Be Excellent To Each Other

LOL - labour whip to defy the whip

http://uk.businessinsider.com/labour-le ... der-2017-1

It'll be fun to see what how far their Lordships are prepared to push on this one. But if it speeds up reform of the Upper House, it might not all be in vain.

Second reading is about the principle of the bill, so I'd want a free vote on that. Whipping to get those amendments onto the face of the bill would be fine, but I'd still want a free vote at third reading due to what is at stake.

Jo Stevens has resigned from Shadow Cabinet.

Some excellent work from Ken Clarke in Parliament today explaining why he will be disobeying the whip to vote against the bill. Including a great line of "I will be voting in line with the Conservative Party policy of the last 50 years, up until it hit a bewildering and unexpected course change on the 23rd June 2016".

Mr Speaker :

Order. The hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) has made it clear that he is not giving way, and may I gently say that an enormous amount of heckling is taking place, sometimes from the hon. Gentleman’s own Benches? They are heckling more loudly than I shout when watching Britain in the Davis cup, and I do not do that while play is in progress.

The British people did not vote to make themselves poorer by pulling out of the greatest free-trading single market the world has ever seen

Anna Soubry :

Will my right hon. Friend please assure us that he will be true to his claim, as a leader of the leave campaign, that £350 million a week will now be going into our NHS? Or does he agree with others who say that that figure was always false and that that was a lie?

Michael Gove:

I have no idea whether the word “lie” is unparliamentary, but as someone who is not in the Government I cannot deliver such sums. What I can do, however, is consistently argue, as I have done, that when we take back control of the money that we currently give to the European Union we can invest that money in the NHS. In fact, it was the consistent claim of the leave campaign, as my right hon. Friend well knows, that we wished to give £100 million to the NHS—some of the money that we were going to take back control of—and also spend money on supporting science and ensuring that we could get rid of VAT on fuel, something which we cannot do while we are still a member of the European Union.

He really doesn't know when to stop just talking absolute shite that Gove twat, does he. There's some stiff competition but I think he's the worst politician.

I know that a significant minority of my constituents will find my stance disappointing

Wonder how Jo Cox would feel to see most of her party siding with her killer.

That's absolute fucking bollocks.

Just think, if Liam Byrne hadn't left that note, this shitshow wouldn't be happening. Well done, Liam.

Are we playing 'for want of a nail'? I'll see your Liam Byrne and raise you Gareth Southgate.

Are we playing 'for want of a nail'? I'll see your Liam Byrne and raise you Gareth Southgate.

Go on

I thought I'd deviate from slagging Corbyn.

The timeline switches at that penalty shootout, and it goes in. England go on to win the Euro 96 championship. Riding the crest of public euphoria, John Major goes to the country early and, against all expectations, does well enough to deny Tony Blair an overall majority. The price of this is, of course, holding a referendum on the EU. Tony Blair and Labour are able to rally and organise for a successful 'in' campaign, kicking the Tories' civil war over this into the long grass for another 30 years, and Labour enter power after the Major government falls on a vote of no confidence over sleaze.

Hey, he got the result he wanted.

https://twitter.com/MattChorley/status/827069066271715328

It is quite extraordinary. We have some very, very ill people who have turned up to parliament to vote yesterday who are so sick they’ve not been able to carry on their work as MPs. made it there and they voted. She gave herself a sick note at 5 o’clock. I think we all know what is going on here. She bottled the vote. It’s cowardice.

People voted in different ways. One can argue whether they are right, they’re wrong. But you don’t abstain on the big votes. And it’s embarrassing to see that. She ought to be giving an apology to the Labour party for doing so. That is not leadership, that’s cowardice. She’s called it very, very badly ...

[Other MPs] the courage to vote the way they saw and thought was right, and can be accountable for that, for better or for worse. Hiding away from big votes is not the way we should be doing things. And she should have been in with me and Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell in voting the Labour line. She wasn’t, and that’s not very clever.

If I were a cynic, I would suggest it is a handy way of being able to say "I didn't vote for it", as the wind in her constituency may very well blow against Brexit.

Sadiq Khan helpfully has a powerbase outside of the Palace of Westminster. I can see him riding this storm and going far. Plus I like him.

As for my MP, I keep on composing magnificent speeches in my head all of which boil down to "what's the goddam point of being in Parliament if you aren't willing to court unpopularity to stop the country doing something stupid?!"