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But I think an equal part was the limitations of their horizons. When your world is defined by the boundaries of a city, a country, or a time — when whatever is beyond is dimly perceived at best — your own role in the proceedings will seem the larger. Had even the greatest among them been able to see how small the world they bestrode really was — had any of those cinquecento Florentines said to themselves: “Wait a minute, this centre of art and culture, glory of the age, is about the size of a 21st century North Bay” — they mightn’t have bothered. A certain element of delusion is necessary to greatness.

I am thinking of all this as I consider the question of cameras in the House of Commons. Or rather reconsider, for I have been a supporter until now.

A great many things have contributed to Parliament’s decline, but I wonder if it is entirely coincidental that the age in which the Commons mattered, when a good speech could turn a debate and debates were of consequence and giants walked the Earth, predates its televisation.

Look at it from the point of view of a member of Parliament asking a question or giving a speech in the Commons. Before the television cameras were introduced in 1977, who was your audience? Who were you trying to persuade, or impress? Who graded you on your performance? It was the people within its walls — your fellow MPs, mostly, plus the press. That was your world: people who were committed to Parliament, and knowledgeable about its traditions, and who themselves believed in its importance. For it was their world, too.