LONDON, Jan 25: The venerable British house of lords all red leather and powdered wigs - finds its peculiar customs facing change under moderniser Tony Blair.The less-pompous House of Commons has so far escaped the attentions of the Prime Minister's reforms, but some think it too needs an update, particularly the young newly-elected greenhorns and the uncommonly well-represented Labour women -- Blair's babes as they have fetchingly been dubbed by the Press.
The days when Parliament was organized like a gentlemen's club are over, is their cry. But are they?
Member of Parliament Richard Allan could hardly believe his eyes when he discovered that in this high-tech age, people were still being employed as message carriers when a pager would have done the trick far more simply and efficiently. It is the last place in the United Kingdom where they use people instead of machines, said the 31-year-old liberal MP from Sheffield.
Allan is next to Claire Ward, 25, the labour MP for Watford, and Graham Brady,
30, a Conservative, the youngest member of the new Parliament which was elected last May 1.
With 250 other newly-elected MPs, they hope within the framework of a modernizing committee to change some of the old ways of Parliament, including cutting out some of the talk. ``You waste so much time here,'' said Allan. People are waffling on for 20 minutes about what they could say in five. And in any case, you really don't talk about politics in this place, just what the constituency likes to hear.''
Late in the evening when MPs want to relax over a drink and perhaps start some real debate, they find that old-fashioned club rules dictate that they have to be invited by the most senior member of the bar. ``We ignore it (the rule), that is one way of bringing change,''said Allan.
Claire Wood, who at 24 was already mayor of a small town, was fed up with being treated in a patronising fashion by her male colleagues. Like other newcomers, she found Westminster to be crassly male-dominated.
These are complaints
that the hard-boiled Speaker of Parliament, Betty Boothroyd, is apt to dismiss as over-sensitivity by inexperienced novices on the political scene.
But the women's organization Fawcett in a report eight months after the elections, highlighted the frustrations and feelings of rejection being experienced by the new women MPs.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
