Friday, March 06, 2009

Chris Bryant - 'let the plebs read Hansard'

Yesterday in Parliament, John Robertson asked the Leader of House if and what plans there were "to make debates on the floor of the House more understandable to the general public". In response Chris Bryant said,
If the House is to retain its place at the heart of our national political life, it is vital that we continue our work to engage more effectively with the public. Promoting public knowledge and understanding of Parliament through the provision of information and access is a high priority for my right hon. Friend and one of the House of Commons Commission’s three primary objectives.
Loosely translated that means the plebs need to learn or just bugger off. Thankfully, now that John Prescott is stepping down and taking to writing the English language rather than speaking it the plebs will be better off already.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

So what's your suggestion, Dizzy?

Trend Shed said...

A good start would be to allow the debate to happen in the first place.

John Redwood's blog is interesting today - the government blocked debate concerning debate of the £75 Billion Quantitive Easing.

http://www.johnredwoodsdiary.com/2009/03/06/dont-tell-parliament-we-are-printing-money/

dizzy said...

Why do I have to have a suggestion?

Anonymous said...

Bryant's reply was just a standard anodyne civil service crafted response. It didn;'t say much and didn't mean much. But having said that, why Dizzy has come to the conlcusion on he he has, just baffles me.

an ex-apprentice said...

I agree. You're reading too much into this Diz. I think a better translation is:

Blah blah blah blahBlah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah blah.

dizzy said...

I agree that some people can;t spot a sarcastic blog post.

Anonymous said...

The debates are understandable if you listen to them (albeit incredibly dull). They don't get published in an accessible way though - the Hansard on-line is so un-user friendly it's untrue.

Oldrightie said...

He said this knowing full well that under Labour most "plebs" cannot read more than two words over 24 hour periods.

DiscoveredJoys said...

"Ignorance of the law is no defence" is a well known truism - but is it still true.

Not only is the current government famous for the thousands of laws it has passed, many of those laws are triggered or modified later by the stroke of a Minister's pen.

How can "a reasonable person" expect to know the law nowadays?

Anonymous said...

If they could excise from Hansard all that damned 'honourable member' and the 'I'll concede in a moment' stuff and let some free software loose on it to chuck out the 60% that means nothing and then ruthlessly chop out the innumerable 'as I've said to this House before' it might, at a pinch, be worth a quick look, over the cornflakes. But BBC Parliament can't be beat as an illuminating picture of our brightest and best - bad hair, bad teeth and flabby gut well to the fore, as they fidget with their notes and ramble on.