John Junor brought to the bar of the House

The last 'stranger', or non-Member, to be called before the bar of the House of Commons was the journalist John Junor. Writing in 'The Sunday Express' in December 1956, Junor had condemned a Government scheme that allowed MPs to receive generous petrol allocations for their constituency allowances while the rest of the nation were suffering severe fuel rationing as a result of the Suez Crisis. This article was deemed to be in contempt of Parliament and the Committee of Privileges upheld this view. Junor was brought before the Speaker of the House, William Morrison, on 24 January 1957 by the Serjeant-at-Arms, Sir Charles Howard. Junor apologized for his actions although he stressed that, ‘In my judgment these allowances were a proper and, indeed, an inescapable subject of comment in a free Press'.