The case for the prosecution goes something like this. Tony Blair himself was not a ‘House of Commons man’. He was rarely seen there during his premiership, participating in just 8% of parliamentary votes between 1997 and 2007, a record low for any Prime Minister. He also had little understanding of, or respect for, the traditions of parliament – and would blithely demolish those practices he found inconvenient. One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to change, without any consultation, Prime Minister's Questions from two sessions a week to just a single session, thus reducing the ability of the Commons to hold him to account.

The government then carried out a string of other reforms, under the guise of ‘modernisation’, which yet further limited parliamentary scrutiny. Driven through by the newly established Committee on Modernisation – a committee which was, extraordinarily, chaired by a member of the cabinet – these reforms included restricting debate through the use of programming motions (effectively a regularised use of the guillotine) and a series of other procedural changes which made it harder for MPs to challenge the executive.

Matters were made worse by the behaviour of Labour MPs, who were especially acquiescent, failing in their duty to challenge the government. As well as sheep (a routine comparison), they were frequently compared to poodles, clones, robots and – most bizarrely of all – daleks.