Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Why can't Brown answer a simple question?

Back in October in the last session of Parliament, I spotted two completely benign questions to Gordon Brown, one from Anne Main, the MP for St Albans, and the other from the MP for Cambridgeshire South and Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley. Which said,
Mr. Lansley: To ask the Prime Minister which NHS hospitals he has visited since 27th June.
Anne Main: To ask the Prime Minister when he last visited a tax credit office in his official capacity.
The response from Brown was a classic "sod off" that is so common with almost all questions that he gets asked in writing. It simply said
A list of my UK visits will be published in the usual way following the end of the financial year. My visits cover a range of matters including health, education, criminal justice and the economy, details of which can be found on the No10 website.
So there will be a list, I'm not telling you where I've been, but you can find it all out on my website anyway. So why wait until the end of the year to draw up the list if the information is spread on the website I thought? Why not just keep a rolling list that you update? Why not just answer the bloody question? He'd only been in the job for three months after all, that's hardly a lot of diary entries to look through (he was on holiday for part of it).

So I went off to the website and duly looked for information that could answer the question. I couldn't find any means of conclusively being able to answer it though. So I thought I'd send in a Freedom of Information request instead to see what would happen. I rewrote Anne Main's question so it matched the dates of Lansley's and today I got the response.

Yes, you've guessed it, a cut and paste of the Parliamentary question and answer. Nothing like open Government is there? Why can't Brown answer a simple question? How difficult is it to look in a diary? It's not like I'm asking for the guest list from Chequers is it?

I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt mind, so I've replied and asked for the specific links to the relevant information on their website to ensure I don't get it wrong.

10 comments:

Ex-Pat Alfie said...

For God's sake don't hold your breath.

dizzy said...

I wasn't planning too. Don't expect to get anything useful. Surprised they bothered to answer to be honest.

Ted Foan said...

I am outraged that you have not replied immediately to this comment even though I have not said anything of note. You are obviously censoring the right of free-thinking people like myself to say nothing that's worth reading anyway. This is a calumny (whatever that means) and I shall be writing to my MP.

Prodicus said...

If your MP is Gordon Brown, don't hold your breath for his reply.

Anonymous said...

You should submit a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Steve_Roberts said...

"I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt"

Why ? Do you think they don't know exactly what they are doing when they treat MPs with contempt, let alone members of the public ?

Anonymous said...

Are you Norman Baker in disguise?

dizzy said...

If I answer that question I might ge murdered by "them"

Anonymous said...

Where in the answer did it say there were 'links'?

dizzy said...

Are you serious?