Thread 🧵 on maiden speeches. In the next few days, weeks and months new MPs will make their first speech in the House of Commons. It can be a nerve wracking experience.

Having watched literally hundreds of maiden speeches, here are some tips. Keep it short. Leave your peers wanting more, not wishing for death.

If you are funny, be funny, but if you’re not then don’t try.

There is nothing worse than an unamusing speaker butchering a joke. If in doubt, leave it out.

Congratulations to @SamanthaDixonMP who has been appointed vice chamberlain of HM Household.

This is a senior whip with specific responsibilities: compiling a daily private report to the Sovereign on proceedings in the House of Commons … 🧵 Relaying addresses from the Commons to the Sovereign and back. This involves carrying their wand of office, which closely resembles a snooker cue.

A thread about Short money. This is money paid to opposition parties represented in the House of Commons for parliamentary duties.

There’s a similar scheme in the House of Lords - Cranborne money - but we’re not going into that here.

🧵 Short money was introduced in 1975. It is named after Ted Short who was the leader of the House at the time.

Sidebar: Short was at one time the oldest living former member of the House of Commons. He died in 2012 aged 99.

Speaker tells the House the Queen has signified Royal Assent to the private international law act 2020 and the parliamentary constituencies act 2020 Parliamentary constituencies act came into force at Royal Assent. The number of MPs is fixed at 650. The 2018 Review, which would have reduced the number of MPs to 600, will not be implemented.

Living in a safe seat? Worried your vote might not count? Let’s talk about Short money. That’s funding allocated to opposition parties to assist them in holding the government to account. It’s calculated from seats won AND for every 200 votes gained by the party. #GE2109 It’s quite a lot of money. The amount payable to qualifying parties in 2018/19 was £17,673.65 for every seat won at the last election plus £35.30 for every 200 votes gained by the party. researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefi…

Sir Henry Bellingham has withdrawn from the Speaker race. As it stands there are now eight candidates. All candidates will have to put in a valid nomination by 10:30am on Monday to be eligible to stand for Speaker.

BBC reports the Queen’s Speech will be on October 14th. Parliament to be prorogued after two week sitting in September. Prorogation brings to an end nearly all parliamentary business. Public Bills may be carried over from one session to the next, subject to agreement

The recall petition in Brecon and Radnorshire has reached 10% . The seat has been vacated and there will be a by-election.

This is the third time the recall process has been initiated and the second time an MP has been removed by voters. Former MP Chris Davies is eligible to stand in the by-election either as the Conservative candidate or as an independent.

For the first time MPs are now able to have a proxy vote if they are on maternity, paternity and adoption leave. The House approved these temporary standing orders without a division. *There were proxy votes in the medieval parliament and in the Lords until 1868

The Commons will vote on 11th December on the PM’s withdrawal agreement and future relationship framework.

After that, House is due to sit on the 12th, 13th, 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th - six sitting days until Christmas recess.

The Commons returns on 7th January. According to @commonslibrary if the PM’s Brexit motion is voted down, the government is required to make a statement about it’s intentions within 21 days.

There will only be six sitting days left to do that. January will be too late.

The resignation of Barry McElduff means there will be a by-election in West Tyrone constituency. How does an MP resign and what happens next? The first thing to note is that MPs can’t resign. A 1624 resolution prohibits MPs from doing so because “a man, after he is duty chosen, cannot relinquish”.