least, Paul Eddington takes the title role in Yes, Prime Minister, one of the best sitcoms ever made

And here’s a fact I stumbled across while checking the information in this list – the replica House of Commons often seen in TV dramas since the 1980s was built for the ITV adaptation of First Among Equals and is now owned by TV writer Paul Abbott.

Despite our 63 MPs, few constituencies are likely to appear in song lyrics because they contain qualifiers (mainly compass points). So Brent East, Leeds North West, Bristol West, Cardiff Central and Oxford West and Abingdon are unlikely to feature.

I’ve managed to come up with six. Any additions in the comments please.

• Jackie by Scott Walker – Twickenham
• From Rochdale to Ocho Rios by 10cc – Rochdale
• Boston (Ladies of Cambridge) by Vampire Weekend – Cambridge (there must be more that mention Cambridge)
• Winchester by Emmy the Great – Winchester
• Chesterfield King by Jawbreaker – Chesterfield
• Taunton Exhibition by The Bus Station Loonies – Taunton

All right, I got the last couple from Google.

This episode asks whether atheism is just for the middle classes, what’s available on Freeview and whether quack iPhone apps are worth the money (clue: no). My contribution is about Gordon Brown’s keynote speech to the Labour conference – mostly on the content but with a bit about the rapidity of online reaction.

You can listen on The Pod Delusion website or use the player in the sidebar on the left (people from the future: if I’ve redesigned and it’s no longer on the left, sorry). You can also subscribe via iTunes. Win.

Episode 2 is out today and subjects include homeopathy, NHS cuts and the BNP on Question Time. My piece – “if it’s not sung, if it’s spoken, it’s a piece” – is a quick guide to party conference, and in particular Lib Dem conference, for those who’ve never been to one.

Linky linky: Pod Delusion website – podcast RSS feed – iTunes directory

The Telegraph‘s circulation has risen – the main objective for the newspaper, of course – but it hasn’t helped its journalistic reputation by putting what appear to be genuine scoops like the Elliot Morley and Shahid Malik affairs alongside innuendo and prurient invasion of privacy. There are two issues muddled together: those cases where MPs were dishonest, and those cases were MPs took advantage of a flawed system (albeit one which they, en masse, had the power to clean up).

Labour blogger Kerron Cross pleads for us to remember that MPs are human too, as fallible as the rest of us when it comes to making expenses claims. As I’ve said in a comment submitted to his post, I sympathise with that, and some of the claims highlighted by the Telegraph are simply errors – both clerical errors and errors of judgement.

Kerron stands up for Morley, who is accused of pocketing mortgage-related expenses for over a year after his mortgage was paid off:

Take Elliot Morley, one of the most villified individuals this week. One of things most people will tell you is that Elliot is one of the nicest (and most boring) MPs in Parliament. For whatever he is being accused of now, I can’t think of a man less likely to be implicated in a major scandal.

I’m a forgiving sort and am prepared to believe, if this is the outcome of the various inquiries, that Morley really did make a clerical error. The trouble, though, is that the Government of which he was part loves its macho posturing. Say Morley had continued to claim job seeker’s allowance for 18 months after getting a job. Do we think this Government would be satisfied with “Sorry, it was a mistake and I’ve paid the money back”?

I read the news today, oh boy, and it said

Cameron would cut MP numbers

which was like déjà vu all over again. Haven’t the Tories talked about this before?

Ah, yes. Here’s Michael Howard’s pledge from 2004:

The Conservative Party would cut the number of MPs by about one-fifth if they were elected, Tory leader Michael Howard has said.
[...]
The precise number of MPs to go would depend on the result of the Welsh referendum [to scrap the Assembly], but it would probably mean a reduction of around 120 from the current total of 659.

And here’s Cameron’s “new” proposal:

David Cameron would remove more than 60 MPs as part of a Tory plan to make parliament work more efficiently.

Drawing on plans drawn up by Kenneth Clarke, the former chancellor, the Tory leader today pledges to introduce legislation in his first term as prime minister to cut the size of the Commons by 10%. There are currently 646 MPs, a figure that is due to increase to 650 at the next election.

So Cameron – via Kenneth Clarke’s constitutional review – has managed to come up with basically the same policy as before, except significantly less ambitious.

And while we’re playing House of Commons size reduction top trumps, let’s check what Nick Clegg’s position is:

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg is calling for the number of MPs in the House of Commons to be cut by 150.

That’ll be two-and-a-half times more MPs gone than the Tories are offering.

Well you’re in luck!

(Hat-tip.)

1. That the fourth series of <DOCTOR.WHO> will be at least as good as the third; that the second series of The Sarah Jane Adventures will be at least as good as the first; and that the new series of Torchwood will be better than the first (and I’m sure it will).

No, yes and yes. The most recent series of Who had the usual mix of good (Midnight and Turn Left) and not so good episodes (Planet of the Ood, The Doctor’s Daughter), but overall it couldn’t match the third season – but then it had a lot to live up to. SJA put in an excellent second series (although I’m yet to see the finale) and Torchwood was much improved.

2. That the Lib Dems get good results in the London elections and the English and Welsh local elections in May.

There were good local election results, gaining seats, councils and a good share of the vote, despite the predictions that we would fall back. London alas saw us squeezed between the Livingstone and Johnson megaliths.

3. That I’m able to find enough spare time to make some progress on various projects currently sitting on the back burner.

Yes and no. The ones I were thinking about have still largely remained in drawers but a few newer projects have taken shape well.

4. That in the light of its inability to handle personal data securely the Government abandons the illiberal, costly, and technically monstrous identity database.

OK, this was just wishful thinking. But the Government and its agencies have continued to lose personal data all over the shop.

5. That I maintain a reasonable record playing Scrabulous on Facebook and at some point win a game of Settlers of Catan.

Don’t think I managed to win Catan, but my board game playing took a bit of a hit towards the end of the year as I got tied up with various other stuff. And this was the year, of course, where Scrabulous was destroyed by the owners of Scrabble. I’ve done reasonably will in the handful of games I’ve played on the cumbersome Scrabble application but don’t play anywhere near as much as before.

6. That the majority of my commuter trains into London are on time (December’s score: 0%).

In true OCD style, I’ve kept a record of every commuter train into London I’ve caught this year – with Southern spared the indignity of my measuring their evening service. There were positive signs at the end of February and it turns out that I got my wish: 52.5% of my trains left on time. That’s still a pretty poor figure and doesn’t take into account that few of those actually arrived into London Bridge at the scheduled time, but it’s better than a kick in the Travelcard.

7. That a sensible Democrat wins the US Presidency.

I think we can put this one down as a WIN.

8. That I lose some more weight, although ideally not through amputation, decapitation or any sort of wasting disease.

This, on the other hand, remains a work in progress.

But I wanted to draw attention to Twitter’s appearances in Parliament on Thursday, and in particular Jo Swinson’s contribution to the Christmas adjournment debate. As well as being the youngest MP, Jo is one of Parliament’s few twitterers, as she mentions:

I want to talk about the possibility of speeding up Parliament’s entry into the 21st century. I know that the Deputy Leader of the House has taken an interest in online matters. Indeed, I remember that, before his promotion to the Government, he was often seen asking questions in business questions to the Leader of the House about whether we should have more e-tabling of signatures for early-day motions and such like. More and more MPs are now using the internet to connect better with their constituents, and Parliament should also embrace this new technology, whether through social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace, or through interactive forums, encouraging comments on websites, podcasts, video logs—known as v-logs, they are small videos that can be uploaded to sites such as YouTube—or, indeed, a new website launched today called tweetminster.co.uk. It aggregates all the mini-blogs or “twitters” of those MPs who twitter regularly. I declare an interest, as one of the five MPs identified as those who use this service. The others are the hon. Members for Loughborough (Mr. Reed), for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Watson) and for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), and my hon. Friend Lynne Featherstone. This is an example of a way of connecting more immediately with our constituents, and I would encourage other hon. Members to make full use of the advantages that the internet offers, particularly in relation to the younger audience, who would not normally declare a huge interest in politics.

Jo went on to mention two other important issues of parliamentary accessibility: the rules which keep footage of Parliament off YouTube and mySociety’s Free Our Bills campaign, which I have plugged before.

Thanks to mySociety, you can watch Jo’s speech in full right here:

In tracking down Jo’s speech on TheyWorkForYou, I stumbled across two further mentions of Twitter. Thursday in the House of Lords saw Lord Norton’s debate about Parliament’s communication with the public. The first mention of Twitter came from crossbencher the Earl of Erroll, who also mentioned YouTube:

An interesting development is putting stuff about the Lords on YouTube. I was interested to see how we are rated. About 10,000 people have looked at the piece by the Lord Speaker, which is interesting and informative; about 12,000 people have looked at the Youth Parliament which took over the Chamber last summer; but 47,000 people looked at a pop group called the House of Lords, which was next on the list. That tells me that people are attracted by entertainment. If we are to try to get our message across, we shall have to make it quite entertaining and short, sharp and snappy so that people become aware of it.
[...]
The Lords of the Blog come along with more serious pieces. I have looked at that and it is heavier stuff to go through, but it is good. We need some short, sharp things. I think Twitter used very short sentences to track the State Opening of Parliament; for example, “The Queen has just entered the House” and so on. I do not know how many people showed interest in that, but all those little things build up more interest and then some people dig deeper. That is important.

The final word, though, to the second mention of Twitter, from the Lord Greaves:

A lot of noble Lords have talked about modern communication. I very much applaud the Lords of the Blog, the most interesting being the noble Lord, Lord Norton, and my noble friend Lord Tyler, but that is because I am interested in the same sort of things, which is why I am taking part in this debate. I do not go on Facebook or YouTube and I hope that I will never need to. I know that Twitter exists, but that can stay where it is. However, I applaud noble Lords who get involved in such things.