May I have the envelope, please?

Walt regrets the delay in announcing the winner of the Sir John A. Macdonald Parliamentarian of the Year award. I should have done this on July 1st but there were so many candidates for the orifice that I couldn't make up my mind.

While I was mulling, I chanced on a story in the UK press about a Member of Parliament, one of the newly-elected Conservatives, who has had to apologize publicly for being drunk in the House of Commons and missing a budget vote.

Quoth the MP for Rochester and Strood, "I don't know what came over me. It was a long day and I'd had a very early breakfast meeting. I'm terribly, terribly embarrassed. I normally have just one or two. I don't remember falling over. I remember someone asking me to vote and not thinking it was appropriate, given how I was at the time."

The MP's name? Mark Reckless. No kidding. He richly deserves the Sir John A. prize, if only for standing for election without first changing his name. And he gets a bar for honesty too.