Recently in House of Lords Category

In November 2003, a 12-year-old girl called Amy Houston died after being hit by a car driven by a failed asylum seeker called Aso Mohammed Ibrahim.

Ibrahim ran away from the scene, in Blackburn, leaving Amy to die under the vehicle. Since that dreadful night, it appears the powers that be have conspired against Amy's father, Paul Houston, in his quest for justice.

First off, there was the sentence Ibrahim received. Ibrahim, who was disqualified from driving, was given a four-month jail term for driving without insurance and while disqualified and failing to stop after an accident.

It was a sentence which angered many, and Paul embarked on a campaign for 'Amy's Law' which sought tougher sentences for those who drove while disqualified - the theory being that you're disqualified for a reason so if you drive and hurt or kill someone, you've done so in the knowledge you weren't fit to drive. It was a campaign the newspaper in Blackburn which I worked for at the time got behind. I got to know Paul well during that time.

In David Cameron's vision of a Big Society, we can all make a difference. We can all help make the decisions which will make Britain a better place.

Nice idea, great ideal - it's just a shame that actions speak louder than words, and a temporary return to the limelight for Lord Ashcroft this week proved that when it comes to making a difference, money still talks.

Little has been said of Lord Ashcroft since the election. His millions pumped into marginal constituencies across the country didn't deliver the desired result - and in the end it was Nick Clegg's desperation for a sniff of power which took Cameron into Number 10, not pricey postal orders from Belize.

Quite why Lord Ashcroft's work with the marginal constituencies didn't work is a mystery, although I suspect it might have something to do with the evasive way the Tories dealt with questions about the Lord's non-dom status. After all, a man who only pays tax on part of his income in the UK playing a central role in a general election campaign is always going to cause a stink.

Remember when former Met Police senior cop Bob Quick let the whole world know an anti-terror raid was due to take place - after he walked down Downing Street with confidential documents on display?

Those anti-terror raids were brought forward and a whole bunch of people arrested - none of who were subsequently charged with anything.

Lord Carlile was appointed to make suggestions to stop such things happening again.

Remember Lord Foulkes, the lord who appears determined to make him self look as dim as possible?

He's the one who tried to defend Michael Martin when he was speaker of the house, suggesting that it was all the media's fault?

He's back.

What with the froth around the death of Michael Jackson over the last week, a lot of otherwise note-worthy news stories have been pushed down the news agenda - or in the case of the 24-hour news channels, on to the news tickers at the bottom of the screen.

One which grabbed my eye, briefly, on Tuesday or Wednesday, was the Queen's nodding through of Downing Street's request to give Michael Martin, a peerage so he can go and live in the House of Lords.

Michael Martin, lest we forget, is the first speaker in many hundreds of years to effectively be forced from office for his part in the expenses scandal. While, of course, he wasn't putting a gun to the head of the MPs who bent the rules until they were almost round and demanding they claim for duck houses, he certainly wasn't in a rush to change things.