Order, order... PM’s question time hits 50-year milestone

Some MPs hate it, regarding the 30-minute session as no more than low knockabout comedy which has nothing to do with serious politics.

And Speaker John Bercow regularly has to call the House to order, usually adding the words: “The public hate it.”

But at a time when the main political parties are accused of being largely indistinguishable one from another, this is one of the few occasions when the snarling takes over from the smarming and the great gulf separating political opponents is exposed for all to see.

For many years, MPs had been able to table Commons questions to the Prime Minister but the parliamentary timetable meant that they were rarely “reached”.

MPs instead demanded an arrangement which made it possible to hold the Prime Minister to account at regular intervals.

A report in 1959 recommended two 15-minute slots, one on a Tuesday and the other on a Thursday, be set aside for questions to the Prime Minister and, following a successful pilot experiment on July 18, 1961, the recommendations were put into practice on October 24, 1961.

The first two combatants were Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the Leader of the Labour Opposition Hugh Gaitskell and the early sessions were lively, but no where near as raucous as they are today.

The nature of question time changed radically with the arrival of sound broadcasting to Westminster in the 1970s and television later on.

Opponents of television warned it would give free rein to show-offs to flaunt themselves in front of the cameras. And to an extent this has proved to be the case.

An enormous amount of preparation has to be undergone before each session.

Prime Ministers generally have no foreknowledge of what they may be asked so must be briefed in great detail.

In 1997, Tony Blair as Prime Minister decided to change the system, abandoning the two 15-minute sessions a week for a 30-minute period on a Wednesday.

His aides explained that two sessions involved too much time in preparation.

The weekly clash has left many foreign statement visiting parliament in awe.

President George Bush Senior said after sitting through a session: “I count my blessings for the fact that I don’t have to go into that pit that John Major stands in, nose-to-nose with the Opposition, all yelling at each other.”