Nearly a third of MPs served in the First World War; 22 died. A new book, Led by Lions, summarises the careers of those who gave their lives. A review of this significant book by Alistair Lexden is attached.

On March 22, the Lords debated the government’s plans for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to be held in London in April.

Controversy has arisen over the impact of the new streamlined welfare payment, universal credit, on the provision of free school meals. Critics say that the number of children in poor families getting a good free meal at school will drop sharply.

Patrick Donner, a Second World War RAF pilot and Tory MP, wrote in his memoirs: “must not the final verdict be that Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill between them saved this country?  Neither statesman would have achieved our salvation without the other”.

Contrary to widespread belief, independent schools have never disdained contact with their counterparts in the state sector. There has never been a “Berlin Wall” between them, as some politicians have alleged.

On March 7, The Times reported that Henry Bolton, recently ousted as UKIP’s leader, has launched his own political party called One Nation.

Many people have said that he did. In a recent interview, reported in The Daily Telegraph on 2 March, his 97-year-old niece, Lady Avon (widow of Anthony Eden), denied that his consumption was out of the ordinary.

Between December 1916 and October 1922 the Conservative Party (known at this period as the Unionist Party) was the largest partner in a coalition government led by Lloyd George. The government fell on 19 October 1922 after a famous meeting of Unionist MPs at the Carlton Club.

Another round of talks about the resumption of devolved government in Northern Ireland collapsed on 14 February.

A few days later a document, setting out the terms of a possible agreement, was leaked to a Northern Ireland journalist.

According to an article in the London Evening Standard on 15 February, support for lowering the voting age to 16 is growing among Conservative MPs, though the government has ruled out any change.