I have been told that not so very long ago – certainly in my lifetime – if and when an MP read out his speech in Parliament he would be greeted with protesting cries of “Reading! Reading!” from fellow members, it being considered a breach of parliamentary protocol.
If you have watched a good deal of the seemingly endless Brexit debates in the House of Commons, as I have done, you would be aware that the MP who speaks without notes is nowadays a very rare bird. The average MP cannot even ask a minister a simple question without their head being buried in a notebook.
