Speaker : let's hope it's third time lucky

Readers may recall a post I made in September under the title 'Good riddance to a meretricious arsewipe'. After recalling my first experience with George Thomas and his successor, I wrote

After Weatherill came Betty Boothroyd - ex Tiller Girl, and to date our only female Speaker. She brought a twinkle and a touch of humour to the chair in a way that in no wise diminished either her dignity, the authority of the Speaker or her command of the chamber. For the matters of her term, 1992 - 2000, she was perfect.

Then came Gorbals Mick, an inadequate and corrupt machine politician with little merit who sought to suppress, by power and bullying, the expenses scandal from reaching the press. And after Gorbals Mick the arsewipe, that sanctimonious dwarf Bercow. Two lousy Speakers, Bercow the very worst in my long memory and possibly in the life of our Parliament.

The Commons meets this afternoon to select a new Speaker. I shalln't compare the candidates - they will only be proven in the Chair. We have had two lousy Speakers in a row - let's hope that either by design or accident, the next one will be the Speaker that parliament needs (though hardly deserves).

People -v- Parliament III

Yesterday our rogue parliament had one chance to redeem itself. Whether or not you agree with Boris' deal, it was the very best that was available and leaving the EU without some sort of agreement is a damning failure of statecraft for a mature democracy. Up until now, the public perception of blame for the Brexit fiasco could be split between an intransigent Brussels and a petulant parliament. Yesterday that all changed. Now it is solely our own anti-democratic MPs who will go down in history as narcissistic zealots of the worst sort, jejune attention seekers bloated with hubris and self-righteousness, inflated with pompous self-worth and messianic delusions.

Yesterday they had one chance to redeem themselves. Had they swallowed the government motion even at this late stage, they could have won back a large part of the utter contempt in which they are held by the people of this country. The nation's relief at closure, at moving forward, would have acted to lift substantially the opprobrium covering parliament like a steaming blanket of ordure.

Instead they have condemned themselves to nemesis at the hands of the electorate, an electorate revolted and disgusted by their abuse of democracy, their abuse of the ordinary people of this nation. Letwin has no future anywhere. Business, industry, finance and the penumbral shadows of the grey men of the deep state were all behind this deal; everyone in this country with any power and influence backed this resolution. Letwin is now friendless, unless one counts the few mentally-ill ranters and painted idiots clustered on College Green. They are hardly in a position to compensate for the directorships and sinecures he will now have lost now after his constituency voters have also scorned and rejected him.

By their actions yesterday, parliament and its little bent Speaker have shown that they are not worthy even of the pretence of polite regard. The contempt shown to them by the government and Conservative benches yesterday should be repeated until they are gone. The time for the polite pretence of listening to their deluded bombast is past. Let their inanities echo around an empty chamber for another week or so, with their gurning fool Bercow squirming in the Chair. We can't be bothered with them any longer. They are nothing.

Rogue Parliament - Rogue Speaker

When I was a youngster there was a dinosaur factoid about the time it would take a nerve impulse to travel from the tip of a Diplodocus' tail to its minuscule brain. I've still no idea whether it was true or not for dinosaurs, but it's a convenient metaphor for the lag between a change in public mood and the realisation of that change by our MPs. At times the message doesn't get through at all, as in the case of status and expenses. Contrary to every single snapshot of public opinion, MPs, like the models in the cosmetics adverts, believe they're worth it. They really do imagine that they're special.

Yet over the weekend another poll appeared that confirmed once more that our MPs are utterly mistaken in their high opinion of themselves. The ComRes poll for the Express hasn't at time of writing appeared on the ComRes site so I must rely on the paper's published excerpts.

- 73% of Remain voters think Parliament is in desperate need of reform
- 85% of Leave voters think Parliament is in desperate need of reform

- 73% of all voters think Parliament does not attract the brightest and the best

One MP in Parliament thinks he is even more special than anyone else - the vile and meretricious Speaker Bercow, the sanctimonious dwarf who has, more than any other MP, trashed our democratic nexus. He is defending nothing but his own tattered reputation, standing for nothing greater than his personal notoriety, committed to nothing but his own egoistic fantasies. And the British public are united in their view of his disastrous time in the chair - he has helped destroy confidence in Parliament.

My hope is that our only saving grace is the venality, cupidity and self-interest of MPs themselves. Faced with this crisis of confidence, they will agree to sacrifice the Lords to save themselves. It may be too little too late. Janet Daley writes in the Telegraph -

... even if the Leave case wins through, the damage that has been done to British political life is horrendous. We seem to have imported two of the worst features of the American tradition. First there is gridlock. In the US this occurs when one party has the presidency and the other controls Congress, thus making government inoperable. This should not be possible in the British system since the executive is comprised of the majority, or a functioning minority, in parliament. But the Speaker and Continuity Remain have found a way to abolish the principle of democratic consent which once accepted this arrangement.

Then there is the US predilection for a losing side to try to sue its way to victory with continuous vexatious litigation. This is alien not only to our customs but to our national understanding of the role of politics and the function of the law.

My own view is that the system, the configuration, is robust. It has been corrupted by a Rogue Parliament and a Rogue Speaker, a man who should never in a million years have been elevated to the chair. I just hope we can cull them, throw them from the place, eject them and reclaim OUR Parliament and OUR democracy free from these vulgar weasels.

An excellent graphic from the Daily Express

Poll - Public trust Boris more than Parliament

Another Humdinger of a poll today - Comres for the Telegraph, with the paper's write-up here. However, here are my highlights -

Parliament is out of touch with the British public
Agree - 88%
Disagree - 12%

Don't knows were 12%

On Brexit, most MPs seem to ignore the wishes of voters and push their own agendas
Agree - 90%
Disagree - 10%

Don't knows 12%

Parliament is more in tune than Boris with the British public 
Agree - 38%
Disagree - 62%

And that's the tone of the poll; we don't wholly trust Boris, we don't think he can unite the country and the jury's out on his competence but by God he's miles better than this shoddy, anti-democratic Parliament, the country is saying. And that helps to understand the Telegraph headline from Q7

Boris needs to deliver Brexit by any means, including suspending parliament if necessary, in order to prevent MPs from stopping it
Agree - 54%
Disagree - 46%

It confirms the growing support from the last Opinium poll for 'Brexit now - deal or no deal'. And confirms my recent point that in any people vs parliament election if they force a vote of no confidence next month, they'll get slaughtered - rarely have I seen a parliament held in such contempt by the British people.

Right. Next .... the Lords.

Ten Years On ..

NB - Blogger / feedburner is acting funny at this end. Anyone else having problems please let me know via email (RH column). Ta.
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 The Telegraph is rightly celebrating a decade since the Parliamentary expenses scandal was uncovered, after a hard fight against both the Speaker Gorbals Mick and the Parliamentary watchdogs, who used every trick and turn available to stop us getting the information. That wasn't all that was going on - in London, albeit a year earlier, we were getting ready to elect Boris. Forgive me for recycling that post; it has echoes.

It's strange, I can't wait to cast my votes on Thursday. My ballot card is pinned ready on the notice board and I'm eager for the off. I can't recall when I've ever enjoyed an election so much - perhaps 1979 was the last time. Then, after nearly a decade of Vic Feather and Len Murray and shots of Congress House in virtually every news report the same feeling for a need for change was in the air.

In retrospect, the 70s and the Thatcher years were where the rot started. In 1974 Anthony Crosland told local government 'The party's over' - meaning the expansionist Client State fuelled by the economic boom of the 60s was over, a theme echoes by Keith Joseph in the years that followed. When Thatcher came to power in 1979, the central State expanded its powers beyond levels that had not even been seen during the dark days of the war, at the time the only measure to rein in the trots in the town halls, but ironically the foundation for Zanu Labour's Centralist control freakery from 1997.

Gordon Brown is even less capable than Jim Callaghan of steering the ship of state. As he attempts to tighten his grip on every aspect of citizens' lives, as he tries to convince his dying party and an angry nation that he's in control, the more control slips from his chewed fingers. Damned with faint praise by his own backbenchers, held on his back foot by the media, it's not now a question of if he goes but when. In fact, his Jonah abilities are so acute that I'm convinced every high-profile appearance he'll make between now and Thursday will knock points off the Labour votes - Livingstone must be praying he'll stay out of London.

Oh, and as for Parliament - we only jailed three. It wasn't enough.

Perfidious MPs will be running scared of the ballot box

Not all our MPs will betray the promises their parties made at the 2017 election, when their lies induced 86% of electors to vote for their solemn pledges to Leave. Not all MPs will betray their previous votes to trigger Article 50 and to Leave the EU. Not all MPs will betray their moral obligation to enact in Parliament the nation's democratic will. But most will.

For some, those who lied openly and brazenly, their hearts dark with duplicity and treachery, for whom the rewards of place or office were too greatly loved to be foregone, no words are foul enough to condemn their betrayal. For others, the ninnies, unicorn-chasers, naive credulous fools, babblers, mirror-gazers and assorted half-wits, carried up in the vain delusion that their own opinions counted for more than the Referendum, their fate may shock and surprise them.

MPs may not be clever, but most of them are cunning. And many know what the ballot box is likely to bring. Away from the fairyland of Westminster even the deepest self-deceptions and delusions fall away, and their abject failure to enact Brexit will stand them stark bollock naked before the scrutiny of their electors. Even now they feel the fear.

So don't expect an election any time soon. They will delay it - all of them, each and every perfidious arse on those green benches - for as long as possible. In the hope that the anger of electors at their failure will fade. In the hope that something will turn up. In the hope that another three years sitting as frauds and liars, their public regard prone in the gutter and feculent with filth, will lessen the reckoning they will face.

It will not. 

Brexit - the road narrows

At each stage of this protracted Brexit process, the closer we get to the end of the month, the number of remaining options decreases and the choices available to those holding power become more stark. Parliament may today vote against no deal, and may tomorrow vote to ask for an extension of Article 50, but as far as I can see neither vote matters very much. The only meaningful vote that Parliament could now take would be to withdraw Article 50 completely - and this would almost certainly mean a General Election to follow which few now in the House would welcome; voters in most constituencies would slaughter them.

It's now all in the hands of the EU - and this time, not just the unelected officials. If Parliament asks for an extension, it will be up to the individual EU governments whether to agree. There is talk of a year's extension but I don't give this much credence. They've already redistributed the UK seats, will be voting from May and won't want Farage's Brexit Party back in July, crowding the UK seats as they will have annihilated Conservative and Labour MEPs. As far as they're concerned, we've left. So they may agree a few weeks delay - perhaps until the end of April.

So MPs, it appears, can only choose either to cancel the Referendum, or choose to swallow the Selmayr-Robbins Treaty, or choose neither which allows us to Leave by default in either two or six weeks. What other options are there? 

And now for something completely different ...
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It was 25 years ago that I first downloaded Netscape Navigator via a noisy and slow modem. It took more than half an hour to download, and transformed my life. The 'Edit' button I think allowed one to compose and save HTML pages, which could be uploaded by FTP. I once spent an entire day hand-coding nested tables, with reams of 'cellpadding' and 'cellspacing' commands. Now one can do the same in about 20 seconds.

 

The greatest failure of Statecraft since Suez

If was some forty years before Suez, and not in the heat of the Egyptian desert but in the cold dark of the North Sea that Admiral Beatty commented, as two of his prized battlecruisers blew up at Jutland, "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today". The nation, schooled in an invincible navy, in a formidable fleet, found the losses hard to swallow. Likewise, in a Britain schooled in the notion of a Rolls-Royce civil service, in which the best and brightest in the land devote lives to the nation, and  as highly competent mandarins steer the great ship of state with skill and dedication, we are faced with the abject failure of Whitehall.

There's something wrong with the bastards today. Despite May's manifest stubborn stupidity, despite her lunacy in treating Brexit, as Nick Timothy described, as a damage limitation exercise, they should never have permitted her ignorance and idiocy to plunge the United Kingdom into the greatest failure of Statecraft since Suez, as Allister Heath phrases it.

'Boomer' Cox is a caricature, a character from a Gilbert and Sullivan opera or one of the supporting cast of Mortimer's Rumpole. Skilled neither in this specialist area of the law or in statesmanship, his mission has quite predictably failed. The Commons team of eight legal experts have nothing to scrutinise.

The EU will not move a millimetre because it is their sole aim to damage, hurt and humiliate Britain, a repeat Versailles. In this they are assisted by May's scabrous government and a Parliament that still refuses to accept that a majority of voters, 17.4m electors, sealed a mandate to Leave.

Well, sooner or later they must face the ballot box. Any notion they may have that the public anger at her capitulation, at the failure of my party to prevent it, will be forgotten is naive. We have not forgiven Blair for 2003, nor will we. Our memories are long and we carry a grudge deeply. They will not, they cannot succeed in preventing our exit from a failed EU - we only question how much suffering and humiliation will they inflict on Britain before they realise this. The more they prolong it, the greater the force with which they will be thrown from office.

The Electoral Quotient - a big issue with a boring name

The faux outrage of Labour, Welsh or Scots MPs at the publication of the Boundary Commission's final report is theatrical, at least in part. Conformity of constituency boundaries with a uniform number of voters in each - the EQ, or Electoral Quotient - has long been outside developed nation standards. An EQ of +/-5% is just about acceptable, but advanced democracies such as New Zealand achieve +/-3%. For years we have been way outside even the farthest limits, with the vote of an elector in one constituency being worth the votes of two voters in another. Any complaint at correcting this anomaly is an anti-democratic whinge. The threat to democracy is not from having a fair and robust democratic system but in gerrymandering voters equality to pander to the self interest of MPs who don't want to lose their jobs. 

Let's be clear. MPs are expendable; lose one, and there's a thousand more individuals neither less nor more capable ready to take their place. As individuals they are unremarkable and replaceable. It is the form and function of the parliament, the way the Commons works that is important. As Churchill noted, the confrontational layout of the chamber is vital, two sword lengths apart, as is the small size. Churchill opined that a chamber that never had seats sufficient to sit all members at once was an advantage -

... a conversational style of speaking, which has long been held to be the model of English Parliamentary life. How much better this is than foreign assemblies, where they all sit in a semi‐circle, and everyone has a place, or even a desk, which he can bang when he is displeased, and where every speaker goes up to harangue an audience scattered through a large arena. The essential of keen debate is the sense of a crowd, clustering together, craning forward, gathering round the speaker, with the cheers flung back from side to side.

The total number of MPs is also fairly critical. Proposals to reduce the number of seats from 650 to 600 featured in both the 2015 and 2017 Conservative manifestos. The essential elements of the Parliament would be preserved, and representation would not be diminished beyond comparative standards of democracy in the advanced nations.

Two matters however must be addressed. One is the social worker role that has fallen to MPs, who now spend much time intervening in social welfare and immigration disputes between their constituents and the State. This is not a beneficial or useful use of their time and attention, which should be devoted to the business of the legislature. Secondly is the sheer number of government posts, including the scores of junior appointments that bind an ever increasing number of MPs to the government, hobbling the scrutinising function of the House.  

Correcting the EQ is the last of the measures taken by Conservative governments since 2010 to correct the drift of our democratic systems under Labour into crookedness and democratic corruption. We will all be better off for it.