Should MPs have been told about the spending review first?
Is Speaker Bercow going to follow through on his warning?
Last Wednesday in his statement after PMQs Speaker Bercow made it clear that the first place ministers should make announcements was to the house of commons.
Well what’s he going to do about Peter Mandelson’s radio comments this morning that the spending review will be postponed until after the election? Surely this big news on the government’s management of the economy should have come first in a statement to MPs?
What’s a bit tricky here is that the “announcement” came from the minister for everything, Lord Mandelson, who is not even a member of the house of commons.
Is Bercow going to let this one pass or his he going to lay the law down? If he fails to act now on this one then it’s going to be much harder in the future.
This news should have come, anyway, from the chancellor, Alistair Darling as the Standard’s Paul Waugh has pointed out. How long, you wonder, can Darling, who managed to cling onto his job, going to be humiliated in this way?
Maggie Thatcher will tell you that there comes a point when treating your chancellor in such a manner could cause an explosion.