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

The possessor of fine intelligence, he was not on a soap-box, or bent on influencing the great and good, though he got their attention just the same.

ECONOMIST: John Midgley