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Inside the Commons: Upstairs, Downstairs

Factual: Politics

Inside the Commons

11/04/2015 GMT

Upstairs, Downstairs

BBC World News - Inside the Commons, Upstairs, Downstairs

Michael Cockerell examines what goes on backstage at the state opening of parliament.

Political documentary series. Michael Cockerell examines what goes on backstage at the state opening, when the Queen comes to open the parliamentary year.

In the second episode of this major four-part series, presenter Michael Cockerell explores the upstairs-downstairs world of the House of Commons. We see what goes on backstage at the state opening, when the Queen comes to open the parliamentary year, including a surreal traditional search for gunpowder. Behind the pomp and pageantry, we meet the army of skilled workers who struggle to keep the Commons show on the road. We follow MPs who want to introduce their own bills in the Commons and have to play a bizarre form of parliamentary bingo to get the chance. And we show how Labour and Conservative MPs conspire together to thwart their party whips. In this episode we meet two very different MPs: Robert Halfon, a campaigning Conservative and thorn in the side of the government, who receives an unexpected call from Downing Street. And Thomas Docherty, Labour's deputy-shadow leader of the house, who goes to extraordinary lengths and makes unlikely alliances to guarantee time in the chamber for his party.

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Four-part series filmed over the course of a year with unparalleled access to the Commons.

Michael Cockerell presents a four-part series filmed over the course of a year with unparalleled access to the House of Commons.

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