Bitten By The Black Dog

Don't let the bastards get you down, that's what I keep telling myself. But sometimes it's hard to hear even yourself speaking when the bastards are shouting so loud. And then I go for a run and the bloody calf muscle goes again. First time in an age but monster dispiriting.

The crown in parliament is sovereign, at least that's what they were still teaching back in the late seventies, albeit with the odd sage nod towards the trojan horse that was the European Communities Act. Wedgwood Benn (sorry Tony Benn) and that arch loon Enoch Powell, both had interesting and prescient things to say about that. All of which came to mind in the furore surrounding the eventual resignation this week of Maria Miller. I say this because I detect an unthinking acquiescence to the idea that MPs' expenses should be an issue beyond the control of parliament. It is a piss poor show when our legislators think so little of themselves that they should surrender sovereignty to faceless administrators. Particularly when the head honcho administrator is one of the very academics who were lecturing me all those years ago. Not that it matters but I didn't rate Ian Kennedy - I seem to have been in a minority of one on that score however so I suspect I may very well have been wrong. Such is life.