The new intake of SNP MPs were ticked off by the Speaker for breaching parliamentary convention by clapping during the debate on the Queen’s Speech at the end of May. A number of letters appeared in The Times about earlier occasions when convention was disregarded. In a letter published on June 2, Alistair Lexden recalled that applause was not totally unknown in the Lords:
Sir, Malcolm Savidge (letter, May 30) notes that peers joined in the clapping at the end of the trial of Warren Hastings in Westminster Hall. Nearly two centuries later applause was heard in the gilded chamber itself for the first time. A recording was made of the ninety year-old Harold Macmillan’s maiden speech as Earl of Stockton on November 14, 1984. Gentle, restrained clapping is audible at the end.