"It is high time the house was run by professionals on a transparent basis, ensuring that we are accountable to the people who put us here."

Those were some of the words used by John Bercow during his campaign to become Speaker of the House of Commons. So it was with interest that I learnt this week of two facts that seem to be diametrically opposed to this statement. First was the news that John Bercow's office has refused to reveal how much he is getting paid. Apparently it would breach parliamentary "protocol" to say whether he had stuck to the wage freeze agreed by his predecessor, Michael Martin. An FOI request should sort this query out but this sort of petty secrecy does not bode well for transparency on other matters. The second story is that moves are afoot to for the Independent Parliamentary Standards Committee to draw up rules forcing sketchwriters to forego “offensive behaviour and language”; in other words censorship.