In March 1924, the first Labour Government was in office. Winston Churchill, then a Liberal, had been defeated at the last two general elections. He was desperate to find a way of getting back into the House of Commons.
Between 1967 and 2000 - when homosexuality was no longer a criminal offence in civilian life - some 20,000 gay people were thrown out of the Armed Forces because of their sexuality under discriminatory rules in the services to which they were subject.
The Tory Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour, is remembered above all for the famous Declaration he made as Foreign Secretary in 1917 supporting the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
On 11 March, Alistair Lexden continued his long campaign to get the Home Office to put an end to the injustice that has been done to the reputation of Ted Heath because of the way allegations of child sex abuse made against him were handled.
“We are not amused”, Queen Victoria is supposed to have said (there is no evidence that she ever did). However, a smile might have been brought to her lips if protesters in Glasgow, who put jam on a bust of her in early March, had known what she liked to eat.
An oral Question in the Lords on 29 February drew attention to the higher costs that small charities will face because of the impending increase in the national minimum wage.
On 27 January, the Lords held a general debate on Northern Ireland. It took place on what is known as an Humble Address to the King, a procedure through which the views of Parliament on a particular subject are communicated to the Monarch.
Everyone has heard of the Profumo scandal which did such damage to Harold Macmillan’s Government in 1963. It is often forgotten that his Government had been rocked the previous year by a serious spy scandal.
A Lords cross-party select committee, of which Alistair Lexden was a member, spent several months last year looking in detail at the way pupils between the ages of 11 and 16 are being taught in schools.
