Time to leave Waziristan, at least temporarily (and yes, since you ask, I do know where it is). Here are a few links of interest.
The House of Lords has published a report on Codecision and national parliamentary scrutiny and full of interesting things it is, too. Before I write about it in detail I wish to call attention to a couple of extremely useful if bewildering flow-charts. The first shows the process of Codecision (between the Council and the European Parliament). That is, let us not forget, the process whereby legislation that is legally binding for this country is agreed on.
The second shows the complications of trying to get information to conduct a scrutiny of the process. Scrutiny is not legislation; all it does, if the procedure is properly adhered to, which it very rarely is, is to turn Parliament into another lobbying group. They are both worth close study.
In the meantime, the news is that members of the Toy Parliament will be losing their automatic right to a photographic pass in the Westminster Parliament, the institution they have done so much damage to. That is not why they are losing that right; the reason is that nobody had told Harriet Harman and her chums that you cannot take passes away from one group of MEPs unless you do it to all. Developments on this score should be interesting.
