At 10:10 am on a snowy London morning on February 7 this year, British Prime Minister John Major was discussing the Gulf Crisis with his war cabinet in 10 Downing Street when three IRA mortar bombs landed outside the window. He appeared not long after and defiantly stated that a few bombs would not be enough to change anything at the heart of government. If anybody thought they could in any way damage Britain's democratic way of life then their efforts were in vain.

The "democratic way of life" is without doubt the proudest tradition of the British people. Forget about the terrorists, even if the most patriotic Members of Parliament (MPs) want to tamper with this centuries-old tradition, they meet with the greatest of difficulties. Nevertheless, in the closing decade of the twentieth century something threatened to revolutionize all this--television!

It seems that ever since television was invented the British Parliament has been debating whether or not to allow television to watch over its proceedings, with great suspicion as to just what kind of influence television might have on them. What if people took advantage of the presence of cameras to make trouble and get publicity? How would order be maintained? Would the television editors and producers leave the audience with an unbalanced view of the proceedings?

The pragmatic MPs discussed such problems for half a century. Then, two years ago, they reached the decision to allow televising of their proceedings to take place on an experimental basis. When, one year later, they assembled to vote on whether the experiment had been a success, the majority approved and the television cameras are now a permanent fixture in the Palace of Westminster.

Thanks to this, at 3.30 pm on February 7 this year the British people were able to turn on their television sets to view Prime Minister's Questions live from the House of Commons. Not only could they listen and watch as Members of Parliament from all shades of the political spectrum gave their views about the morning's bombing, but they can also regularly hear the opinions of their elected representatives on other matters of great importance to the nation.

Recently there has been much enthusiastic debate over the present condition of the televising of R.O.C.'s Legislative Yuan. How televising should be practiced in such a way as to ensure order and not mislead viewers is everybody's concern. For this reason Sinorama's special correspondent in Europe visited the British Parliament to find out more about their experiment. In "Who Calls the Shots?" she finds out about the experiences of the Supervisor of Broadcasting at the House of Commons John Grist, whose job it has been to oversee the British experiment. Here she looks back at the long argument that took place in Britain as it developed from opposition and suspicion to consent, the drawing up of rules to govern the cameras and finally the general satisfaction that has been felt with the results.

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The success of the British experiment has drawn attention from many countries and provided a lesson for all. (courtesy Quantel-Link Systems Group)