No Parliament can exist without the Press gallery

Some things can only be described as comical, very comical. Just what motivated Parliament’s decision  yesterday to evict the Press from the Media Centre? In case anyone has forgotten, PointBlank would like to remind them that journalists are not in the House out of anyone’s magnanimity. They are there because democracy dictates so. They are there as the public’s watchdog.

Indeed, long before the current crop of politicians was born, a British politician by the name Edmund Burke (1729-1797) noted thus: “There are three Estates in Parliament; but, in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder, there sat a Fourth Estate more important far than they all.”