By Paul Goodman MP.
Each week, Prime Minister's Questions begins with a roll of honour - as it will today. The Prime Minister pays tribute to members of our armed forces killed in Afghanistan. The Leader of the Opposition does likewise. So does the Leader of the Liberal Democrats. So may other MPs.
Am I alone in believing that the Commons could improve upon this practice?
I'm not suggesting that our present-day war dead shouldn't be commemorated in the Commons. They should and must be. There are better ways of remembering them - which I'll return to later. But I want to pause for a moment to explain why the Chamber could do better than the present custom.
The roll of honour was introduced by Tony Blair. I don't want to suggest that his motives were entirely self-interested. But the innovation was extremely convenient for him. PMQs is essentially adversarial. The Leader of the Opposition attacks. The Prime Minister defends - and counter-attacks. Everything else tends to be secondary.
It's that little bit harder after the roll of honour has been read for MPs to press the Prime Minister about anything from new Cabinet splits to lost computer discs. Set against men making the ultimate sacrifice for their country, even the most legitimate criticism, undertaken by people who aren't laying their lives on the line, seems somehow petty and tawdry. Which Blair would have known when he introduced the practice.
He'd also have grasped something else. By bringing in the roll-call, he was identifying honouring our dead with the Executive - and with himself - rather than with the legislature as a whole. It's right that the Government, through its Ministers, should commemorate our losses. But Ministers shouldn't own the Commons and its business and procedures. MPs should. It would therefore be appropriate for the legislature itself - which represents the whole country, rather than the Executive, which by its nature can't do so - to take the lead in paying tribute to those who've fallen.
Which brings me to alternatives to the present practice. I've heard two mooted. The first is that the names of the dead should be read during the prayers that precede Commons business each day. The second is that, since prayers take place in private, their names should be read out in public - by the Speaker in the moments between the end of daily prayers and the beginning of daily questions. I've no fixed view: perhaps the two ideas could in some way be combined. Maybe Conservative Home readers have other suggestions. Either way, the Commons could surely honour better those who've lain down their lives for their country.
