Tag Archives: Commons

Ceasefire motion fiasco triggers calls for Commons Speaker to be removed

Blood on his hands: if Keir Starmer really interfered in Parliamentary procedure to water down the SNP’s Gaza ceasefire motion, then people may justifiably be concerned that he has prolonged Israel’s genocide.

If Lyndsay Hoyle really did think he was safeguarding his job as Commons Speaker by allowing Labour’s amendment to the SNP’s ceasefire motion to be debated, he’s thinking twice now.

After he allowed the amendment onto the agenda, in defiance of convention and against the advice of his clerk…

… it was suggested that he had been blackmailed into taking it by Keir Starmer (possibly via his chief of staff, Sue Gray), with a threat that he would not be re-elected as Speaker after the general election if he didn’t toe the line:

Hoyle denied being pressured by anybody from the Labour Party.

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Instead, after holding meetings with representatives from all sides of the House of Commons, Hoyle came up with a fantastical story that he had been presented with “frightening” threats to MPs’ safety.

He said he

“never, ever wanted to go through a situation where I pick up a phone to find a friend of whatever side has been murdered by a terrorist”.

He added: “I also don’t want another attack on this House. I was in the chair on that day. I have seen, I have witnessed.

“I won’t share the details but the details of the things that have been brought to me are absolutely frightening on all members of this House, on all sides. I have a duty of care and I say that and if my mistake is looking after members, I am guilty. I am guilty because… I have a duty of care that I will carry out to protect people. It is the protection that led me to make a wrong decision.”

Do you believe that? Tom Smith, who runs Another Angry Voice, doesn’t.

He wrote:

Here’s just some of the stuff that’s wrong with this absurd Starmerite narrative that Hoyle had to bin parliamentary procedure and side with Starmer in order to protect MPs from potential harm.

Labour MPs bragged to their mates in the media that they made Hoyle do what he did by threatening his position as speaker.

Hoyle himself stated that he was doing it for ‘procedural reasons’, rather than for the safety of MPs.

The implication that MPs lives would be in danger were they to have debated a motion that referenced Israeli “collective punishment” of Palestinian civilians rather than one that didn’t is downright absurd.

It’s beyond depraved to invoke the horrific killings of MPs by a far-right extremist (Jo Cox) and an Islamist terrorist (David Amess) to portray overwhelmingly peaceful Palestinian solidarity campaigners as a threat to the safety of politicians.

Citing potential terrorist violence in order to rip up established procedures sets an extremely dangerous precedent that clearly incentivises violent threats against MPs from people who expect they can influence political processes through threats and intimidation.

MPs have a long proven track record of fabricating threats and abuse.

MPs centring themselves as the primary victims in all of this is utterly obscene.

I agree with him.

At the time of writing, 67 MPs – mostly from the Conservative Party and the SNP – have signed a motion of ‘no confidence’ in the Speaker.

He should resign; he made a terrible mistake – possibly under pressure from the Labour leadership – and now he has tried to justify himself in a way that is not credible.

And then there is Keir Starmer’s role in this.

If he did pressurise the Speaker – in any way – then he has disgraced his position, the Labour Party, Parliament and the UK (because this was a debate about this country’s role in international affairs).

In such circumstances, he certainly would not deserve to become a prime minister of the UK. Until the questions about this fiasco are answered in full, he should not be allowed the opportunity.


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Tory idiot Gullis didn’t watch #PostOfficeScandal drama. Paw Patrol was his level

Jonathan Gullis (the beardie weirdie without a mask, behind Boris Johnson): his original claim to fame was as a PMQs heckler, shouting stupidity at the Labour benches. It seems he cannot restrain himself from uttering silly nonsense. The public should expect better.

What an insult to two of the sub-postmasters who were instrumental in getting the Horizon software scandal into the public eye – and, indeed, the courts – to have the matter discussed by Tory numbskull Jonathan Gullis.

Here’s the situation:

Evidence was heard from Alan Bates (the Mr Bates of Mr Bates vs The Post Office) and Jo Hamilton, who was also depicted in the drama.

He did what?

He joked about watching Paw Patrol?

For context, Mr Bates had just said people were dying while waiting for compensation. It was amid such contributions that Gullis slipped his extremely ill-considered contribution.

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The social media were quick to provide the kind of well-deserved responses that, no doubt, Mr Bates and Ms Hamilton were too polite to make at the hearing:

It says everything about the state of the UK today that upstanding people like Mr Bates and Ms Hamilton can be wrongly accused – and in some cases convicted – of crimes, and then have to listen to the childishness of people like this.

The sooner time-wasting ignoramuses like Gullis are removed from Parliament, the better.


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Nadine Dorries quits the Commons – at last! If it’s to become a Lady, we foresee difficulties

Nadine Dorries: is she soon to become Lady Dorries of window-licking trolls? [Image: The Prole Star.]

This seems an extremely mixed blessing.

At long last, Nadine Dorries is dragging her carcass out of the House of Commons – despite spending considerable effort telling us she wasn’t going to do anything of the sort until after the next general election.

It means there will be a by-election. Let’s hope the people of Mid Bedfordshire have the sense to give both the Conservatives and Labour a wake-up call and vote for somebody else. Will the Green Party be putting up a candidate?

Dorries is doing this, conspicuously, right before details of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list are published, in which it was alleged (but she strenuously denied) that she might be ennobled.

That’s right – we might be facing the prospect of Lady “Window Licking Trolls” before the end of the month.

It was bad enough with Michelle Mone flouncing around the Lords in her vermine ermine. Who next – Esther bloody McVey?

They could all gather around the Woolsack, chanting, “When shall we three meet again – to persecute, swindle or just act vain?”

It’s bad enough that Rishi Sunak is so weak-willed he’s willing to accept Johnson’s choices of honours. They were always bound to elevate his vile cronies – and McVey is certainly among those.


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First female Commons Speaker dies. Is this the best comment on her?

Betty Boothroyd: first female Commons Speaker dies aged 93.

This Writer is saddened to learn of the death of first female Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd, at the age of 93.

She was also the first Speaker I can remember who became a media personality in her own right – not only because she was a woman but because she was a former Tiller girl (it was a famous dance troupe, back in the day).

The best comment I’ve seen on her passing is this:

It puts the official word from current speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle in the shade:

Will we see her like again? Definitely.

But with people like Hoyle around, and politicians like Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, it seems unlikely that they’ll turn up for a long, long time.


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Tory Bridgen facing Commons suspension over lobbying – but is the penalty strong enough?

Suspension threat: Andrew Bridgen.

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen may be suspended from the House of Commons for five days after he failed to declare a financial interest in a firm while writing to ministers about it.

The Commons Standards Committee found that Bridgen had breached lobbying rules “on multiple occasions and in multiple ways” – and that he had also made an “unacceptable attack on the integrity” of Standards Commissioner Kathryn Stone.

A BBC report stated:

The committee said Mr Bridgen had called the integrity of Ms Stone into question on the basis of “wholly unsubstantiated and false allegations, and attempted to improperly influence the House’s standards processes”.

According to the BBC (again),

It was recommended he be suspended for three days for this – in addition to two days for three breaches of the code of conduct, including failing to declare a relevant interest in emails to ministers.

The committee said Mr Bridgen should have told ministers and officials he received a donation and a funded visit to Ghana from the Cheshire-based firm Mere Plantations, and had a £12,000 contract to be an adviser.

Bridgen appealed against the decision, but a panel has dismissed this, saying the proposed penalty was appropriate. MPs will vote on whether to uphold the recommended five-day suspension.

It seems Bridgen had had questioned whether his reputation as an outspoken critic of then-prime minister Boris Johnson could have influenced Ms Stone’s findings:

He wrote to her saying: “I was distressed to hear on a number of occasions an unsubstantiated rumour that your contract as Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is due to end in the coming months and that there are advanced plans to offer you a peerage, potentially as soon as the Prime Minister’s resignation honours list.

“There is also some suggestion amongst colleagues that those plans are dependent upon arriving at the ‘right’ outcomes when conducting parliamentary standards investigations.

“Clearly my own travails with Number 10 and the former PM have been well documented and obviously a small part of me is naturally concerned to hear such rumours.

“More importantly however you are rightfully renowned for your integrity and decency and no doubt such rumours are only designed to harm your reputation.”

The committee said Mr Bridgen’s email “appears to be an attempt to place wholly inappropriate pressure on the commissioner” which is “completely unacceptable behaviour”.

In his appeal, it seems Bridgen criticised the investigation as “flawed”, arguing that it had not fully considered the motivations of the person who had made the initial complaint.

He also said he had been carrying out the duties of a constituency MP.

But the Independent Expert Panel, that had been asked to consider his appeal, concluded that the motivations of the complainant were “completely irrelevant” and that an exemption for an MPs constituency duties did not apply in his case.

Its members added that sanctions “could properly and fairly have been more severe”.

Then why weren’t they?

There are three fairly serious misdemeanours here:

  • he failed to follow lobbying rules (on multiple occasions, we’re told);
  • he tried to exert pressure on the Standards Commissioner by attacking her integrity; and
  • he tried to claim the investigation was part of a personal attack by whoever made the complaint about him.

So this is not just about lobbying, and possibly benefiting financially from such activities; it’s also about bullying and deflecting blame.

If a five-day suspension is the worst sanction that the Parliamentary standards system can impose, then perhaps there should be legislation to formally criminalise this behaviour, with jurisdiction on any punishment handed over to the courts?

Or would this simply give the police another opportunity to kowtow to the Conservatives?

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Commons suspension update: NO ACTION over Ministerial Code breach?

Could anything else so succinctly demonstrate the power that Parliament has to hold the government to account – or rather the lack of it?

Commons Speaker Lyndsay Hoyle suspended a sitting of the House of Commons on Thursday (December 8) after discovering that Michael Gove had failed to deliver a full copy of a ministerial statement on the opening of a new coal mine, either to him or to Opposition parties.

This meant the Speaker was unable to select the MPs who would question the minister on the decision, because nobody had the information needed to inform such questions.

This is a breach of the Ministerial Code and by rights, Gove should have resigned.

But, as Maximilien Robespierre observes in the video below, he’s not going to resign.

He won’t be punished by prime minister Rishi Sunak.

And the Commons sitting was suspended for just five minutes.

Pathetic. Toothless. Pointless.

Here’s the clip:

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Speaker suspends Commons session after government breaks the rules AGAIN

They were warned.

Time and time again, Tory ministers have been told that their statements to the House of Commons have to be made in a very particular way, which is:

  • not after announcing what they’re doing to the media first, and
  • not without giving Opposition parties full access to the contents of their speech.

But Michael Gove – who has been in government on and off since 2010 and therefore should know better – broke those rules yet again, and this time Commons Speaker Lyndsay Hoyle had had enough.

He suspended the sitting of the Commons – firstly for five minutes and then for a longer period, in order to investigate Gove’s reasons for failing to supply more than a brief summary of his long speech before he delivered it and to provide Opposition parties with a chance to absorb what he had said and formulate questions on it.

Was Gove trying to avoid letting his fellow MPs have the chance to ask pertinent questions?

Or is he just incompetent?

As always, it’s hard to separate idiocy from intent with this lot.

The whole saga was captured on video, so you can watch it for yourself:

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Extinction Rebellion activists arrested after Commons chamber protest

This was only to be expected. You can’t break into the seat of UK government and cause a scene, and then expect to walk away totally free.

But it does show one thing: it really was completely disproportionate for the Tory government to try to label Extinction Rebellion as a terrorist organisation.

If the group had been terrorists, they would have been able to level the Palace of Westminster from the inside before anybody in authority had a clue what was happening.

And that’s the reason This Writer thinks the arrests really happened: it is humiliating for Parliamentary authorities to discover that anybody can waltz in and superglue themselves to the Speaker’s chair whenever they feel like it.

So here’s what has happened:

Eight people have been arrested after climate activists glued themselves together around the Speaker’s chair in the House of Commons.

The protestors, from Extinction Rebellion UK, were on a guided tour of Parliament when they took the action, a spokeswoman said.

MPs are currently on their summer break, and are due to return next week.

The Met Police said it had launched an investigation into the “full circumstances of the incident”.

It’s an entirely token effort. These people have probably been released already.

One wonders whether their message will be taken as seriously as their presence was?

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Extinction Rebellion invades Parliament to protest climate change inaction

This just in from Extinction Rebellion:

Just before noon today (Friday, September 2), a group of around fifty people took nonviolent action at the House of Commons to kick off the first phase of Extinction Rebellion’s September plans. The Parliament action began with three people booked on an official tour of the building, gluing themselves in a chain around the Speaker’s Chair inside the Parliamentary Chamber. They took it in turns to read a speech, pointing to the need for a Citizens’ Assembly to cut through the corruption deep in the heart of Westminster. They wore t-shirts that read ‘Let The People Decide’.

Behind the Speaker’s Chair in the great hall, two people held two large banners that read ‘Citizens’ Assemblies Now’ and ‘Let The People Decide’. Outside of the building, a member of Extinction Rebellion climbed up the scaffolding around Big Ben and held another giant banner that read ‘Let The People Decide- Citizens’ Assemblies Now”, while two others chained themselves to the railings.

Everyone inside the building had entered legally via an official tourist booking.

The speech read out in the chamber said: “We are in crisis. And what goes on in this chamber every day makes a joke out of us all. We can not afford to carry on like this. 

“It is possible to act on climate and costs in a way that is fair and supports everyone. But our political system is too out of date and out of touch to see beyond the next election cycle and do what needs to be done. We need a new way of making decisions, where more voices are heard, not just those at the top. We need the true diversity of the country to be represented.

“We need a Citizens’ Assembly, now. Citizens’ Assemblies empower ordinary people to make decisions that benefit everyone. Decisions that can get us out of this mess and make life better, safer, fairer for all of us.”

With a new Prime Minister to be chosen next week by a fraction of the country, and the UK suffering from a cost of living scandal meaning millions won’t be able to pay their bills this winter, faith in politics is at an all time low. There is an urgent need to upgrade our political system to allow more representation and give ordinary people a say over the major crises facing us.

In July this year the high court ruled that the UK Government’s pathway to net zero is unlawful because it is so lacking in detail it’s not even possible to hold them to account on it. Recent polling by Ipsos found that eight out of ten people in the UK are concerned about the climate crisis and over 52% percent think the government’s plan to get net zero by 2050 is too late, that’s around 35 million people who think the government’s plan isn’t good enough. Yet both candidates for PM have said they plan to increase production of new fossil fuels.

Our current politics is too focused on the short termism of the election cycle to tackle the major issues of today, like widespread inequality and the climate and ecological emergency. A citizens’ assembly on climate and costs would break the deadlock on Westminster corruption, allow more people to be represented, and restore trust in politics.

Alanna Byrne of Extinction Rebellion, said: “It is possible to change things and update politics so it really represents ordinary people. Independent citizens’ assemblies can show that those blocking progress in Westminster have no democratic mandate to continue destroying the environment and give power back to people. Selected like a jury and supported with independent, expert knowledge, this is true democracy that reflects the diversity of the population. 

“But to create a new, fairer politics will require first thousands, then millions of us. It will require sustained culture-shifting civil disobedience, until we become impossible to ignore. Then, when there’s enough of us, positive change will become inevitable.”

The action today is the opening act for Extinction Rebellion’s September plans, which itself will act as a launch event for a 5 phase plan to bring 100k people onto the streets in civil resistance next Spring. This exciting new plan will centre people power at its core, because Extinction Rebellion’s mission is to build a movement that is impossible to ignore. [3]

September will boost energy and build momentum as a first step in a laser focused, strategic plan that sees Extinction Rebellion growing in numbers and building momentum towards Spring  2023. Politics as usual will do anything to avoid facing up to the reality of the climate and ecological crisis, so without large numbers out on the streets our demands will be ignored. We believe now more than ever as cost of living leaves people desperate, and strike action for better pay is demonised, that a mass movement of 3.5% of the population is needed to bring about radical change. In order to achieve that there’s an urgent need for a mature plan that people can believe in, a plan which maps out precisely how we can win between now and next Spring.

Extinction Rebellion has worked on a roadmap to success and it begins with fierce mobilisation and connecting with communities across the UK. After the September weekend, we will tour the country to hold People’s Assemblies to capture the true voice of the country and find out the biggest concerns people are facing, and how we can tackle them together. This will be followed by mass disruptive action together with other groups, for maximum impact on October 14th, focusing our outrage at the cost of living scandal into solidarity action.

Following this, Extinction Rebellion will be focused primarily on growing the movement and targeting all of our energy in April 2023.

The plan will be in 5 phases:

PHASE 1: A curtain raiser action prior to the 10th and mass London and UK – wide Paint the Streets on the evening of Friday 9th Sept!

PHASE 2: Meet at Marble Arch on September 10th for 3 days of deliberative democracy, community building & resistance in an undisclosed, disruptive green space.

PHASE 3: Rebellion Buses will tour the country over 4 weeks, hosting People’s Assemblies, meeting and hearing from local groups and communities, engaging in intensive mobilisation.

PHASE 4: On the 14th October we invite everyone to come back to Westminster, London, for disruptive nonviolent civil disobedience to join forces with other groups organising around the cost of living scandal.

PHASE 5: THE BIG ONE – This will centre major government disruption over a prolonged period until the government agrees to empower an independent Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.

Integrated with our methodical mobilisation campaign, Project 3.5, we will pledge to sign up 100k people by Spring 2023 to come back to London for major nonviolent civil resistance to win on our demands.

The protest has been live-tweeted on Twitter:

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Partygate: Boris Johnson may be getting no more fines, but he’s a long way from getting away with it

Boris Johnson at a party: this one was in Christmas 2020, apparently, but the police aren’t fining him for it. Hmm…

Never mind the rumours that Boris Johnson met Sue Gray to discuss how to “manage” her report on the Covid-19 lockdown-busting Downing Street parties; he’s not likely to affect her verdict.

Apparently they only met to talk about whether she should publish images in her report – and he said it was a matter for her to decide on her own.

At the moment, it seems she is pushing for clearance to name the so-called ringleaders of the Partygate scandal, discussing with Civil Service human resources and legal teams, as well as trade unions, how explicitly she can point the finger.

That’s not the behaviour of someone who has taken orders not to rock the boat.

Indeed, avid scandal-watchers are bulk-buying popcorn in time for next week’s publication of her report, which promises to issue scathing criticism of senior political and Civil Service figures, calling into question why illegal social gatherings were allowed to take place.

But the real scandal appears to be the possibility that the Commons Privileges Committee is unlikely to report on whether Johnson intentionally misled Parliament over these parties until September.

The Committee has not yet met to decide who will chair the inquiry, after Labour’s Chris Bryant recused himself over [an] accusation of bias.

It is also unlikely to conclude its investigation before Parliament breaks up for summer recess in July, raising the prospect of Mr Johnson waiting until September at the earliest until the final verdict is delivered on Partygate.

The net result of all this delay has been to diffuse the strength of the scandal.

Ms Gray was originally set to publish her expected-to-be-damning report in January, less than two months after claims came to light that Tory ministers and civil servants took part in illegal parties over a period of more than a year.

But she was delayed after Johnson’s fellow Balliol College, Oxford, alumnus Cressida Dick commissioned a Metropolitan Police inquiry into the allegations that has delayed matters for four months.

And in the meantime, MPs decided to hold their own inquiry into whether Johnson had broken the Ministerial Code. It is known that he repeatedly provided false information to the Commons about whether parties took place but the important question is whether he did so, knowing that his words were not true.

It is this inquiry that may push Johnson out of Downing Street, because knowingly misleading Parliament is a breach of the Ministerial Code for which the penalties go as far as expulsion from that assembly.

But if the verdict won’t be known until September, who will care?

Source: Boris Johnson to wait months for final ‘Partygate’ verdict on whether he misled Parliament

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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HWG PrintHWG eBook

Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:

HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

SWAHTprint SWAHTeBook