Tag: how to stop filibustering

The Downright Dishonourable Phil E Buster (Con, Shipley)

An account of the latest display of appalling behaviour by the downright dishonourable member for Shipley and a suggestiion for how to prevent repeats.

INTRODUCTION

The section of this post which gives it its title is largely comprised of embedded tweets about the appalling conduct of a Tory MP today.

THE TWEETS

This sequence of tweets summing up the Downright Dishonourable Member for Shipley’s latest display of contemptuous narcissism start and finish with mine, but those in the middle are from others…

 

 

 

 

My renaming of Mr Davies as the Downright Dishonourable Phil E Buster (Con, Shipley) is because he has a long and disgraceful record of such behaviour and because in Britain this kind of behaviour is known as filibustering. It is right and proper to condemn this kind of behaviour, especially in relation to a bill that is about tackling domestic violence (being put forward by Eilidh Whiteford of the SNP), but that leads on to the next question…

WHAT SHALL WE DO ABOUT IT?

Tight time limits on speaking should be set in place as a matter of urgency and they need to be enforced rigorously. I believe that as well as being arrogant and contemptuous this “tactic” is deeply antidemocratic and cowardly (if you think you can defeat the bill you should present a coherent argument against it and back yourself to win the vote). The time limits should be a proportion of the total time set aside for the bill to be discussed, and will therefore vary according to circumstances. As for the punishments, I suggest a rugby style three tier approach, making the punishment fit the offences as follows:

  1. For a first offence a ban on speaking for 1 weeks worth of parliamentary sessions (the equivalent of being sent to the sin bin).
  2. For a second offence a ban on speaking for 1 months worth of parliamentary sessions (yellow card in rugby terms)
  3. For a third offence automatic termination of parliamentary career on ground of unfitness for office, thus triggering a by-election, and of course debarring the offender from ever standing for elected office again. This is the red card equivalent.

This approach to dealing with what has become a serious problem mirrors my approach the curse of slow over rates in cricket, which I would deal with by the insertion of the following clause into the laws of the game:

The bowling side is required to deliver 30 overs per session (i.e 15 per hour) and at the end of each session if they have failed to achieve this their opponents will  be awarded penalty runs for the unbowled overs at a rate of 10 per over or double the batting side’s scoring rate, whichever is the greater.

Note the inclusion of an insurance policy to make sure that the measure is absolutely guaranteed to be properly punitive.

PICTURES

Regular visitors to this site will know that I always like to include pictures in my blog posts, so here are some:

dscn9883
Kirsten, one of the people who runs the Musical Keys sessions at the scout hut playing the trombone on Saturday.
362
The remaining pictures are of cigarette card lots that I imaged for James and Sons’ March auction (all taken on Tuesday).

363365368370371373377378380381382383384385387390391412417418419420421422423424425426427428429430431432433434435436437