The Record Review

Coalition under scrutiny

MPs and peers are making for the seaside - more than one month off to take stock of the performance of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government.

It is Britain's first peace-time Coalition in 70 years.

Keith Macdougall spoke to three experts on how well it's doing, and, critically, how long it can stay together.

He was joined in the studio by:

• Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of Government at Brasenose College, Oxford,

• Matt Gokhool, Chief Executive of the Centre for Parliamentary Studies

• Peter Harlock, Chief executive of the pollsters ComRes.

Backbench committee takes action

Power to the backbenches

In the new political era, Parliament is a slightly different beast.

The Government no longer has total control over all the Commons timetable, and instead a committee of backbench MPs can decide what gets debated when.

The first debate organised by this business committee was about the long-running complaint that Governments prefer to speak first to journalists and second to Parliament.

After the debate, the Record Review's Jonathan Willis spoke to backbench committee member Alison Seabeck to see how she thought the debate went.

The new breed of MPs

New talent

A third of the Commons is new, or at least was new when the House re-convened after the General Election.

Nearly all of the new MPs have spoken at least once and some of them lots of times.

So, two and half months on, which of the new MPs have been impressing the Westminster watchers?

The BBC's Parliamentary correspondent Sean Curran has been casting a knowing eye over the new crop of talent.

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