Robin Wilton's esoterica

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10 Nov · Thu 2005

It's a duh-mocracy...

Great vignettes from the Anti-Terror Bill debate yesterday: 1: John Prescott greeting Chinese President Hu Jintao by grabbing him by the hand, smiling broadly and saying "We just lost a vote. We lost a vote in the Commons." President Hu, being an accomplished Chinese politician, was far too polite to react to this extraordinary self-inflicted loss of face. 2: The thought of Gordon Brown, with saintly innocence shining in his eyes, pointing out to a BBC interviewer that "it's only been six months since we won a general election". Ostensibly he was answering the question "Should Tony Blair resign over this defeat?". What a beautifully economical answer: 'how can you suggest that Tony should step down after only six months... even if that's all it's taken him to completely erode an election-winning majority?'. Mr Brown must have slept like a baby as he commuted back to Tel Aviv. 3: And today, Mr Blair still defiant in the face of defeat, remarking acidly that some of his MPs don't reflect the wishes of the population. I concede, it must sometimes be hard to reconcile the demands of the party whips, the constituency party, the constituents and, heaven help us, the MP's own conscience... Strangely, I thought that was how an elective parliamentary democracy is supposed to work, but apparently it is there to do as the Prime Minister says. It's the rest of us who are all out of step.

Posted by racingsnake @ 11:52 PM GMT+00:00 [ Comments [2] ]

Comments:

Ah well, as Sir Humphrey pointed out. "This isn't a democracy, Bernard! It's a British Democracy!"

Posted by Drew on November 11, 2005 at 09:53 AM GMT+00:00 #

And as Sir Francis Urquhart urbanely observed: "You might think that; I couldn't possibly comment."

Posted by Robin Wilton on November 11, 2005 at 02:24 PM GMT+00:00 #

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