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The Lord Privy Seal is now in charge of the toilets

For very many years, it has been true that the Lord Privy Seal was neither a Lord, a Privy or a Seal. The officeholder is in fact fifth in line of the great offices (and Prime Minister is not one of them, except as a Treasury Commissioner) behind the Lord President.

Anyhow, I went for a shufti around the internet after reading elsewhere this morning the standard previous line. Actually, if there is a complaint about toilets in the House of Commons that must be raised on the floor of the House (though it will be directed to the Serjeant at Arms) it can only really be made during commons business to the leader of the Commons. The Leader of the Commons is at the minute the Lord Privy Seal, Harriet Harman. She is therefore in charge of the toilets, and therefore the Lord Privy Seal does now deal with toilets.

This is how constitutional change happens in England. Here's a link to Harriet going on about smoking in the toilets to make my point.

UPDATE : This is reasonably diverting for a summer morning. The Clerk of the House of Commons also has responsibility for administration and executive decisions in the House. The Serjeant at Arms is nominally senior and has responsibility for security. The House of Commons also has a Commission chaired by the Speaker. So a lock on the toilets would be a security matter; a replacement lock would be an expenditure matter; a decision to change the locks would be a matter for the commission, on which the Speaker could vote; but the Leader of the House, and therefore the Lord Privy Seal would be accountable, presuming the speaker did not descend the chair and take questions. Ah, due process.

Of course, as readers of this blog will know, it was the illusionist Maskelyne who developed the penny lock for public conveniences. He was much admired by Al Koran, the mentalist. There you go; I got from commons toilets to Islam in four steps. See if you can beat that.

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