One step forward, two steps back, all within 24 hours? Today my tireless Westminster colleague Patrick Wintour reports that the government is setting up a nowadays-rare Speaker's Conference on how to make the representative composition of the Commons fit for 21st century Britain.
That sounds interesting, though full of pitfalls. Harriet Harman, the leader of the house, is thinking in terms of gender, race, disability and sexual orientation. No surprise there - in her sleep she dreams such things - and I'm sure there are useful tweaks we can make to the system.
But as this column noted only the other day, the under-representation of the white working class might also be an issue in 2008. Hattie doesn't dream class (I can't think why). And why stop there? One way or another, are Scots over-represented, for instance? I suspect they may be. Does it matter? I doubt it.
Yet yesterday Patrick also reported a reason why sane people might want to give the old Palace of Westminster a wide detour. Government chief whip Nick Brown wants to penalise backbench rebels by denying them coveted places on select committees.
What? Yes. Ten days ago he got the approval of the parliamentary committee – the backbench shop stewards who vet his recommendations for such vacancies – for a procedure whereby he would not be expected to recommend any MP who had voted against the government in the previous 12 months.
Come on, Nick, you can't be serious. But he can, and he is. An old-fashioned disciplinarian, he is quietly unapologetic about it. "If you voted against the government, it is unreasonable to expect your name to be put forward for a vacancy against someone who hasn't," the chief whip tells complainants.
Up to a point, but what the system also needs is independent-minded MPs prepared to speak their minds and vote against their party when needs must and in the wider national interest.
Such people are always in short supply, though – as the University of Nottingham's Philip Cowley never tires of explaining – Labour MPs have been much more rebellious than the loutish tabloids claim since 1997. No fewer than 107 have rebelled since GB succeeded TB last summer.
Patrick quoted one MP as calling it a "diabolical attempt to muzzle us. It is quite wrong and misunderstands the point of a parliamentary democracy." Quite so. Discipline has its place in political parties, of course it does, but so does the assertion of an MP's judgment. As usual, there's a balance to be struck here, boring though it is to keep pointing it out.
Several senior MPs, select committee chairs past and present, ex-ministers, serial rebels and others, have complained to me about it. They plan to cause trouble when MPs formally agree later today to set up new regional select committees to examine problems and challenges in the English regions (the Celts already have departmental select committees).
There's an irony here. There are so so many committees of one kind or another that even government whips admit it's hard to man the unpopular ones – administration or important-but-dull secondary legislation, statutory instruments, as they are called.
It's never hard to get volunteers for the big committees - foreign affairs (duty requires one to travel abroad), home affairs and the Treasury select committee - about whose "radio phone-in hearing" I recently wrote. The chairman, John McFall, insists, incidentally, that the technique of asking VIP witnesses questions submitted by voters was widely admired.
So there's a supply-side problem which Brown's proposal will surely exacerbate. Critics recall that Nick Brown was Labour chief whip in 1997 until removed by Tony Blair (he was agriculture minister during the foot and mouth disaster and managed it better than the farmers credit) who probably suspected his undying Brownite (G) loyalty.
Since when the whips' office has been largely led by women - Ann Taylor, Jacqui Smith - itself a novelty. Old lags suspect that Nick Brown and his new No 3, John Spellar, an old trade union tough guy who would pick a fight with himself if he had to, disapprove of the feminisation of the whips' office – and seek to restore boys' order.
This does not chime with Hattie Harman's world view, of course. No surprise there either. Let's see what happens next. Brown denies that the new regional committees (a Gordon Brown idea) are unpopular and says that the parliamentary committee can always overturn his nominees. There is also always room for penitents.
Hmm. My view is that back in 2001 MPs were mistaken not to vote to remove select committee patronage from the party whips (they are all as bad as each other) and give it to their own selection committee. It's not that it would be fault-free, but the executive branch of government is too powerful when a prime minister has a solid Commons majority, as Brown Sr does.
I'm not a fan of PR elections for Westminster (we need majority governments which take decisions better than coalitions tend to do: too much horse-trading) and I note with mild alarm that Harman's conference would put PR voting back on the agenda. Tony Blair buried it deep in a filing cabinet.
What we all want is strong, representative government which is sensitive to public opinion, but not afraid to take unpopular decisions. That's not too much to ask, is it? Well, it's a trick humanity rarely manages to pull off. But we keep trying.
