Getting up and running
About half the members of the will never have sat in Parliament before. And there will be plenty of urgent business for them to grapple with, between the tedious logistical business of setting up their offices and so forth.
Conservatives will have to elect a new chairman of their backbenchers' committee, the 1922 Committee. By definition, no front-benchers are included in the '22 - which means that perhaps two thirds of its membership will be newcomers - and may not know the rival candidates from Adam. But the '22 are keen to get up and running in order to be in a position to sign off on (or veto) any deal between the Cameron leadership and the Lib Dems.
One contender for the chairmanship, Graham Brady, is already signalling his extreme distaste for any move towards electoral reform. And in due course it may also be the forum for discussion (to put it politely) of the Conservative election campaign.
There is a fair bit of angst already surfacing in the blogosphere about the failure to secure an outright majority - and some Tory traditionalists can be expected to ventilate their feelings.
Meanwhile, thanks to a proposal from the Conservative arch-backbencher Chris Chope, MPs should be invited to elect the chairs of the Commons Select Committees within two weeks (I take that to mean two weeks after the State Opening on 25 May).
Again a lot of new MPs will be choosing between candidates of whom they know little - but the hardline parliamentary reformers are rather hoping that the result of that will be hustings meetings in which a bidding war breaks out between the rival candidates over who will be toughest, not only in scrutinising the executive, but also in demanding more powers for Parliament from it.
In the newly hung Commons, the chairs of select committees will be very important folk. With no overall majority, and lots of very unpopular cutting to do, it's not hard to imagine ministers (from whatever party) bargaining with the departmental committee chair to get some endorsement of their cuts proposals. It could be make or break if, for example, the Defence Committee was prepared to sign off on painful reductions in the Navy, or cuts to some fighter programme. Out of all this, hope the more hawkish reformers, will come powers to audit departmental budgets and to vet key appointments - powers reminiscent of US congressional committees.
I'm Mark D'Arcy and I'll be writing about what goes on in the chambers and committee rooms at Westminster.
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