Friday, August 01, 2025
Hats in the House of Commons
On a recent trip, I read an excellent biography of Edmund Burke by Jesse Norman. Being me, though., my attention was caught by a footnote explaining that until 1998 MPs were required to wear a top hat to raise a point of order in the Commons. How did this work? The report abolishing this rule explained:
“In practice this means that an opera hat which is kept at each end of the Chamber has to be produced and passed to the Member concerned. This inevitably takes some time, during which the Member frequently seeks to use some other form of covering such as an Order Paper. This particular practice has almost certainly brought the House into greater ridicule than almost any other, particularly since the advent of television.’”
Here’s an example.
The quirks of the British Constitution are endless.
Posted by Gerard Magliocca on August 1, 2025 at 08:22 AM | Permalink
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