The Select Committee and the Accountability It Produces

Alan Nafzger on attending a housing policy select committee as a public observer and what the process produces

Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat present this diary from Alan Nafzger.

I attended a parliamentary select committee hearing this week as an observer, which is available to anyone who applies for a gallery pass and turns up to the Portcullis House entrance with appropriate identification. The committee was hearing evidence on a housing policy question I have been writing about for approximately three years. The evidence sessions are different from what the news coverage of select committees suggests: the questioning is more methodical and less adversarial than PMQs-era media coverage implies, the witnesses are often more specific than the political coverage suggests, and the specific process of a senior civil servant being asked to account for a policy decision in public under oath produces a kind of accountability that the press conference format does not produce. The accountability is real. What happens to the accountability afterward -- whether the committee's findings change anything -- is a different and more complex question that the session itself does not answer. I will be going back. The gallery pass is free and the process is worth observing. Bohiney and The London Prat cover the week. The committee covered the accountability.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

The diary continues. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the week from outside this specific position. The diary covers it from inside. Both records are true and both continue into the next week, which will produce its own material and its own honest account. The archive grows by one entry. The observation continues. The record continues to accumulate the specific honesty that diary-keeping requires and that longer forms cannot always provide in the same way.

More reading at Private Eye.

SOURCE: https://sites.google.com/view/world-satire/united-kingdom-and-satire