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Not all witnesses before are ecstatic to be there, and so, a couple of times in the average Parliament, a ritual is played out.

Sources begin to mutter about invoking the rarely used power to compel unwilling witnesses to appear, even invoking the possibility of sending the Commons enforcer, the Serjeant at Arms Jill Pay, to bring them in at the point of her ceremonial sword.

Warning shots might be fired, such as points of order asking Mr Speaker what advice he could give on the powers of Select Committees to force people into the witnesses seats in the committee rooms.

The last dance partner in this rather mannered Commons minuet was the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who got into a rather wearisome spat with the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Affairs Committee.

Now, I hear, a similar cloud is forming around the Phoenix Four, the consortium of businessmen who rescued MG Rover in 2000, only to preside over its slow death. It went into administration in April 2005, with the loss of 6,300 jobs. After a withering 850-page government report revealed the four directors and their chief executive took £42m out of the company over their five years in charge, the committee is understandably keen to question them

Lawyers for the four - - have been in negotiation with the committee about appearing to give evidence since the summer. Now MPs are beginning to suspect they're playing for time, and it may be that things are about to get rather less polite.

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