Parliament has handed away too many of its powers in recent years and the behaviour of too many of its members have brought it into disrepute, but today it did the right thing in standing up for the rights of Gurkhas. To my mind, any Gurkha who served should have the right to live here if they so choose.
Watching PMQs today, you sensed that the House was girding itself to assert its authority. The tell-tale sign was the near silence from the Labour side as Gordon Brown attempted to defend the indefensible. His emphasis on how the country could not afford to allow the Gurkhas, people who had been prepared to put their lives on the line for this country, to settle here particularly grated.
One really does wonder about Brown’s political antennae that he didn’t see what an absolute PR and political disaster these mean-spirited proposals were going to be for the government.
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