The MPs honked with laughter at Ma Harman

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The MPs honked with laughter at Ma Harman

May 23rd, 2012

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

By
Quentin Letts

PUBLISHED:

17:32 EST, 22 May 2012

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UPDATED:

17:32 EST, 22 May 2012

Politicians fib, evade, wriggle, smudge all the time. It’s what they do. Yet the Commons yesterday beat its big hairy chest over the lies it was told by some of Rupert Murdoch’s people during a select committee inquiry. It was aghast. Scandalised. One MP even demanded the right to lock people up for years in prison for telling porkies at Parliament.

Good grief, if they start locking up liars where would it finish? Westminster could be reduced to a ghost town.

But first we had Nick Clegg at the despatch box. He was there for Questions to the Deputy Prime Minister, which happens once a month and lasts 40 gulpy minutes. Cleggy has not quite managed to shake off the shaving rash and the metallic voice but he has developed into a reasonable parliamentary blocker. He has learned, up to a point, how to see off trouble, even if he is a touch short on charm.

Gulpy: Nick Clegg was at the despatch box for Deputy Prime Ministers Questions (file picture)

He is helped by an absence of mischief making on the Tory side. Not many of them set out to cause him trouble in the House. Equally handy for him is the fact that he is opposed by Harriet Harman. She stood up yesterday and tried to have us believe that when Labour left office two years ago the economy was in a good state. See what I mean about the truthfulness of this place? The House honked loudly at Ma Harman. Prolonged laughter.

Almost as funny was the claim from Mr Clegg, using a well-worn formula, that ‘I support the Prime Minister on a full range of initiatives’. That is, of course, less than the whole truth. Mr Clegg opposes the Prime Minister, frequently. A little smear of imprecision, a sprinkling of mendacity. A choirboy would blush to say such a thing.

Laughter: The Deputy PM was opposed by Harriet Harman

Laughter: The Deputy PM was opposed by Harriet Harman (file picture)

The trickiest moment for Mr Clegg came on House of Lords reforms. He considers the appointed House an affront to democracy. Angus MacNeil (SNP, Western Isles) pinged in a question. Given that Mr Clegg considered the current Lords to be a lifeboat for failing political careers, could the Deputy PM assure the House that he himself, in the event of his reforms never happening, would never take a seat in the Lords?

Brilliant question. There was a sticky pause. Then Mr Clegg said that he ‘certainly hopes’ his reforms will happen. We had no more than that. In other words, Cleggy is not ruling out accepting appointment to an institution he himself criticises for being appointed. Ooooh dear. He needs to work out a slicker escape from that one or he will be asked it time and again until he goes mad.

Not long after Questions to Clegg there was a brief discussion about three sidekicks of Mr Murdoch who have been accused of lying to the Culture select committee. Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) urged the Commons to ‘step more boldly’ in its attitude to the non-parliamentary world. He wanted an option to have the three men arrested, fined, sent to clink. He seemed to think something like seven years would be right for the sentence. That’s not far short of what some murderers are given.

MPs chewed over the principles and practicalities of making committee witnesses give evidence on oath. Interesting to hear this in the age of alleged secularisation. Therese Coffey (Con, Suffolk C) said that oaths might be ‘irrelevant’ (not to a God-fearing Christian, they wouldn’t be).

Others argued that oaths would bring perjury laws into play. Yet others said that if the House set itself up as a court meting out fines and prison sentences, the Human Rights Act and the European Court of Human Rights might be invoked.

The splendid Miss Coffey, who also had a swipe or two at the legal world (attagirl!), said: ‘We are a parliament of the people and we should not be lied to.’ Her idealism is touching. She should have been here when the Blairites were taking us to war in Iraq.