Spectator's Notebook
Wint many demands for the modernisation of parliamentary procedure and resources 1 sympathise. But I see no merit in the proposals to introduce electronic voting at Westminster, and to permit sick Members to cast their votes while absent. I hope they come to nothing. It was to be expected that such ideas would be put up from the Labour side of the House before this exhausting Finance Bill struggle was over. They have a superficial reasonableness. But the essence of power in this country is that it belongs to those who can muster a majority in the House of Com- mons. It is a sovereign and admirable principle. If we begin to trim and qualify it because of a transient difficulty, then a beautifully clear con- cept will be clouded. The week in which we have been celebrating the 700th anniversary of the first summoning of Parliament by Simon de Montfort is a poor time to contemplate that. We hear much today of power seeping away from Parliament into less publicised corners of Whitehall, but the physical presence of democratic power is still re- quired in the Commons as the absolute founda- tion of government. Members of Parliament should be anxious to preserve that foundation, not to tinker with it.
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