WELL, IF THIS IS TRUE...

I don't think there is much competition.

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME

Poor old Theresa May.

Instead of doing her job at prime minister's questions... y'know, answering questions put to her on behalf of the public by their representatives...she fancied herself as a stand up act.

Let's embarrass poor old Corbyn instead of answering difficult questions about Brexit, she thought to herself.

Only she made a bit of a mess of it.

Because when she was checking out Mr Corbyn's Twitter feed to see if she could get herself some forewarning of what he was going to ask her... she found an amusing tweet from a certain Mr Lewis Collins.

Mr Collins, suggesting a question for Jeremy to ask Mrs May, wrote: Does she know that in a recent poll asking who would make a better prime minister, "don't know" scored higher than Jeremy Corbyn.

Ho Ho Ho. Ha ha ha. Point to Mrs May. Right? 

Well only very briefly!

Of course Mr Corbyn sat and smiled politely as she said it. Maybe he knew something that, at the time, Mrs May did not.

Mr Collins alerted to the fact that his question had been used... he'd hardly expect that... tweeted his pride at being quoted by her primeminsterness: "Looks like I'm famous", he bragged!

You are, Mr Collins, you most surely are.

Because it turns out that Mr Collins, maybe one of Mrs May's supporters, and a bit of a wit, may find that his 5 minutes of fame will not bring him the kudos he perhaps briefly hoped for.

Y'see, when something like this happens, people rush off to look at one's timeline. And, somewhat unfortunately for everyone except Mr Corbyn,  dear old Mr Collins' turned out to be somewhat less respectable than a prime minsiterial script writer might be expected to have.

Well, clearly he doesn't overly care for Poles, as we can see from the Tweet  above. 

Eastern Europeans in particular have, since Brexit (whatever that means) was announced, have suffered badly at the hands of racists... including one being killed, apparently for speaking Polish to his mate. (Note to Brits going abroad: Always remember to speak the language of the country you're in, even to your Brit mates... Right? Yeah, right!)

But Mr Collins isn't a one trick pony. Oh no, he has other unpleasant strings to his bow. If Mrs May wants some one liners for next week's PMQs she may chose from a range of other prejudices.  

For example, another tweet reads "P~ss off, you feminist piece of sh~t". Is Mr Corbyn a feminist?

Then he pictured a zombie and labelled it: "Migrant workers looking for ways to circumvent the Calais wall". Well, at least there are plenty of zombies in the House for her to poke fun at!

He reportedly also tweeted in support of the murdered of Jo Cox. And no one is going to amke any jokes about that.

 

Matthew Thomas‏@Trickyjabs

Matthew Thomas Retweeted Greg Dash

Today at #PMQs @theresa_may read out a tweet from Lewis @swingaleg who also tweeted in defence of Jo Cox's murderer.

Matthew Thomas added,

Greg Dash @GregLabour

The person Theresa May quoted at #PMQs is also big into defending facist murderers of politicians

• RETWEETS55
• LIKES27
• 

55 retweets27 likes

Now Mr Collins may be perfectly entitled to these views, although, as we said, he may find that his fame as a prime ministerial gag writer will bring as many problems as plaudits...

...but Mrs May should most certainly learn from today's experience that the only way to be safe in these matters is to write her own material.

Mr Corbyn's smile is somewhat more comprehensible now. 

DODGY DAVE

It's a funny old world, isn't it?

One in which when the SNP clap in Westminster, it is wrong and disrespectful and Mr Speaker gets quite schoolmarmish about it and tells then that while they may have meant well, they haven't yet been in England long enough to understand the different way they do things...properly. 

So whilst it is not considered bad manners to boo and roar and wave papers in the air and behave like a bunch of 6 year olds whose teacher has popped out of the room for a second, it is extremely bad manners, uncouth and beastish to clap...as one might do at, say, the opera.

Then a few weeks later when a some members stick a knife in Willie Hague's back while he is trying to stick one in the back of the Speaker, on Cameron's orders, and the Speaker comes out smiling, while Willie Hague's last act in the House of Commons is to be resoundingly humiliated, it suddenly has become good manners to clap and all is well in the world.

And it seems to stay like that. Because not long after that Blairite Hilary Benn makes a warmongering speech, going against his party leader's stance on war in Syria (one we can neither afford nor win), it's all Tory hands to the clap again. Note, it's the last few minutes of the video that you'll want, containing clapping and the embarrassing praise from Hammond of Benn's speech. The rest is too awful for words.

Now Munguin isn't a betting animal but he reckons a pound to a pinch of snuff that if the SNP try clapping again, it will have reverted to boorishness, and not the behaviour expected of gentlemen of the Hon, Rt Hon, Learned or Gallant persuasion.

So it shouldn't come as any great surprise to any of our readers that when David Cameron insulted Dennis Skinner a few months ago by telling him he could take his pension at any time, and indeed he advised him to do so, rude and ungentlemanly behaviour to a man with more experience than Mr Cameron will ever have, and who is old enough to be Cameron's father, nothing was said about it.

 And he has form. Here he called Mr Skinner a dinosaur.

However, when Mr Skinner said that Dave was dodgy, an understatement of mammoth proportions in anyone's terms (given that he clearly lied all week about his gains from offshore investments), Skinner was told to retract, and when he refused,  to leave the chamber.

Rather like the subject of the business, there seems to be one rule for some, and one rule for the rest.

Does anyone seriously think that Dave isn't dodgy? or the Commons corrupted?

THIS IS MY SEAT... NO IT'S MY SEAT...

When we were teenagers my brother and I used to fight about who got to sit in the front of the car with my father. We had very little else to fight about and we wanted to fight, so it served a purpose. Of course we all, front or back seat passengers, arrived at the destination at pretty much the same moment. But kids will be kids and something is better than nothing to fight about.

In the House of Commons, there are many other, more important things to fight about. There are food banks; there are sick people, within weeks of their death, being told to get a job; there are dangerous WMDs only 30 miles from the centre of Glasgow. It is, apparently dangerous to even be in the central belt of Scotland.  There is an endless list of important issues needing attention.

Seating arrangements are not amongst them.

If the Tories tell the SNP to go sit at the back, because that's where they belong, so what? It makes the Tories look stupid and petty, self important and stuck in the past. It confirms what we knew. 

If Labour wants to stop the SNP form sitting as a group we need to tell them to get lost and sit altogether, as we have always done. They only have themselves to blame if we sat behind Harriet Harman in full view after they insisted we couldnt sit in the place of the third party. 

But remember, our voices will be heard just as clearly form the back of the Commons as they will from the front, separately or together. Constituents will be served just as well from the back of the chamber as from the front.

The only thing that profits from a bottom sitting on the front row is the ego of the person who owns it. 

That's not why we are in Westminster.

SNAPS ON SUNDAY

Notice on door.

Because we are all one great nation ...

The Alexander BOTHERS

Lazy bitch. Get down the food bank and help out
if you don't have a job.

So... they might as well not bother publishing Chilcot.

What kind of inhuman society is responsible for this?

Ah, yes, the plague that is IDS.
Just think, starving this kid will probably save £5,000.
As ye sew, so shall ye reap, you bastards.

That's why all four nations must agree to withdraw
before any action is taken.

Just as well that I'm not in charge.
They'd freeze before I gave them a cent.

Easy. She doesn't matter, and being big shots does.

But you don't get Congressional Medals for feeding
hungry kids, do you Mr Blair?

Bunch of profiteering scum.

WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, EXCEPT NOT YOU LOT, OBVIOUSLY.

According to the Daily Express, MPs on the Commons' Finance and Select Committee have decided to postpone any price increase in Parliament's bars until next May.

That means MPs and their guests can continue to enjoy pints of beer for as little as £2.90, with taxpayer's subsidy contributing £7 million a year to the bill.

The freeze actually works out to a cut once inflation has been taken into account, means prices have only gone up once in the past five years.

As well as cheap booze, MPs are also set to benefit from a ten per cent pay rise by the time the freeze comes to an end in May.

TaxPayers' Alliance's Jonathan Isaby said: "Drink prices have not been frozen for the rest of us — why should it be any different for our MPs?"

A Commons spokeswoman said: "Benchmark prices have not moved significantly and current targets to drive sales and control costs are being met" whatever the hell that means.

ALL IN IT TOGETHER...HIC... HAVE ANOTHER GLASS OF CHAMPAGNE AND LET'S POP BACK TO MY OFFICE

The amount of alcohol consumed in the House of Commons may be in some way directly proportional to the incompetence and lechery that seems to pervade the place.
************

The UK government has also conceded that no deal will be done between our government and theirs over the matter of Trident.

David Mundell said that the SNP's stance on Trident was so firm there could be no negotiation over its removal. 

Negotiations on the issue are a ­"non-starter" because the SNP could never contemplate a compromise, according to Mundell.

Officially, the Coalition Government insists it will not "pre-negotiate" ahead of September's vote. And Trident was expected to be one of the biggest issues of contention in any pre-independence discussions and a major bargaining chip for a government of a newly-independent Scotland.

Scottish ministers have vowed to remove nuclear weapons as soon as safely possible in the event of a Yes vote, with a view to a deadline of 2021.

But 'experts' warn relocating the UK's nuclear deterrent from the Clyde would cost tens of billions of pounds, potentially even forcing the UK into unilateral disarmament.

Mundell said the SNP's public pronouncements on nuclear weapons, and the strength of feeling among many of the party's supporters, meant "they [the SNP] could never - if they were successful in their objectives - they could never go back on the Trident thing. There is no deal to be done."

He added: "I used to think personally, probably there would be some arrangement where Trident could stay just if they [the SNP] were given a lot of money. But now I'm absolutely clear it couldn't, because they are so committed."

Even if a Labour government were to replace the SNP after 2016, it would be a brave First Minister who would  go back on a policy that is relatively popular with the people of Scotland (between 51-60% depending which opinion poll you read)...

This may be especially true those in the Glasgow area, so close to the site of the bombs. Logic suggests that this popularity would grow after independence on the basis that it's dangerous enough having your own bombs only 25 miles down the road from your home, but to host the bombs of a foreign country, might seem to be a risk too far.

Additionally, the opportunities for oil exploration in the firth of Clyde (and the money it will bring), stopped by the London government because it would impede MoD movement, will weigh heavily even on a Labour Scottish government committed to co-operate slavishly with the UK.

THE SOLUTION IS IN YOUR HANDS, DANNY

Multi-millionaires who use tax avoidance schemes to pay low income tax are the ‘moral equivalent of benefit cheats’, a Cabinet Minister said yesterday.


That Cabinet Minister was the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander.

In fact this is not really true. Tax avoidance is legal, and if something is legal it can hardly be as morally repugnant as something which is not. Indeed some parliamentarians, and close advisers to the government practise it in spades. Many City bankers and financiers, possibly even most, wouldn't be without it. 

On the other hand, benefit cheating is illegal, as indeed is the cheating that went on in the House of Commons and in the House of Lords, and probably still does. That is theft, as is taking benefits to which you are not entitled.

[The main difference between these two seems to be that the penalties from stealing from the state if you are in receipt of benefits are more severe than standing up in front of a load of other cheats and apologising, which is the average punishment for a  politician.]

However, that's not really my point. As I said, these tax avoidance schemes, such as that practised by Jimmy Carr, publicised all over the papers today, are perfectly legal.

Mr Alexander is chief secretary to the treasury, one place down from the secretary of state. If he is as offended by these people as I am, the solution would appear to be in his hands. 

Why does he not make it illegal to avoid tax?

Simples?

Yeah, like a Tory government will let that one through, even for a little while (like so much of the last budget!!)!!

****

Click on Twitter Reaction for full size. I particularly liked John Prescott's effort!

MR EXPENSES IS NOW MR OFFENSIVE

The Hon Eric Joyce MP has proved to be rather dis honourable.

Last night, in a Commons bar, in front of a delegation from the Canadian parliament, led by its Speaker, he (allegedly) got into a drunken rage, and started head-butting and hitting his fellow MPs, Tory and Labour alike. Among his victims were a Tory MP, Stuart Andrew, and a whip from his own party.

It appears that he was disconcerted that, when he stotted* in to the bar, he found it full of Tories! Poor thug, I mean, thing.

Given that there are more Tories than any other party in London's parliament, it’s not entirely surprising that a bar in that parliament would have a fair number of them (also given that they serve cheap booze, subsidised by us).

Actually I've never quite understood why the House of Commons (or Lords for that matter) has a bar, never mind several bars, never mind several subsidised bars. 

Most places of work don't.

If ever there was a good reason to stop this needless expense (seeing as we are all in it together) it is now. When a tiny minority of football fans proved that they couldn't behave responsibly with drink at matches, it was banned. Now is the perfect time to take it away from MPs, who clearly aren't able to behave with it.

As for Mr Joyce, he has been suspended by the Labour party (well done to them for acting quickly on this) and Mr Andrew is going to press charges (well done to him.

Not much of a future then, Eric?

*Scots for "staggered".

HOW CAN YOU SIT IN THE PLACE AND BE DEBARRED FROM VOTING FOR IT?

Just a quick question here...

...Without going into the contentious matter of the rights and wrongs of human rights: whether we should have any, whether we should share them with Europeans, whether indeed we should share them with the English, who have a very different view from us on most things.

What on earth makes Jack Straw and the Tory right think that it is unacceptable for a prisoner, inside for a relatively minor crime, to lose his right to vote in an election, when it is perfectly legal UNDER ENGLISH LAW...(nothing forced on us by Europe), for an MP to go to prison and remain an MP, on full salary and benefits?



Is there not an irony that whilst he remains a paid member of the House of Commons, he is unable to vote for its composition?

And what of our dear and much loved Upper House? Of course they don’t vote in London parliamentary elections, but they can be released from the Scrubs, get on the first bus, and go straight back into their Noble Members’ House, pop on their ermine and, after a hearty luncheon subsidised by us, can slip into the House and sleep it off, passing go and collecting £350 as they do.

Are we all mad? Is Jack Straw mad? (OK silly question). Is he well suited to the Tory right? (OK another silly question).

Hello, is there anyone there?

************

PS: Something else to think about. If the ruling from the ECHR was given in 2005 and Jack Straw sat on it for 5 years, leaving it to the Tories to sort out the mess, then why does Elmer think that he’s got something really clever to say about the fact that the decision on students’ payments, or not, for University, will not be made until after May?

And I looking for an answer more detailed that the simple and plainly obvious fact that he is criminally stupid.

Pics: (1) Jack Straw and an unknown woman. Don't you wish they could swap clothes? (2) A pretty average member of the House of Lords. (3) Do these two still have the right to vote despite killing hundreds of thousands of people?

.................

ERM...WHERE AM I? WHO AM I? WHAT AM I?

According to the Sunday Post today The Rt Hon and Noble The Baron Foulkes of Cumnock has been making a bit of a twerp of himself, yet again.

During a debate last week on the possible new Forth Road Bridge, Highland MSP David Stewart took an intervention from his Nobleness.

Up he got and opened his mouth.... “Could my Noble Friend.. errrr...... Could my Honourable Friend....”

First of all the poor old thing woke up thinking he was in the House of Lords, then the House of Commons.....

Mr Stewart, who is at least in Foulkes’s own party and probably used to him, took the old fool’s blathering in good part, joking that the Dissolution Honours List was due at the end of the week, but he thanks the Noble Lord for his forewarning....

Ah well, there’s never a dull day when old George is about. At least he wasn’t pavement dancing with pensioners this time.

AND THESE LITTLE PIGGIES WENT "OUCH, OUCH, OUCH" ALL THE WAY HOME (SECOND CLASS, OF COURSE)

The new rules published for MPs’ expenses can be summarised as follows:

No claims towards mortgages;

Reduced travel/subsistence costs;

One relative only on staff;

No claims for cleaning, gardening or tax fiddling;

Extra help for MPs with young children.

Will they be enough to start to restore confidence in the House of Commons or can that never happen? Will most of us continue to have a sneaking suspicion that they are still “at it”?

The reforms seem generally reasonable for a start, and I reckon we should see how it goes. We can rely on the Daily Telegraph to keep a weather eye on what is happening and report any slippage.

Those with constituencies at least 20 miles or 60 minutes from Westminster will be able to claim up to £1,450 a month to rent a one bedroom flat. (MPs with children aged under five, single parents with children under 21 and those caring for disabled children will get extra support.) I would have made it a bit more than 20 miles. People do have to commute to work; that’s the way life is, but the these new rules are an improvement.

All claims will require receipts, which again is a step on the road to normality. Who else can claim expenses without receipts?

Payoffs to retiring MPs will be stopped. Well, that’s fair too. They know the job is for a limited period, and many of us work on short term contracts and get no pay offs at the end of them.

MPs will be able to employ one relative in the future. This is possibly sense as much of an MP’s work may have to be conducted from home, however, once again it will have to be monitored to see how many of them manage to abuse it. It was really only because some of them abused the system by employing their kids to do nothing (Conway the Conservative Conman) that the matter came to light.

MPs will be reimbursed for trips between Westminster and their constituencies at ordinary so-called ‘standard class’ rates. Although, with the mess of rail fares how they are going to judge what that is, I really don’t know.

Cleaning and gardening claims are no longer be allowed, nor are claims for accountants to work out MPs' tax. Well, that makes all kinds of sense. Many of us have busy lives but manage to wash a few dishes and a shirt or two (although not at the same time). If you are renting a flat you shouldn’t have a garden, so that makes that simple. And if you want to fiddle your tax, don’t expect me to pay for an expert to help you do it.

MPs will be allowed to claim £15 for an evening meal if the House sits after 7.30 pm, if they provide a receipt. That won’t suit some, who spend more on a bottle of wine than a pensioner gets for a week.

So as I say, this seems a reasonable package on the face of it. We (and the Daily Telegraph) will need to keep a close eye on it to ensure that they don’t find ways to cheat!

Right. When are we going to start on the idiotic anarchronism that it the House of Lords?

Pictured: Derek Conway and family (the greedy brood who started it all) and some other more agreeable little piggies ......

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!

Even when he’s caught out lying through his newly whitened and straightened teeth, the prime minister just can’t own up and say something like, “Sorry, I was totally wrong”, or, “Fair cop, Gov, you got me bang to rights”. Oh no, not the UK prime minister.

What does the estimable Gordon Brown do? He lies again, that’s what.

When it was pointed out to him that he had misled the Chilcot Inquiry, and on several occasions to the House of Commons (something I thought they weren’t supposed to do), the slimy little toad replied: “I do accept that in one or two years defence expenditure did not rise in real terms.”

LIAR:

In fact it did not just “not rise”; it “fell”. For the mathematically challenged, as Gordon Brown appears to be (remember the economic growth forecast of 0%), “fell” means “went down”. Additionally it wasn’t “one or two years” it was “three years”, which again I will explain for Mr Brown's benefit, is larger than two.

Throughout his testimony before Chilcot, Brown insisted again and again that military spending had increased in every year since 1997.

The Times points out that his claims were greeted with incredulity by retired military big wigs including General Guthrie, the former Chief of Defence Staff and Admiral Boyce, the former defence chief both of whom accused him of deliberately misleading the inquiry.

It seems that they were right. But there can’t be the slightest doubt in anyone's mind that when he gave that evidence he must have known that it was a lie.

So we have a prime minister who gives false evidence to an inquiry into a war and the next day flies out to be photographed with the very troops that he has starved of money and equipment, which as we know has caused deaths?

Did the fool think that no one would ever find out? No wonder he looks like he never sleeps. Neither would I if I had these lads' blood on my hands.

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