vernon bogdanor, is pete wishart right? is it a zombie parliament?t is a zombie parliament in that it is deadlocked. there is really no majority for any controversial legislation at all. and both of the major parties are internally deeply divided on the major piece of legislation, which is, of course, the european union withdrawal bill. but from another point of view, you might call it the backbencher‘s parliament, because any backbenchers with proposals which achieve consensus can get their measures through. we have already seen an example of that in the proposal by stella creasey that women who come from northern ireland to secure abortions on this side of the irish sea can have them paid for by the taxpayer. and that was accepted by the government for fear of losing the vote. there may be other similar measures. the great danger with that, of course, is that both of these proposals are for increases in expenditure, which is difficult for the government to resist. so the chancellor of the exchequer in this backbencher‘s parliament may be even more