A Week in Parliament
/Big Ben
The Tories are getting on with really important matters…such as whether Big Ben will “bong” when the UK leaves the EU on January 31st. Boris Johnson has encouraged donations to a fundraiser for this without realising the House of Commons Authorities cannot accept such money. This means we have a Prime Minister whose focus isn’t on the real job, and again he shows he has no idea about the actual rules of governance. It really could be a portent of things to come.
Tory Government Lords
The Secretary of State for Digital, sits in the House of Lords. So, MPs cannot directly question her. At the most recent question session we were supposed to be impressed that she was in the public gallery watching, as her Minister made a big deal of pointing this out. From my perspective it illustrated the farce of a Lord being a Government Minister given we cannot question her directly. Frankly she was also wasting her own time and advisors time by not simply watching from their offices.
Labour Lords
Meanwhile a leaked list confirms that Labour’s “principled” opposition to the unelected Lords continues by them appointing more of their cronies to the place. They are also looking to nominate John Bercow the former speaker and Tory! Their former deputy leader, Tom Watson, who wanted to step down from frontline politics, apparently is now willing to be a Lord. What message does that say about his planned work ethic if this is “stepping down”? Katy Clark, the former MP for North Ayrshire and Arran is another. So we will have 3 former Ayrshire MPs, Clark, Des Browne and George Foulkes who now all have jobs for life in the Lords – in an institution they pretend they want to abolish!
York Lords
It has also emerged that the Tories are looking at proposals to move the House of Lords outside London, possibly to York. I am all for decentralising outside London, but this proposal seems barmy and involves the construction of a new chamber. Who will pay for all this? Well all of us of course, and we Scottish taxpayers will be paying our share for absolutely no net gain at all. When opposition parties talk about Scotland running a deficit just remember our “spend” contains all sort of allocated spend such as this which we have no say on.
Catalonia
Many people would have been horrified by the police brutality in Catalonia, beating up old women because they were casting a vote on independence. The treatment of the Catalonian elected politicians has also been shameful. Yet, according to Lisa Nandy, a Labour leadership candidate, this is an example we should turn to as a lesson in how to beat “divisive nationalism” [ie Scottish nationalism]. So, someone touting themselves as a Labour leader, and by default a future Prime Minister, thinks this is how to treat Scotland. She clearly has no clue what happened in Catalonia, and doesn’t understand Scottish politics. No wonder Scottish Labour really has to consider other options.
