The Commons authorities have published the results of yesterday’s election to the new backbench business committee.
This follows last week’s defeat by Natascha Engel of Sir Alan Haselhurst for its chair.
The Parliamentary Labour Party might like to note it as an example of how easy it is to publish the results of elections.
One could hardly have hoped for a clearer contest between the old and the new. 74 year-old Sir Alan was the Chairman of Ways and Means (senior deputy speaker) between 1997 and 2010. In the new Parliament he was obliged, under the new rules, to give way to a Labour MP. Having first entered Parliament in 1970, he has been MP for Saffron Walden since a by-election in 1977. A gent from the shires, polite and well-liked across the House, he is the old guard incarnate. (more…)