PETER HITCHENS: Protest against our new State of Fear is banned... by order of a Dead Parrot Parliament

This is Peter Hitchens��� Mail on Sunday column

We have ceased to be a parliamentary democracy. There was no military putsch. Nobody passed an Enabling Act allowing rule by decree. But the House of Lords and the House of Commons are now the Dead Parrot Parliament.

They are dead because they do nothing to hold the Government to account. They are parrots because, when asked, they obediently confirm decrees Downing Street put into effect, sometimes weeks before. We used to jeer that the so-calle...