Robert Buckland Weblog

It has been a topsy turvy few days, due mainly to a sudden crisis involving my mother-in-law, a fall at home and the need for Sian to be on hand to care for both her parents since late on Saturday night.  I write this awaiting her late return from a few days spent sorting out how they are to be cared for at this difficult time.  A trip to the Circus yesterday with Millie and George did much to raise our spirits, and I must say that George’s Father’s Day offering of toast on Sunday morning was a true champagne moment.   The Circus was rather good.  We particularly enjoyed seeing three motorbike riders battle it out within the confines of a steel globe.  Even the clowns were funny.

I had spent much of Saturday being briefed at Conservative HQ about Project Umubano, of which you shall hear more in the weeks ahead.  In a nutshell, I will be going to Rwanda late next month to help run a Justice project with a group of lawyers.  This project, which is being run by the Conservative Party, will involve about 100 people in a range of different projects.  The approach is to ask what is wanted, rather than to provide what we think is necessary.  Already, a range of requests on matters legal has been received; I think that we can provide some positive answers.

I received some immunisation boosters and a lot of useful information about how this country that is the size of Wales and that suffered so much in the mid 1990s is trying to move on. 

The Commons is trying to move on from what will be regarded as a very dark period in its history with the election of John Bercow as its 157th Speaker.   Mr. Speaker Bercow and I have crossed paths on a few occasions in the past.  I well remember him coming to the Durham Union as one of my guest Judges for an intervarsity debate we hosted in the week that the Berlin Wall came down some twenty years ago.  We were fellow Parliamentary candidates in the late 1990s, he for the safe Tory berth of Buckingham, me for the precarious and ultimately unsafe foothold of Preseli Pembrokeshire.  One of his children has special needs very similar to those of my daughter, so unlike many other members of my party, I immediately understood why he agreed to work with the present Government in the preparation of a report about speech and language therapy for our youngsters.   

My advice, for what it is worth, is that Mr. Speaker Bercow avoids eyecatching iconoclasm and concentrates on the unglamorous details that need to be addressed if the way of working in the Commons is to improve.  Much of what needs to be done is within the hands of the Government, but I suspect that this Speaker will look carefully at the examples of other presiding officers in other Parliaments and assemblies and seek to assert independence from the Executive in a more public way.   His first ten months will, of course, be vital, because his re-election by a vastly different new House of Commons is far from being assured.  If he performs in a sure-footed and dynamic way, then he will do much to ensure that his tenure will be extended well into the next decade.

Finally, I would like to share with you a short poem that I was told about by an Eldene resident last week.  It was written by Arthur Kudner.  I have never heard of him, but this is a salutary warning to lawyers and politicians everywhere:

“Never fear big words

Big long words name little things

All big things have little names

Such as dawn, day, night, hope, love, home

It is hard to do

But they say what you mean

When you don’t know what you mean -

Use big words

They often fool little people”