Diane Abbot has been removed from the Treasury Select Committee, on which she had proved herself an able and independent-minded member during the last Parliament. Abbott has spoken out against the decision to hand over interest rates to the Bank of England (her replacements on the Committee all supported the move). Since the Select Committee is now charged with Parliamentary oversight of the Bank of England's new monetary policy committee, Abbott's removal is particularly ominous.
Likewise the removal of Jeremy Corbyn from the Social Security Select Committee, of which he has been an assiduous member for many years. Corbyn is a well-known critic of Frank Field's notions on welfare and pension reform, and the only member of the Committee who refused to take part in a taxpayer-funded junket to inspect Chile's privatised pension schemes in 1995. Every year for more than a decade he has presented his detailed Bill for the Abolition of Poverty in Retirement to the House, and he has maintained close links with the pensioners' movement up and down the country.
Corbyn's exclusion from the Select Committee is a blow to pensioners and benefit claimants, and a worrying indication that, under New Labour, merit, hard work and conscience count for much less than loyalty to the leadership and a capacity to keep your mouth shut in the face of injustice.
And what kind of system allows the executive to hand pick the legislators who are supposed to scrutinise its performance?