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11.54am BST

In his LBC phone-in Sir Keir Starmer said Judith Cummins, the temporary deputy Speaker who ordered Labour’s Dawn Butler to leave the Commons last week after she called Boris Johnson a liar, was only enforcing the rules. He did not criticise Cummins for what she did, or condemn the rule itself (although he was not pressed on whether it should go). See 11.03am.

But John Bercow, the former Commons Speaker, has gone further. In a joint article for the Times’s Red Box (paywall) with Butler, Bercow said the current situation was “dangerous for democracy”. He and Butler said:

It is high time that the procedure committee envisaged greater scope for MPs who wish to highlight untruthfulness to [call out other MPs for lying]. The glaring weakness of the present system is that someone lying to tens of millions of citizens knows he or she is protected by an ancient rule. They face no sanction at all.

By contrast, an MP with the guts to tell the truth is judged to be in disgrace. It is absurd and people can see that it is absurd. It is unfair and people in the main do not like unfairness, so parliament looks and is weak. That is bad and dangerous for democracy at any time and never more so than when a government has an impregnable majority. Sooner or later, MPs of all parties who care for the truth, who care for our democracy, freedom and rights need to get off their bums and demand change. If we are going to take back control let’s start with doing that in the mother of all parliaments.

11.33am BST

Public transport services are being hit by staff self-isolating, PA Media reports. PA says:

Reduced timetables have been introduced on railways across England in an attempt to improve reliability after a recent spate of last-minute cancellations due to staff shortages. Passengers are being advised to check their train is running before they leave home.

Thameslink and Southern has cut its weekday timetables on five routes “until further notice”, and warned that further changes could be required.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3BEXHcP