Monday 28 June 2010

The Thirty-Nine Saps

An early day motion in parliament demanding a ban on smoking in cars where children are present has been signed by 40 MPs.
Name them. Then sack them. They are not there to play God with their constituents' lives. They are public servants. If they are playing around with this nonsense they are not doing their jobs and if they believe this rubbish then they are too stupid even for public office.
Good idea, Leg Iron. Except there are only 39 of them so far.

They being:

Mearns, Ian; Glass, Pat; Glindon, Mary; Bottomley, Peter; Russell, Bob; Durkan, Mark; Corbyn, Jeremy; Dobbin, Jim; George, Andrew; Blenkinsop, Tom; Lavery, Ian; McKinnell, Catherine; Elliott, Julie; Simpson, David; Jackson, Glenda; Brooke, Annette; Campbell, Gregory; Campbell, Ronnie; Caton, Martin; Barron, Kevin; Anderson, David; Gwynne, Andrew; Illsley, Eric; Lazarowicz, Mark; Hancock, Mike; Flynn, Paul; Gapes, Mike; Williams, Stephen; Owen, Albert; Paisley, Ian Jnr; Dodds, Nigel; Hopkins, Kelvin; McCrea, Dr William; Hamilton, David; Greenwood, Lilian; Pugh, John; Hughes, Simon; Baldry, Tony; Halfon, Robert
And every thick as shit one of them easily duped by, err, no science whatsoever. I thought they employed researchers - with our money, natch - to, err, research.

If one of the above is your MP, aren't you glad that such a stunningly incompetent twat is your only link to the legislature for the next five years?

Especially if they also believe this astounding bollocks from the same article.

A survey on behalf of the Office for National Statistics indicates that there has been a net increase of 3% in the number of people going to pubs since restrictions were imposed.
What have they been doing then? Popping in and hiding in a corner as 52 pubs close per week?

Has someone pumped large quantities of mind-numbing chemicals into the water up Westminster way?


10 comments:

Anonymous said...

They mostly seem to be Labour MP,s. Surprise. surprise

Leg-iron said...

Only 39? Sack another random one anyway, just to keep the rest on their toes.

What happened to that power of recall we were meant to get?

Mr A said...

Paul Flynn, eh? No surprises there. The guy is raving mad. Astonishing he keeps getting voted in.

Can someone who knows about these things let me know if there are any Tories there? Labourites it to be expected - stupidity, authoritarianism and spite go hand in hand with socialism. But is there anyine there who DARES to call themself a Conservative. If so, I feel a campaign coming on.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Mr A:

Peter Bottomley (Con, Worthing West)
Tony Baldry (Con, Banbury)
Robert Halfon (Con, Harlow)

Plus some social (not liberal) democrats.

Bob Russell (LD, Colchester)
Andrew George (LD, St Ives and Cats)
Annette Brook (LD, Mid Dorset)
Mike Hancock (LD, Portsmouth South and Innuendo)
Stephen Williams (LD, Bristol West)
John Pugh (LD, Southport)

The rest Labour or mad Northern bog-trotters.

Anonymous said...

My eyes caught the 1st one and my heart sank. Although wat should I expect from my local drunken mindless moron

Sam Duncan said...

Hold on, Dick: what do they mean by “net” increase? I'm guessing here, but presumably when a load of pubs close, the market finds its balance again, so the number of customers per pub will remain the same or even rise a bit, and this is what they're measuring.

Thousands of pubs have closed, fewer people than ever are going to pubs overall, but the number of people going to those that remain has - as a result of those very closures - risen by 3%.*

By that kind of measurement, you could end up with one pub left in the entire country and still claim numbers were up. In my head, I can actually hear Sir Humphrey explaining this to Jim Hacker. It's exactly the sort of trick the ONS would pull.

*Or rather, more likely, in some places it may have “risen” more than that, while in others where supply has yet to match the new lower level of demand, they're still falling, hence the continued closures.

Junican said...

I've just spent about an hour trying to find the survey attributed to Nat Stats on their website. I can find no sign of it. Because I am interested in how these surveys come to be, I will try again tomorrow.

Nor can I find any sign of a survey conducted by You Gov in the past few months about smoking (You Gov have an archive section, and there is no mention of such a survey). So, is it not reasonable to ask how this survey, quoted in the Guardian, was conducted if it was not 'an official' You Gov survey? One can only assume that it was not 'an official' survey. I suppose that that is a reasonable assumption since the Guardian article said 'that the survey was commissioned by ASH'. So how was it decided who to ask to take part in the survey? Who was asked and what were the questions that were asked?

Because I am interested in these questions, I will contact You Gov tomorrow and ask them for information. If they try to fob me off by saying that the survey was private, I will see if there is any mileage to be had by claiming that the survey was indirectly paid for by public funds, and take it from there.

Others might also think about doing the same thing. There could be a 'Climategate' here.

Anonymous said...

Well of course there are more people going to pubs. Remember that smokers ARE NOT PEOPLE, so of course they don't count.

junican said...

Further to the above, still no joy re details of surveys by you gov. Have emailed yougov and nat stats for info. Will advise further in due course, but could take up to ten days for nat stats to reply. At least with them, because of freedom of info act, results will be accurate.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Keep at 'em Junican. ;-)