Stuff your "wait and see", Pa Broon!

A long interview with the PM on Sunday AM. He's looking and sounding more and more like Pa Broon in Private Eye's "The Broons".

At the start he did seem honest and genuine about expenses. But then, when it got onto constitutional reform the old tribal shutters came down.

When Andrew Marr talked about constitutional reforms, Pa Broon had two main deflectory tactics:

1. Yes, we need to have a debate about that.

2. We'll have a constitutional renewal bill in the autumn.

But hang on. You've had twelve years to democratise the House of Lords and have a referendum voting reform, both of which had ample cover in your first 1997 manifesto! No wonder Andrew Marr joked about "kicking it into the long grass", at that stage.

And this constitutional renewal bill seems to have the most over-blown title in the history of mankind. From what he says it is about public servants' expenses. So, it is a Housekeeping Bill. A constitutional tinkering bill at best.

And then he said that there would be a constitutional convention. At that stage my heart stopped for a nano-second. The leopard has changed its spots! Except he hadn't. It will be a convention of ministers, he says! For goodness sake! And when pressed by Marr and Helena Kennedy (how timely was her appearance on the sofa?!) for a citizens' convention or at least one with cross party and cross society involvement like the Scottish one in the nineties, he said "wait and see".

Well, stuff you Pa Broon! We've had twelve years of waiting and seeing precious little!