FOR as long as most of us can remember it has been a lapdog. But now the rallying cry is for Parliament to be more “more bulldog, less poodle.”

In the wake of the expenses scandal over the summer and the fact that it exposed how inadequate our creaking system is, the Conservatives have announced a series of possible reforms to parliamentary practice and procedure.

These include scrapping the “automatic guillotining” of government Bills under which debate is cut short; making select committees more powerful and giving backbench MPs (‘lobby fodder’ according to some) more of a say over what happens in House of Commons.

While some of the archaic ways of Parliament are long overdue for an overhaul, all the procedural changes in the world will not restore faith in the institution until the public can be sure that MPs are more truly concerned with discharging their duties to their constituents and to the nation, rather being concerned solely with furthering their careers and lining their pockets.

As if nervous flyers didn’t have enough to worry about. Now we read that exhausted pilots are putting lives at risk and that the pilots and cabin crew brawled at 30,000 feet.

Looks like those who run courses aimed at giving passengers the confidence to get on a plane, really will have their work cut out in future. A good way to cut carbon emissions though. Scare people out of the sky.