What was more shocking through was how the Labour and Conservative Party refused to back Lib Dem plans to give local people the right to sack their MPs.
This will give him the right to block nominees with no evident talents for a commissioner's job, and to demote lousy ones once in office. (Next year's constitutional conference might give him the power to sack them outright.) But governments could respond bitterly all the same if the commissioner involved is theirs.