My local MP, Celia Barlow, has been asking questions in the House:

Celia Barlow: To ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland what recent assessment he has made of the impact of tourism on the Northern Ireland economy; and if he will make a statement.

Angela Smith (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Northern Ireland Office): Tourism is making an increasingly important contribution to the Northern Ireland economy, with over two million visitors a year. There are now more visitors than there are residents.

Northern Ireland?

Ms Barlow is the duly elected member for Hove. She doesn’t ask many questions in Parliament, verbal or written. The emails from They Work For You informing me when she does arrive about as frequently as Kate Bush albums, so I’d very interested to know what her angle is in this instance.

Does Hove have a big Irish community? Are too many Hovians taking too much cash out of the local economy in order to holiday in Northern Ireland? Doesn’t Celia have more salient questions to ask as the MP for an over-rated twohorse toilet? Like, how is it that the Government can spend three billion quid on Iraq but my neck of the woods is (still) so covered in dogshit it looks like a dirty protest orchestrated by Barbara Woodhouse?

(I had to clean the pushchair’s wheels again the other day.)