In yesterday’s sketch, I suggested that Ms. May had violated the House’s prohibition against props when she held aloft a copy of the budget bill as she detailed her question of the government. Ms. May wrote me today to tell me I was wrong. Specifically she cites the following sentence in a footnote to the rules explained by the second edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice.

Speaker Milliken ruled that “a document that has been recently tabled in the House and is being quoted by Members or used as the basis for either an answer or a question may sometimes be lifted up, pointed at or even quoted from” (Debates, November 4, 2005, pp. 9531-2).

My apologies to Ms. May. And the budget bill.