Here’s a terrific piece (that I should have linked to earlier) from the London Times by Danny Finkelstein about a new piece of legislation being proposed by the ever more authoritarian Blair: “The extraordinary Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, currently before the House, gives ministers power to amend, repeal or replace any legislation simply by making an order and without having to bring a Bill before Parliament. The House of Lords Constitution Committee says the Bill is “of first-class constitutional significance” and fears that it could “markedly alter the respective and long standing roles of minister and Parliament in the legislative process”. There are a few restrictions — orders can’t be used to introduce new taxes, for instance — but most of the limitations on their use are fuzzy and subjective. One of the “safeguards” in the Bill is that an order can impose a burden only “proportionate to the benefit expected to be gained”. And who gets to judge whether it is proportionate? Why, the minister of course. The early signs are not good. Having undertaken initially not to use orders for controversial laws, the Government has already started talking about abstaining from their use when the matter at hand is “highly” controversial.”

As it happens, I’m currently reading a fascinating biography of Blair’s most notorious spin doctor by Peter Oborne (the political editor of the London Spectator) and Simon Walters, and, in the light of Finkelstein’s warnings, this passage seems curiously appropriate: “It became clear that [Blair] had no appetite for the institutions of constitutional democracy which have sustained British government for the last three hundred years. His contempt for the House of Commons, for its irritating insistence on discussion and debate, for the way it demeaned the authority of the prime minister by opening him up to criticism and public question was immediately obvious [in the aftermath of Labour’s 1997 election victory]…Not one of the tiny clique of advisers huddled around Tony Blair is a parliamentarian. One very senior official close to Downing Street says: “Basically, in Number 10 Downing Street there is a complete contempt for parliament and that attitude permeates the whole government.”

All too true, I fear. The sooner this dismal and disreputable figure is shown the door the better.