Norfolk Tories and the ancien régime

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Alan Howarth is one of the very few Tory MPs to have crossed the floor to join the Labour party, which he did in 1995.

After some junior ministerial posts under Blair, he is now in the Lords and sits on the socialist benches.

Yesterday's debate on the reorganisation of local government was enlivened by Lord Howarth of Newport's catty comments about the communities secretary and his plans for Exeter.

"Eric Pickles seems to have forgotten that he is no longer chairman of the Conservative Party," he told the Lords.

"I have known him for many years, and I hold him in affection.

"I know him to be a tough, opportunistic party politician, and no one will drum him out of the Carlton Club for that, but bullying is another matter.

"In this policy and this Bill, he is bullying the people of Norwich and Exeter and their elected representatives, particularly the local Liberal Democrats. He is also bullying his officials."

Howarth went on to claim that the Exeter plan "is based not on principle but on blatant political opportunism, including on the part of Mr Cameron in Norfolk during the election campaign".

"There remains an ancien régime attitude among the Norfolk Tories, courteous and elegant as they are, that the little people - the plebs of Norwich - should be bent to their will and made to suit their convenience.

"Mr Cameron's Conservative Party still, in the 21st century, considers that humbler folk should tug their forelocks.

"It is a selfish state of mind: "what we have we hold". It is a primitive state of mind: territorial primitivism. Their objection to local self-government for Norwich has nothing to do with principle."

Baroness Butler-Sloss was having none of it.

"I scarcely know where to begin," she said.

"I listened with absolute fascination to the delightfully inaccurate, inappropriate and, in places, offensive comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport.

"I am not a politician. I am a pleb of Devon.

"I am proud to be so and I am proud not to be a politician. But, on 22 March this year, I moved a regret Motion in which I set out in some detail a large number of reasons why Exeter should not be a unitary authority.

"Equally, the points were made why Norwich should not be a unitary authority.

"That regret Motion, asking the Government to look again, was overwhelmingly supported by this House. One of the reasons was that the Permanent Secretary to the then Secretary of State in the previous Government advised against the two orders as the accounting officer as well as his concerns."

Howarth then challenged Butler-Sloss whether "what she is saying has to do with the amendments we are debating".

This was very rude by Lords standards - Hansard even reports one scandalised peer saying "Oh!"

Butler-Sloss, until 2004 the highest-ranking female judge in the country, slapped him right back:

"I would not have dreamt of standing up on this amendment if we had not had this tour de force of recrimination about the failure to get these two orders through because the judge found against them.

"I thought that we were talking about the amendments. I also thought that I was entitled, as a Member of this House, to answer what has been said.

"But I will now move to the fact that the purpose and clear intention of these two amendments is to sabotage this Bill because it would be the status quo ante. It would bring the whole thing back."

Handbags at dawn? An rare outbreak of noble bitchiness? Perhaps. But this unpleasant spat will be seen as yet another regrettable sign that the Lords is becoming more politicised, with angry Labour peers railing against the coalition on a daily basis.

Lord knows what they will be like if they are all elected.