Parliament is taking a half-term break this week -  a time for most MPs to recharge their batteries and talk to their constituency activists about the political situation at home and the dramatic events in North Africa and the Middle East.

No rest for David Cameron, however, who is off on his international travels again this week, and who has had to regroup after a difficult few days for the Coalition Government.

Top of the embarrassments was the dramatic felling of the proposal to sell off land currently run by the Forestry Commission,  a proposal which was handled dreadfully from the outset.

Mr Cameron’s exasperation was all too clear at Question Time in the Commons last week, and it was shocking that a Tory from the shires  Caroline Spelman  had not foreseen the likely public reaction to what was portrayed by opponents as a plan to turn our woodlands into golf courses and theme parks.

The forestry debacle and concerns over the Government’s big NHS shake-up has led the Prime Minister into a big shake-up at No 10 with the introduction not only of ratter Larry the cat but the creation of a strategy unit under pollster Andrew Cooper.

Mr Cooper, a Tory liberal, will have had nothing to do with another of Mr Cameron’s responses at Question Time when he said he was “appalled” by a Supreme Court ruling which will give paedophiles and rapists the right to appeal against having their names on the sex offenders register for life.

The fact that the Prime Minister had to read out from his brief that he was “appalled” suggested that his opinion had been drafted by someone else, and Home Secretary Theresa May used the same phraseology when she spoke about the judgement a little later.

It later emerged that the judgement by the Supreme Court, created by the Labour Government and which superseded the Law Lords, was handed down nearly a year ago.

Justice Secretary Ken Clarke took a markedly different approach (as is his wont) to Mr Cameron and Mrs May when he effectively blamed the media for scaremongering, and, by implication, suggested that the Prime Minister had done something he said he would not be doing, preferring a knee-jerk reaction to newspaper headlines.

The Justice Secretary, appearing on the Andrew Marr Show as the bruised rather than bruiser following a fall, was relaxed about reports that murderers and rapists in Broadmoor and other secure psychiatric hospitals were renewing demands to access to welfare benefits.

“Iain Duncan Smith is reforming our welfare system but I don’t believe he has that in mind,” he said.

Mr Clarke was also at pains to point out that the controversial judgement by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on prisoners’ voting rights was made five years ago, and that Labour had done absolutely nothing about it.

He did, however, concede that there was a case for reforming the Strasbourg court which has so incensed  the UK public with some of its recent judgements.

To that end, the Coalition is to set up a commission to look at the issue, including the possibility of formulating a Bill of Rights which might, or might not, take precedence over rulings coming out of Strasbourg.

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So our legislators seem ready at last to see the light, literally, by giving us an extra hour of daylight in the evenings  all the year round.

Yes, it would mean darker mornings, but the tourism industry is clamouring for us to be put on summer time in winter (ie Greenwich Mean Time + one hour) and British Summer Time + one (ie GMT +2) in the summer, matching most of the rest of Western Europe.

In addition, road safety experts say it would mean fewer accidents, injuries and deaths.

And all of us would all be able to look forward to those long, balmy summer evenings that are just around the corner. All we need now is for the Met Office to match up.

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Tory MP Michael Fabricant has had a remarkable rise through the ranks since qualifying from the parliamentary armed forces scheme a couple of years ago.

He has recently been seen in the uniform of a Lord High Admiral in advance of a performance next month of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore in Lichfield Cathedral where he will act as narrator.

“This will be a very musical, but slightly tongue in cheek, version of HMS Pinafore with many recognisable songs,” he said.

Thank goodness for MPs who not only work for their communities but also get involved in them, while not always taking themselves too seriously.

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While Westminster’s MPs are taking it easy, there is a general election on Friday  in the Republic of Ireland.

Opinion polls suggest that support for the ruling Fianna Fail party will be more than halved from the 42 per cent it won in the 2007 election. As Bill Clinton once said, and outgoing Irish premier Brian Cowan knows only too well: It’s the economy, stupid.