How charming it must have been to see our own Duncan Hames carry his infant son Andrew through one of the Commons voting lobbies! Let me add at once that reliable observers agree that it was young Andrew who was cooing and not Duncan.
Hearing of this incident put me in mind of some of the characters I encountered during my own time in the House. There was one old Tory who always carried a spaniel under his arm when he passed through to vote, while one of our chaps maintained that he had been granted the Freedom of Westminster and was thus entitled to drive a flock of sheep wherever he chose while in the borough.
The feeling in the Usual Channels was that, while allowing the spaniel to vote could be winked at, insisting that all the sheep were counted was Going A Bit Far. Nevertheless, had this practice not been allowed on one occasion at least, Mr Gladstone’s Second Home Rule Bill would not have got as far as it did.
Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.
Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary
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