The recent 50th anniversary of Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ speech brought out his critics in force.

Nearly 90 temporary civil servants, known as Special Advisers, work directly for government ministers, assisting them with the party political aspects of their work.

On 24 April, Dame Millicent Fawcett, leader of the highly successful, law-abiding women’s suffragist campaign, became the first woman to be commemorated by a statue in Parliament Square.

On 30 April 1958, Harold Macmillan’s Bill to create peers for life became law. Alistair Lexden marked the 60th anniversary of this major constitutional reform by publishing an account of the Bill, and what was said about it at the time, in Parliament’s House Magazine.

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At the House of Lords on 18 April, Alistair Lexden, President of the Council for Independent Education(CIFE), and its Chairman, Sally Powell—shown together here —presented awards to 41 British and international students from the Council’s member colleges who achieved outstanding A-level and GCSE

Grave damage has been done, quite disgracefully, to the reputation of Ted Heath by Operation Conifer, the name given to the investigation by Wiltshire police of allegations of child sex abuse against the former Tory Prime Minister.

This article stems from a lecture which I gave at the Carlton Club in March. I have for long been deeply interested in the career of Neville Chamberlain, the man who founded the Conservative Research Department where I spent much of my career.

On 4 April, a report in The Daily Telegraph referred to a scheme being considered by the Victoria and Albert Museum under which Ethiopia would be allowed to loan some of the historic items brought from that country (then known as Abyssinia) 150 years ago after its defeat by British forces.

The Easter Act 1928 provides that Easter Day would always occur between 9 and 15 April, putting an end to the wide fluctuations in the date between late March and late April. There would be no more “early Easters”, of which this year provides an example.

On 27 March, the Lords debated and passed three Northern Ireland Bills which would have been dealt with by the devolved Northern Ireland Assembly if it had been sitting.  Fifteen months have now passed since it last met and transacted business.