New Year Honours

[MJI]

6 hours ago, micklner said:

One result the "delightful" ex speaker of the house got zip !!

 

As to the vast majority of the rest cronism at its worse.

 

 

This is why I said revenge was obvious.

 

First Speaker in a couple of centuries to be ignored.

 

An adult PM would have just accepted the tradition.

 

Can we please have a return to adults running the country?

[MJI]

I think ?BEs for people who have done good is very worthwhile, not sure on sports people, long serving RETIRED respected politicians to the Lords I understand.

 

One thing though was interesting, they leaked the names and addresses, including the ex chief of OFCOM.

 

But many I see and think, what did they do that was so worthwhile?

 

 

[Dava]

15 minutes ago, MJI said:

 

 

This is why I said revenge was obvious.

 

First Speaker in a couple of centuries to be ignored.

 

An adult PM would have just accepted the tradition.

 

Can we please have a return to adults running the country?

 

Sadly we neglected to elect sufficient adults [at least in England] , if indeed this was an option......

[Kingzance]

8 hours ago, MJI said:

 

 

This is why I said revenge was obvious.

 

First Speaker in a couple of centuries to be ignored.

 

An adult PM would have just accepted the tradition.

 

Can we please have a return to adults running the country?

Yes, and that includes The Speaker being a totally impartial voice and less bombastic / full of his own importance / of a bully, which I’m more convinced the new Speaker will be. Looked at in the round, Bercow had almost ten years in command that were dogged by issues of which only the last three involved his conviction that the referendum result should be ignored. That a Speaker uses an NDA to hide his misdemeanours shows his arrogance. The argument that “tradition decrees we award a bit of bling automatically” has to be ended at some point.

[Kingzance]

8 hours ago, Dava said:

 

Sadly we neglected to elect sufficient adults [at least in England] , if indeed this was an option......

I would suggest that it is a case of having once more elected too many “adults”. After all, the population of the Bloc governed by the European Union is 503,000,000 and they are represented by 735 MEPs whereas we have a population of 67,000,000 and we have 635 MPs. Reducing our number of elected representatives pro-rate would mean there would be a requirement for less than 100 wise men / women. Whilst at it, we could also thin out the House of Lords from its unwieldy number of 815 unelected peers.

[Torper]

15 hours ago, micklner said:

One result the "delightful" ex speaker of the house got zip !!

As to the vast majority of the rest cronism at its worse.

 

Curiously, if there has to be an "honours" list, Mr Bercow would have been top of my list to get one.

 

DT

[Joseph_Pestell]

Possible of course (perhaps unlikely) that Bercow does not fancy being in the Lords and turned it down.

[EddieB]

2 hours ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Possible of course (perhaps unlikely) that Bercow does not fancy being in the Lords and turned it down.

Not according to a Sky interview just played out on LBC, where he said that, if offered, he would accept without equivocation.

[EddieB]

4 hours ago, Kingzance said:

I would suggest that it is a case of having once more elected too many “adults”. After all, the population of the Bloc governed by the European Union is 503,000,000 and they are represented by 735 MEPs whereas we have a population of 67,000,000 and we have 635 MPs. Reducing our number of elected representatives pro-rate would mean there would be a requirement for less than 100 wise men / women. Whilst at it, we could also thin out the House of Lords from its unwieldy number of 815 unelected peers.

I beg to disagree. Our MPs are there to be our representatives in Parliament, besides which they (well most of them) do a lot of work supporting their constituents and tackling local issues.  Your arithmetic works out that each MP represents over 100,000 souls, which I would consider a barely manageable workload, without population growth or shrinkage of the number of seats.

 

Contrast this with MEPs.  How do they represent their electorate?  They have no constituency work, once elected are virtually faceless (I think only one or two ever get to appear on Question Time or other political panel shows) and, let’s be honest, how many of them could the average man in the street actually name?

[Metr0Land]

15 hours ago, MJI said:

 

 

This is why I said revenge was obvious.

 

First Speaker in a couple of centuries to be ignored.

 

An adult PM would have just accepted the tradition.

 

Can we please have a return to adults running the country?

 

Do you know for a fact he was ignored?   Tony B Liar isn't in the Lords where most ex PM's and party leaders go.  As I understand it he doesn't want a Lordship title 'cos he'd have to declare all his other little (and large) earners.  Bercow's been on the TV circuit of late.  In the absence of confirmation he's been ignored how can you be so certain?

[TheQ]

On 28/12/2019 at 09:11, tigerburnie said:

Yep they forgot my services to single handedly trying to keep the Scottish malt whisky industry going too.

Err not quite single handedly, a glass of Highland Park is deminishing next to me. 

[Kingzance]

3 hours ago, EddieB said:

I beg to disagree. Our MPs are there to be our representatives in Parliament, besides which they (well most of them) do a lot of work supporting their constituents and tackling local issues.  Your arithmetic works out that each MP represents over 100,000 souls, which I would consider a barely manageable workload, without population growth or shrinkage of the number of seats.

 

Contrast this with MEPs.  How do they represent their electorate?  They have no constituency work, once elected are virtually faceless (I think only one or two ever get to appear on Question Time or other political panel shows) and, let’s be honest, how many of them could the average man in the street actually name?

Sadly our MPs generally represent a party and toe the party line wherein the party line is normally more important than the constituency. Remember too please that there is a Welsh Assembly, a Northern Ireland Assembly (if not squabbling amongst themselves) and a Scottish Parliament, all of which provide better representation for the people who vote for them and have varying budgetary and spending powers.

As for numbers, the suggested ratio of electors, according to the Boundary Commissions’ task force that delivered its findings more than five years ago (that should not be confused with the number of souls) is 1:75000, unless of course you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland where you get twice as many thanks to their own assemblies / Parliament. 

Edited December 29, 2019 by Kingzance

[D9020 Nimbus]

If you're wanting to cut the number of elected representatives, I'd have thought cutting the number of councillors wohld be a better first step—remember there are usually three per ward.

[Kingzance]

1 hour ago, D9020 Nimbus said:

If you're wanting to cut the number of elected representatives, I'd have thought cutting the number of councillors wohld be a better first step—remember there are usually three per ward.

Where I used to live, the number of councillors was cut as a result of a boundary commission for England exercise. Our district was enlarged and the number of councillors reduced from three to two. We also had a County Councillor but the County Council lived way beyond its means and had to have government appointed auditor / managers appointed. When the County Council goes at the end of this year, it and the seven District Councils will be replaced by two unitary authorities. Meanwhile, the existing District Councils are trying to spend their reserves on unjustifiable projects just so “their” money doesn’t go elsewhere. When the two new authorities start up, they will no doubt need to build new reserves by over taxing the residents again.

The rot seems to be present at every level of government simply because these organisations believe they have some god-given right to spend the fruits of other people’s efforts without challenge or, in the case of council officers, being held accountable.

[81C]

posting error

Edited December 29, 2019 by 81C
Posting error

[monkeysarefun]

A couple of years ago the deranged idiot PM we had at the time resurrected the Australian knighthood scheme. One of the only people he gave one to  was Prince Phillip who is now a knight of Australia. (He now spends time over there giving speeches about how good brexit will be for you lot and how global warming if it is even true is a positive cos plants love carbon dioxide so eveything will grow better..)

Edited December 29, 2019 by monkeysarefun

[MJI]

4 hours ago, Kingzance said:

Sadly our MPs generally represent a party and toe the party line wherein the party line is normally more important than the constituency. Remember too please that there is a Welsh Assembly, a Northern Ireland Assembly (if not squabbling amongst themselves) and a Scottish Parliament, all of which provide better representation for the people who vote for them and have varying budgetary and spending powers.

As for numbers, the suggested ratio of electors, according to the Boundary Commissions’ task force that delivered its findings more than five years ago (that should not be confused with the number of souls) is 1:75000, unless of course you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland where you get twice as many thanks to their own assemblies / Parliament. 

 

We haven't had a decent MP since the 90s

 

Both since have been party yes men. Most recent happy to follow whoever is currently in charge despite liking Cameron

[Andy Hayter]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

A couple of years ago the deranged idiot PM we had at the time resurrected the Australian knighthood scheme. One of the only people he gave one to  was Prince Phillip who is now a knight of Australia. (He now spends time over there giving speeches about how good brexit will be for you lot and how global warming if it is even true is a positive cos plants love carbon dioxide so eveything will grow better..)

 

 

??

Not sure where "there" is but it isn't Australia.  Perhaps you mean the UK.

 

I can find no reference to Prince Philip making statements on Brexit ever nor Global warming recently.  Are you sure your newspaper is not confusing him with The erstwhile president of the USA?

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

 

??

Not sure where "there" is but it isn't Australia.  Perhaps you mean the UK.

 

I can find no reference to Prince Philip making statements on Brexit ever nor Global warming recently.  Are you sure your newspaper is not confusing him with The erstwhile president of the USA?

???

I'm talking about the mad monk, ex PM Tony Abbott..

 

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/tony-abbott-urges-british-conservatives-to-push-through-with-brexit-in-london-speech/news-story/a64704f924ad2946c878d04856775b34

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/10/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-is-probably-doing-good

 

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by monkeysarefun

[ikks]

2 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

???

I'm talking about the mad monk, ex PM Tony Abbott..

 

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/tony-abbott-urges-british-conservatives-to-push-through-with-brexit-in-london-speech/news-story/a64704f924ad2946c878d04856775b34

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/10/tony-abbott-says-climate-change-is-probably-doing-good

 

 

And you are spot on!

 

Mike

[kevinlms]

On 29/12/2019 at 00:50, lapford34102 said:

Be interested to know who turned down an "Honour" this time round

Stu

The ones who didn't want their addresses made public!