2015年经济学人 英国政治 时钟停摆（在线收听）

Politics

Winding down

Over a year before the general election, Parliament is already clocking off

PARLIAMENT feels different from usual. The lobbies and corridors are quieter.

The queues in the canteens are shorter. Records of internet activity in the Palace of Westminster show that monthly visits to YouTube have overtaken those to Parliament's information pages.

Visits to cricket websites are up, too. The division bells still ring in MPs' offices to announce votes and the wood-panelled committee rooms are still busy—but debates tend to be on independent (and sometimes eccentric) initiatives by MPs rather than on government bills.

Each seems to be doing his own thing.

Britain's Parliament normally stands out for its raucous debates, its might and its bustle. Unlike America's Congress, it is not prone to long spells of deadlock; unlike France's National Assembly,

it is not subordinate to a monarch-like president; unlike the German Bundestag, regional legislatures do not dilute its power.

And not long ago it was a whirlwind of activity. In the 2010-12 session the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition passed 42 bills overhauling the national finances and most major public services.

But last year's Queen's Speech introduced just 15 bills, several of them minor.

With seven weeks left in the parliamentary year, MPs have passed only 801 pages of government legislation

(excluding money-raising measures and bills mostly debated in the last session).

Even in the unusually short 2012-13 session they managed more than twice as much.

Thirteen months before the next general election, the legislative motor is spluttering.

Why? “They passed a hell of a lot of legislation in early sessions, much more so than Blair or Thatcher,”

explains Peter Riddell of the Institute for Government.

So the government soon ran out of policies that both sides of the coalition found acceptable.

It is now stuck. Having fixed the parliamentary term at five years, it must sit out the remaining months.

Amid the torpor, minds are turning to the election. “A year ago all the conversations were about policy;

now it is positioning and campaigning,” observes one MP.

Those with swing seats, particularly Lib Dems who need to overcome their party's poor polling, are using the quiet time to woo constituents.

Some spend as little as a day a week in Westminster.

Other MPs are away from Parliament for different reasons. For those with comfortable majorities, foreign junkets and media careers beckon.

“I've never had more time to write,”chuckles one. So occupied are some MPs with their second jobs that Andrew Lansley,

the leader of the House of Commons, is said to have reminded them that their first duty is to their voters.

Scottish MPs have a less cushy distraction: canvassing voters ahead of the referendum on independence, which will take place in September.

Those left in Westminster spend their time on three main things. One is scrutiny.

Since 2010 select committees have been elected by MPs rather than by party bosses. That has enlivened them.

They are busy holding the government to account and, in the case of the Consolidation Bills committee, tidying up outdated legislation.

One recent victim was a series of 19th-century laws governing the railways in Imperial India.

“The romantic in me was rather sad to see them go,” says Robert Buckland, one of its members.

Others pursue idiosyncratic political campaigns. Peter Bone, an outspoken Tory,

is trying to rename the August Bank Holiday after Margaret Thatcher.

Other campaigns concern bread-and-butter matters like household bills and consumer rights.

Robert Halfon, the Conservative MP for Harlow, a blue-collar town in Essex, is especially prolific.

His Additional Charges for Utility Bills Not Paid by Direct Debit (Limits) Bill awaits its second reading.

In the lobbies and tearooms these campaigning MPs seek their colleagues' support for such private members' bills,

Early Day Motions (short written declarations) and backbench debates.

Other parliamentarians are busy agitating within their parties.

Pressure groups of MPs are becoming more vocal, and new ones like Renewal

(a campaign for working-class Conservatism) and One Nation (a gang of young Labour MPs) have sprung up.

Some of these publish reports and papers, others host guest speakers.

“Every five minutes there is another bloody supper club,” groans one MP in a marginal seat.

These gatherings mostly serve as networking opportunities.

More troublingly, for party leaders, they are also perfect places for idle hands to make trouble:

for leadership pretenders to peacock and for disgruntled MPs to plot and scheme.

Tory backbenchers have taken to gathering signatures on letters grousing about government policy.

The depth of Westminster's legislative lull may be unusual, but it is not entirely new.

In the 1850s the Spectator, a news magazine, reported that Parliament was so quiet “you may hear a bill drop.”

In the 18th century MPs could talk for as long as they liked—and often did—as their colleagues ate oranges and cracked nuts.

Something for MPs to ponder, in between doing not very much.