The introduction of fixed-term Parliaments seems to have arrived with some medication that nobody ordered. I can understand the need to avoid lunatic-fringe MPs trying for No Confidence motions twice a day, but for once Lord Adonis has a point: this 55% requirement for a dissolution smacks of a fix – and is more generally anti-libertarian. It has about it the air of an Emergency Powers Act. Yes, we are in an emergency; and no, EPAs are not the answer.

What makes the up-in-arms response of the progressive ranks hard to take is that the old ‘prime minister’s choice’ system was a far more arbitrary and dangerous power than this, its sort of fixed-term-with-reservations equivalent. But two wrongs don’t make a right: the proposal will gather yet more power to the Executive, and as such is a blatant restriction of the Legislature’s right to hold that Executive to account. For those of us who were looking to this Government to start the traffic flowing in the opposite direction, it’s not a very bright start.

Not only is the 55% choice fairly arbitrary, it’s also suspiciously close to the percentage required to make this Government hard to overthrow. And the silly thing is, it could have been handled in both a more equable and safe manner.

The objective is, probably, honourable: to ensure stability until the mess left by the spendaholics and bankers is sorted out. But the best way to do that is place a constitutional time-limit on the ‘stability allowance’.

A better solution would be to just say that there should be no Confidence Motions in the first two years of a new Parliament without a 75% majority; but that any further constitutional changes by that same Government would also require a 75% majority. That would seem to me to cover all the angles and keep our liberties safe……but it would still leave us without a written Constitution.

In an age when crafty, controlling political Executives are the norm, this is a big problem for the UK. Not doing anything about it would be a classic case of the urgent overtaking the important. We do need a clear, written document – and a binding rule about the ways in which any of it can be changed.

Sitting quietly guiding Tory backroom policy is that nice shrinking violet Mr. Oliver Letwin. If ever there was a natural for the job of chairing a constitutional committee, it is he. He is hereby volunteered.