The Hindu : 'Nocturnals' disoriented

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 11, 2003

International

International

'Nocturnals' disoriented

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JAN. 10. While Indian MPs hate late sittings of Parliament, and must be given dinner on the house to induce them to stay, their British counterparts are nocturnal creatures who think they perform best after a good supper and a couple of drinks.

But now they are being forced to change old habits thanks to the introduction, this week, of ``family-friendly'' hours for the Commons which would now sit from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. three days a week with committee meetings starting even earlier. No wonder, MPs who have been used to straggling into the House at 2.30 p.m. after a late lunch and a ``bottle or two of claret'', to quote The Times, are upset.

For one, they hate being dragged out of the bed early in the morning. Their body clock is ``all wrong'' for the new timetable, according to Austin Mitchell of Labour Party. ``I'm a nocturnal creature, not a morning man,'' he protests and having to chair a committee meeting when, in more ``normal'' days, he would have been still in bed reduces him to ``sobbing''.

Worse for these MPs is sitting through dreary speeches when their body clocks tells them that they should have been in the bar scanning the wine list, and ticking the menu. Missing from their new ``menu'', as one MP admitted, is: ``eating, drinking, gossiping and plotting''.

And on the first day — on Tuesday — the strain clearly showed as disoriented MPs went through the motions on empty stomachs and parched throats. ``Even Tony Blair seemed a trifle fazed by the timeshift,'' one parliamentary sketch writer reported after watching the Prime Minister's performance at his first Question Hour under the new regime.

What the ``nocturnal'' beasts dread the most is: what to do after 7 p.m.? For those used to staying in Parliament until at least 10 p.m., it is rather unsettling to be out on the streets at 7 p.m. ``Suddenly, MPs are meant to get a life, go out in the evening and — as the saying goes — spend more time with our families,'' a Tory MP, David Cameron wrote in The Guardian, horrified at the ``prospect of 650 parliamentarians suddenly released, like prisoners...tramping the streets of London...''

And, all this because the Government wants to ``modernise'' Parliamentary practices and bring MPs out into the real world where people are out of their beds at seven, and back home at seven to watch the telly. The man behind the change is Robin Cook, Leader of the Commons, better known in India as the former Foreign Secretary who wanted to ``interfere'' in Kashmir.

Mondays, however, remain unchanged and MPs are determined not to let go of it.

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'Nocturnals' disoriented