Category Archives: in parliament

blog news, general, in parliament, news, personal notes

Gordon Brown and Alternative Voting

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Downing Street has admitted “time is tight” to get laws for a referendum on scrapping Britain’s first past the post voting system through Parliament.  Gordon Brown wants to replace it with “alternative vote,” where candidates are ranked in order of preference.  The Prime Minister says this is a better way of choosing MPs but the Conservatives say the existing method is fair and “keeps extremists out”. 

To continue Boris’s theme of voting methods here is a latest offering from Dungeekin who thinks we should have a little song in honour of the debate:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4AL5weuhFs&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

  Continue reading Gordon Brown and Alternative Voting →

blog news, general, in parliament

The Queen’s Speech 2009 (The Mikado)

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A45xqLHccRo&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]Dungeekin provides a musical rendition on the Queen’s Speech this afternoon

Many of the original words are resonant today.

In a break from Tradition, this year saw Her Majesty the Queen deliver the speech at the State Opening of Parliament not in words, but instead in song:

As each year for the Government a speech one must propound,
One’s reading Labour’s list – one’s reading Labour’s list
One pretends to be a mouthpiece for a Leadership unsound,
And they never will be missed – they never will be missed,

One regrets that for Tradition’s sake one can’t just sit and laugh,
At the bare-faced cheek of Labour with their promises daft,
Their MP’s claiming second homes and cash for this and that,
And equating one to vermin, like one was not Royal but Rat,
One wishes one could just dissolve the House so they’d desist

But instead one sits upon one’s throne and reads out Labour’s list.

 

CHORUS.
She’s reading Labour’s list–She’s reading Labour’s list;
And they’ll none of ’em be missed–they’ll none of ’em be missed.

Continue reading The Queen’s Speech 2009 (The Mikado) →

blog news, general, in parliament, personal notes

Sir Christopher Kelly Report

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 Our favourite satirist, Dungeekin, back in the ring with The (Grace) Kelly Report

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzSq29B5Dug&feature=player_embedded#[/youtube]

The (Grace) Kelly Report

So, Dear Reader, today will see Doctor Kelly lance the festering boil that is the MP’s expenses scandal. In his honour, and with the enjoyable spectacle of MPs losing their gravy train ahead, I thought we should have a little song.

[spoken]
I wanna talk to you!
The last time we talked Mr. Kelly you reduced my John Lewis list!
I promise you that won’t happen again!

You tried to redact them,
Tried to conceal them behind spin and lies,
Dishonest and dirty,
Grasping and greedy,
Now it’s you we despise,
The totals are awesome,
Really it’s loathsome,
How you milked us dry!
Why were you greedy?
Living the high life on the cash we supply?

It’s time for the verdict of Kelly, (Oooo)
He says your expenses were bad, (Aaaagh)
The size of your claims were just silly, (Mmmmm)
Your sense of entitlement’s mad!

We paid for your house,
Paid for your booze,
For you to watch porn on Sky!
You were deceitful,
You were just venal,
Claiming for anything you like!
Don’t wanna be mean,
But you were obscene,
Claiming for bath plugs and more!
Why were you greedy?
Why were you greedy?
Why keep on claiming for more?

 

articles, in parliament

The Power of the Euro-parliament and Brussels

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There is a pitiful comparison with Westminster …the laws of this country are no longer determined by Parliament at Westminster

euro-parliamentComment from Boris:  “Cor, I thought. This is what it must be like to be in one of those films. You nod off for 10 minutes and you wake up in 200 years’ time. We had just pitched up at the Gare du Midi in Brussels and the transformation was incredible. It was 20 years ago that this paper despatched me to the Belgian capital to be its Common Market Correspondent, and in those days the Gare du Midi was a wonderfully dingy place with feral cats and trod-on chips and Turkish taxi drivers snoozing in their battered Mercs and trains departing slowly for First World War destinations like Poperinge.

“Now the future had arrived. A vast space-age Eurostar terminal loured over the ancient quartier, and as we headed into the heart of Euroville I couldn’t believe my eyes. Poor old Brussels took a terrible pasting in the Fifties, when ruthless British developers moved in and razed so many lovely maisons de maître, whacking up anonymous office blocks in their place. That was nothing to the destruction now taking place in the name of Europe.”

Continue reading The Power of the Euro-parliament and Brussels →

blog news, general, in parliament, personal notes

The Budget April 2009

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Taxandspendy – with apologies to Lewis Carroll

 

Twas Budget, and the slimy toad,
Did send poor Darling out again,
From whimsy were the numbers grow’d,
That came from Number Ten.

“And use the Taxandspend, old son,
The debts that bite, the laws that catch,
Entreat the hidden tax, don’t shun,
The slightest attempt to snatch!”

He took his big red box in hand,
Longtime to Parliament he talked,
And waffled he, for in honesty,
He’d given it no thought.

Continue reading The Budget April 2009 →

articles, in parliament

Bankers’ greed and civil servants sitting pretty

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Bonuses? For this lot? You have to be joking. It is mind-blowing. It is outrageous. It is sick. Since I have now been officially designated by the BBC as the last politician willing to say anything in favour of the financial services industry and its practitioners, I hope my friends in the City will not mind if I say that it is unbelievable – totally and utterly unbelievable – that banks in receipt of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money should be using some of that money to “reward” their star performers. Continue reading Bankers’ greed and civil servants sitting pretty →

articles, in parliament

Peter Mandelson: make London more competitive, not less

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Isn’t it time Gordon Brown stopped the FTSE stampede?

Whoa there. Hold your horses, folks. The rustle of alarm is turning into a scuttle, and the scuttle is turning into a drumming roar of feet in flight. As the economic position gets worse, it is reported that this country is starting to see some notable departures.

Is Peter Mandelson and his business nous our only hope? Continue reading Peter Mandelson: make London more competitive, not less →

in parliament

Good-natured parting

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Boris was in typical form as he used his “last few seconds” in the House to  highlight some achievements.  Breaking with House etiquette, the Speaker cheerfully reminded “the Mayor” that he was only allowed one supplementary question, not three, and the Prime Minister added that he was sure, “The whole House is going to miss the contributions of the hon. Gentleman, not only in speech, but in writing.”  See more…

in parliament

Aircraft noise

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As airports expand, Boris asked for clarification on how the most recent survey findings on Attitudes to Noise from Aviation should be understood in relation to the 1986 survey that set a 57 dBA noise limit.  In his written reply,  Jim Fitzpatrick (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport) stated that the current expansion of Heathrow did not increase the “noise contour compared with summer 2002, a contour area of 127 sq km”. Click for the full written answer.