PMQs...

Last Wednesday was a shining moment for my political career. Background: Wednesday was Budget Day in Britain. Once a year, the Chancellor goes before Parliament and announces all the details of the Government's budget, and then the leader of the opposition has to respond immediately without having seen the budget ahead of time. Millions tune in to tv sets and radios, not just around the UK, but around a lot of former imperial states as well.

Randomly in the lottery, my backbench Labour MP, Celia Barlow, got selected to ask the first question to Tony Blair during Prime Minister's Questions. It was her first time asking a question at PMQs, and she was pumped. So the other night, we were in a pub in the House of Commons celebrating the other intern getting a job as a researcher with bottles of champagne and pints of beer (the pub is called Strangers, and there's a cartoon picture on the wall of the "regulars" in 1995... 80% of them are dead now... liver problems I guess), and we had put a few away when Celia was thinking about the question. So I jokingly commented, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it tomorrow."

On Tuesday, I was told that I was in charge of preparing the question. So I spent an hour or so on the phone with a detective from her constituency talking about a program combining police enforcement and drug treatment that has lowered crime substantially. We also talked about the meth problem in Montana. Then I wrote the question with some political points in it. We started out by "cheer[ing]" up Blair as he has been caught in a scandal this last week ... giving out spots in the House of Lords in exchange for millions of pounds to the Labour Party. Then we acknowledged the Chancellor on Budget Day, as well as the Blair Government's committment to funding crime prevenetion.

For a full view of Celia's performance, watch the video (lower right hand side of the screen). Watch it for a little while longer to see the Tory leader (David Cameron) antigonize Tony Blair as to when he is going to step down from power.

I love the House of Commons... but where are all the Dems?