The heated debates have spilled over onto the pavement outside the coffee shop, which now resembles Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park.

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Perhaps that is what being a great parliamentarian amounts to: a rather grander version of the soap-box orators at Hyde Park's Speakers' Corner, whose fulmination is not closely listened to but whose mere presence is supposed to reassure onlookers that all is well with democracy.

ECONOMIST: A great parliamentarian