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Home Affairs and Justice

It is a particular pleasure to face across the Dispatch Box the Lord High Chancellor, the real Deputy Prime Minister and now, it seems, the acting Home Secretary as well. I have followed the career of the right hon. Gentleman since he was a left-wing firebrand leading the National Union of Students, so it was a particular pleasure to watch him at the heart of the British establishment yesterday, retreating down the steps of the throne in his cloak and tights. I should tell the Lord Chancellor, who was not in a position to hear, that the Prime Minister, watching this scene, turned and said, ““Now this is a constitutional reform of which I do approve.””