Paul Seaward

EU demonstrating the value of having a Parliament that needs to be consulted on trade deals, delaying to Trump's frustration the Turnberry deal.

Nobody in the UK government will notice...

On the Althing I am currently reading Independent People (1946) by the Icelandic Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness.

In this week's Scribble Book, #HistParl director @jhdavey.bsky.social takes a literary trip to Iceland, and discusses the importance of Parliament in one of the country's most famous novels.

Read and subscribe via the link below!

A background of opaque tree rings in lilac with the Archives journal cover in the foreground and the LUP and BRA logos on the other side. The journal comprises a lilac and mid blue cover with faded tree rings in the background, with 'ARCHIVES ' written in mid blue at the top in white sans serif text and the caption, 'The journal of the British Records Association' written in blue underneath.

Most read | Archives
‘Caring for Parliament’s archive collections’ by Katerina Laina is part of a new special issue guest edited by @satisfactory20.bsky.social & David Prior.
➡️Browse: bit.ly/ARCH-KL
@britrecs.bsky.social @chuarchives.bsky.social @internetarchiveca.bsky.social @araukie.bsky.social

So many new housing developments boast about their active travel credentials but we rarely see people cycling on our visits. Here's why...

And the Citizens Forum IPSA ran last year similar came back saying the conversation should about staff and support theipsa.org.uk/citizens-for...

Could not agree more with this. Far too much focus on the 'pay' part of MPs' pay and conditions, as I wrote back in 2021:

On a recent visit to the Archivo General de Indias in Seville I came across this box which was used for Royal documents in the 16th century.

I wrote the history of the Parliamentary Archives! Newly published in Archives, Journal of @britrecs.bsky.social along with articles by @dlprior.bsky.social @adrianbrown.bsky.social - check your library for access! liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/toc/archives...

Certainly plenty of problems involved in decline. But given existing pressures on climate and biodiversity the risks of further population growth seem much greater.

I would add: when you come across something new, unusual or perplexing, get your shovel and dig, dig, dig until you can make sense of it. Googling your question with ‘CRS’ at the end is a good place to start. This kind of process helps to answer questions you would never even think to ask.

The true beginning of troubles? The Parliament of Bats, 1426 - The History of Parliament Dr Hannes Kleineke explores the acrimonious 'Parliament of Bats', which first met in Leicester on this day 600 years ago, amidst tensions between two of Henry

🚨 NEW ARTICLE🚨
600 years ago today the aptly named 'Parliament of Bats' met for the first time.

Dr Hannes Kleineke has explored how the underlying tensions gave the Parliament its moniker.

Head and shoulders drawing of a man. He has grey hair. He is wearing a dark jacket, a dark cravat, a white shirt and a grey waistcoat.

The Whig ministry narrowly avoided a defeat in the Commons (by just 8 votes) #OnThisDay 1834 after the Radical MP Daniel Whittle Harvey (pictured) called for an inquiry into the numerous pensions on the civil list: api.parliament.uk/historic-han...

The truth about population decline Arguments about the dangers of falling fertility deserve much closer scrutiny

A sensible response to hysteria about population decline. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Good overview of the workload on staff and MPs, and what the role of the MP is/could/should be.

I prioritise dealing with casework quickly over replying to policy emails because e.g. helping a person access disability support is more important to me...
1/?

The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought Cambridge Core - Global History - The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought

Congrats to @thomasmoynihan.bsky.social on 'The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought'. The first new title of 2026 in @universitypress.cambridge.org series Elements in Historical Theory and Practice is out and available for free download till March 3/26. DOI: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

De-fragmenting casework Rather than seeing casework as individual problem solving by local MPs, it should be seen as fitting into the idea of Parliament as government oversight and scrutiny. The shift we want to see is from MPs personally being a "person-state interface" to MPs being a guarantee that these interfaces exist, and are effective. This is achieved through new institutions, better connections between existing ones, and stronger data. The important role elected British politicians assign to constituency service is a relatively recent development, with time spent in constituencies and working on constituent business increasing substantially since the 1950s. Riddel1 argues that this shift resulted from the post-war expansion of government services, requiring more official mediation between citizens and government, and Gay builds on this to argue privatisation of public services led to a transition "from holding central government to account to holding everyone to account".2 If we see casework as a development of Parliament's wider scrutiny rule, the key problem is that it is fragmented. Sometimes issues bubble up to lead to systematic impact, but in general issues are dealt with by individual offices, and do not contribute to a wider picture of evidence that could inform systematic change. While there are hundreds of MPs and thousands of staff engaged in dealing with casework, this is still insignificant compared to the bureaucracies they check. This is a form of oversight that is most effective as a force that pushes the system to be more responsive, and least effective when putting out a thousand individual fires. What we're seeing in MPs' overloaded offices is a useful democratic fallback taking on too large a load. In this lens, the problem is not with MPs doing casework, but a lack of other specialist institutions supporting this role. As former MP Karen Buck argued, while serving a useful service, MPs' offices are picking up problems that more speci…

Better flows of data and more specialist institutions can help deal with the (real and important!) demand research.mysociety.org/html/wtt-ins...

Casework Crisis: Increase In Constituency Caseload Takes Its Toll The inexorable growth in casework is stopping MPs from fulfilling their other roles. Alice Lilly sifts through the inbox looking for what might be ...

The workload facing MPs and their staff is growing, in ways that aren't visible to the public: casework and the inbox.

For @thehousemag.bsky.social, I delved into what the workload looks like, why it's growing, and what this means for how MPs can balance the different aspects of their role

Remembering David Judge (1950 - 2026). I first met David in 1999. He was such an incredible person, we could do with more Davids in academia. Here is something I wrote when I heard the news last week, published by @psa-parliaments.bsky.social: psaparliaments.org/2026/02/17/r...

The grim message in the ‘rusting’ Arctic rivers The bright orange waterways are a sign that permafrost is thawing rapidly, with potentially hazardous consequences

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

Excited to see Maurits den Hollander’s Court, Credit, and Capital in print with Studies in Legal History at CUP. Court, Credit, and Capital uncovers how Amsterdam’s 17th-century insolvency court transformed insolvency law—from punishment to rehabilitation 1/3

Did the Lobby Misread the Starmer Story? Our political press can be an asset or liability

A great analysis of the dysfunctional lobby system from @markurban.bsky.social
Definitely worth a read ⤵️
open.substack.com/pub/markurba...

It is absolute and utter neglect to let this come this close to the wire just as the US has let most of its overseas broadcasting shutter.

‘The normal should be darkness’: why one Belgian national park is turning off ‘pointless’ streetlights The radical project is an attempt to preserve wildlife in one of Europe’s most light-polluted countries, but can they persuade local people they will still feel safe?

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Tracing the origins of Stradivari’s resonance wood Stradivari’s violins represent the pinnacle of classical instrument making, yet the origins of the wood used to construct their soundboards have long …

If you want a fun science (🧪) article to read this weekend, make it this one: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #Stradivarius #Dendrochronology

'Unobtrusive But Not Unimportant': Representations of Women and Sovereign Power at the New Palace of Westminster, 1841-1870 - The History of Parliament Dr Cara Gathern of UK Parliament Heritage Collections, will be discussing representations of women and sovereign power at the New Palace of Westminster, 1841-1870.

Dr Cara Gathern will be speaking at the next IHR Parliaments, Politics and People seminar on Representations of Women and Sovereign Power at the New Palace of Westminster.

📍 Senate House, London / Online
🗓️Tuesday 17 February 2026
⏱️5:30-6:30pm

Find out more about the paper and how to attend below:

It might. But if it did it wouldn't have much chance of getting through the House of Lords.

concerns the right to sit in the House of Lords, and not the removal of a peerage. But I suspect you're right and it's both a typo and a misreading of EM.

Well, it's conceivable it's a typo for 1725, and conceivable that someone read the EM entry in this way, but in that case (on the impeachment of the Earl of Macclesfield) the motion (and not bill) (1) definitely concerns a specific peer rather than the peers in general, and (2) ....

I was mystified too, but that does seem to be the only plausible answer. It doesn't seem particularly relevant though.