Jack Rankin

My hon. Friend’s point is right, and I thank him for it. We walk through the Division lobbies, directed by the Whips, often having had no time, because of the impossible juggling act, to develop real knowledge of the topic in question or to think through properly the implications. Some of the stuff that leaves this place with a massive majority might have well been written in crayon. Thank God for the other place. Do not remove long-serving public servants and outstanding legislators. Do not pick at the threads of our constitution. The other place is one of the parts of our constitution which works best. We should retain Lords amendment 1 and 8. I talked of a tension, a conflict in my thinking. I have tried to articulate a deeply conservative instinct, but I also feel excitement, as I will explain. My view is that the British state is way off course, dangerously off course. It needs deep and radical change. To take one issue, immigration, almost nothing is now too radical to consider. Whether we look at the asylum system or legal migration, the radical change that the country needs will be of significant scale. None of that will be possible in the Blairite constitutional straitjacket that is at direct odds with our historic constitution.