A "WILD-EYED man" grabbed hold of a bishop who was on his way to speak in the House of Lords hunting debate on Tuesday night and made a very fair point about politics.

It's too much about confrontation, and less about getting things done.

Recalling what had happened, the Rt Rev John Oliver told how he had been grabbed by the dog collar. "The man said, 'Are you on your way to Parliament?'. How could he have known? Does it show that clearly?

'"Do you know", he said, 'why people fight each other? Why do politicians always disagree with one another?" I had no time to gather my thoughts.

"He said, 'It's schizophrenia'. Before I had any chance to respond, he gave me the answer to the problem.

"I think it was something like this: you had to go to Giza and contemplate the Sphinx to cure this condition.

"I suddenly wondered whether there was some generous benefactor who would provide free air tickets to Cairo for those misguided members of the other place (MPs) who believe they are pursuing the interests of animal welfare and yet want to ban hunting?"

His comments did no good.

The Lords inevitably decided they could only disagree with MPs' determination to ban fox hunting.

But, while the debate was taking place, one MP was being trusted to rise above it all.

Ryedale MP John Greenway is not in need of a trip to Giza either, according to his colleagues.

As a "straight guy", they have bestowed upon him a rare honour - chairmanship of a committee considering a very difficult piece of Government legislation.

Normally, the pre-legislative scrutiny committee in charge of the draft Gambling Bill would have been headed by a senior Labour MP.

But the 12 members (six from the Commons and six from the Lords) went for Tory MP Mr Greenway, a just reward for quitting his job as sport spokesman on the Tory front bench earlier this year.

John says: "I have been called a mug punter... but I do think it is a feather in my cap. There are former ministers and a Cabinet minister on the committee, but I was picked.

"I wondered if anyone was noticing when I spent so much time driving miles to speak at gambling conferences, or stuck in traffic, but they must have.

"The thing even the officials said was that I would not put party politics before getting the job done. I was pleased they said I wouldn't just disagree for the sake of it."

If the nice bit - getting picked - is now over, he must get down to some very tricky work. The Bill will effectively rip up the country's gambling laws and start again.

Local councils will be given the power to hand out licenses, the National Lottery could be run by two rather than one operator and - if he is not careful - traditional bingo halls could become a thing of the past.

Unthinkable, perhaps? But the bill would allow for bingo to be played alongside walls of slot machines.

Why own a hall where only bingo is on offer if you can run a casino which offers prizes for a full house and everything else besides?

"This is something we will have to look at very closely," he says. "There is a lot to do."

The smart money is that he will do a lot better job than when the Government set out to find a compromise on hunting.

Updated: 10:27 Friday, September 19, 2003