THE CIRCUS COMES TO TOWN..

Roll up, roll up!!   This afternoon we will have the most alluring three ringed circus ever assembled as the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee along with that for Culture, Media and Sport  presents not only the Metropolitan Police, not only News International but also mainly themselves as star performers to entertain an entranced public in the ongoing saga surrounding the phone hacking scandal.

These events will once again feature Keith Vaz, the Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, once of Hinduja Brothers fame, renowned for his burgeoning MPs expenses and himself suspended more than once from the Commons for being `unhelpful` to inquiries being conducted at the time into the conduct of MPs by the much missed Elizabeth Filkin.   And heaping delicious irony onto delicious irony,  the former Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was yesterday appointed  to recommend changes to links between the media and the police, including how to `extend transparency.`

But to spare just a brief moment for other news, thousands are still starving in Africa, western economies are on the brink of meltdown and lives continue to be lost in Afghanistan.  Now you might think that one, if not all, of these and other issues would present a good enough reason for Parliament to be recalled tomorrow but no, it will be the issue of phone hacking and all its consituent parts that will give rise to that rare event.   So our elected representatives will be denied at least a day of their summer recess which, with the possible exception of a week in September, will see Parliament vacant for about the next three months.

Never mind running the country, this doesn`t strike me as any way to run a railroad.