Home Secretaries must realise that their function is not to come up with ever more crowd-pleasing legislation, but to make their department function as it should, and as the public expects it to. This is what is required to make the Home Office truly “fit for purpose” once again.. Rural idyllists are once again causing concern. These urban spurners are now moving to the country in such numbers that one almost expects to sight wagon trains beyond Basildon, Bedford and Basingstoke. It’s easy to list the attendant problems: creaking infrastructures, soaring property prices, disadvantaged locals, alienating and alienated incomers destroying the dream they seek. Easy, but not, apparently, showing much power of dissuasion..

Legislation can make a difference – a big difference This month is the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act. Faced, in the early 1950s, with the crisis of air pollution – the Great London Smog of 1952 killed 4,000 people – the Government of the day applied mandatory smokeless zones to towns and cities. Within just three years the use of coal disappeared from our cities and Londoners breathed easy

Today we face an even worse crisis. Climate change isn’t some theoretical concept, it is happening here and now. Cities are massive producers of carbon dioxide, mainly from the energy used in buildings, not traffic. Climate change is now the greatest political imperative facing the planet..

The noise was terrific Everyone was in character The House and all its inhabitants But no one more characteristic than Presco. “My honourable member,” he said, in reply to a friendly question Oh, joy! Roll it around in your mouth. My honourable old cocktail sausage!

He struck a valedictory note by referring more than once to “my contribution over 35 years in the House”. Maybe he’s taking his honourable member back to Prescopolis (or Hull, as we used to call it). In the meantime, he’s running the country!
The Prime Minister belted out some of his greatest hits. “The party opposite voted against it!” Always a crowd-pleaser And “As a result of representations” (an instant classic).

He gives us that last one as the reason for shelving one of his eye-catching initiatives (from the billion-pound restructuring of the country’s police forces to home information packs).The House enjoyed itself enormously, bawling, bellowing and barracking. Presco slurred a Tory for taking money from gambling interests and caused a delirious reaction “Liar!” the Tory kept shouting Uproar Labour yelled back. “It’s very difficult to be fair when there’s so much noise,” the Speaker complained.Cameron had his best PMQs since his first one. He caught out the Prime Minister in a factual error (how he hates being wrong). But the Prime Minister reverted to the courteous character he does best of all.One Tory suggested the PM holiday in Scarborough because people do so often retire there.