The Westminster authorities have applied a ridiculously harsh sanction against Lord Maginnis, a peer with a lifetime of service

Lord Maginnis is to be suspended from Westminster over a number of incidents.

Among them, he is said to have been verbally abusive to a security guard at Westminster and then with an MP Hannah Bardell who intervened.

As with the ‘Plebgate’ row involving Andrew Mitchell MP, we cannot know what happened without video and audio records. Verbal confrontations at moments of tension are a fact of life. It is not hard to see how frustrating it would be for a man who has been in Parliament for 37 years to have to reach down for a pass, when he is 83 and has health issues.

By tradition in Parliament, established MPs and peers were known by sight to security staff and never challenged. To make it easier for the said staff, new arrivals in either chamber were expected to wear visible passes until they were known to security — a reasonable compromise between the need for safety and the need to show respect to office holders.

Security has had to be tightened over the decades due to terror so it is reasonable to demand a pass. If Lord Maginnis was rude, that was clearly wrong, however understandable.

He has used the word queer, which might have been much used when he was born in the 1930s but is now widely seen as unacceptable. Similarly, Lord Kilclooney has got into trouble for his appalling use of the phrase ‘the Indian’ to refer to Leo Varadkar and the US Vice President elect Kamala Harris.

But while such language from the peers is grossly offensive and utterly wrong, the penalty to Lord Maginnis is ridiculously harsh. He has been suspended for up to 36 months unless he undergoes training, a swingeing response if he does not accept a humiliating sanction. Lord Maginnis, who as Ken Maginnis was an MP, has a lifetime of public service. He should have said sorry, then been given a lesser penalty.

His fate illustrates the uneven political response to verbal wrongdoing. Pastor Jim McConnell was put in the dock for an anti Muslim sermon after a complaint from a man who praised the ‘peace’ in Mosul he attributed to Isis barbarians. And Lord Maginnis is put out of Parliament for up to three years while Sinn Fein MPs, who get allowances without taking their seats, eulogise the IRA — hate speech to many ears.

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