Lord Bonkers' Diary: Too many knights

The new Liberator is with subscribers, so it is time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Monday

“Is it true,” one of my companions asks over the Smithson & Greaves Northern Bitter, “that there are as many knights among Liberal Democrat MPs as there are women?”

“I am afraid so,” I reply. “Their spurs and lances keep striking sparks from the stone and the Serjeant-at-Arms says they are a fire hazard.”

There are those who regard women as the weaker sex and hold that they have no place in the rough and tumble of Westminster: I suspect they have never met the barmaid at the Bonkers’ Arms. For myself, I believe we should have more women in the Commons, though I have suggested to Jenny Willott and Tessa Munt that it would be more picturesque if they more those pointy hats with the veils as an interim measure.

As to this practice of giving every unlucky or incompetent former minister a knighthood… isn’t that what life peerages are for?

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South-West 1906-10.