WILLIAM HAGUE
‘Local’ MPs can’t give leadership we need
A parliament dominated by former councillors would be ill-equipped to respond to the great global challenges ahead
Billy Hague arguing that the elite, the Oxbridge lot, should be selected because, well, elite, right?
But we are highly likely to see that, whichever party wins, there will be more MPs than ever before who claim a close connection with their seat, that they are a true “local” representative. Never mind whether they could sit down with Joe Biden or eyeball Vladimir Putin — they will show, in their rapid response to your emails, they know about that months-old pothole from those recent roadworks. They will prioritise the parish meeting no matter what is going on in the wider world.
That is, they’ll do what we want not what elite opinion thinks they should fail at.
Such a terror, eh?
There is a point of view that MPs have boxed themselves into being over paid social workers instead of underpaid statesmen/women/persons. Better MPs tend to be quite clear at off loading local matters to council.
Otoh we could take a page from other countries and appoint ministers much more freely but keep them accountable to Parliament rather than using Parliament as the presumed source of nearly all ministers and accountability.
The little mincer is an expert on “leadership” now.
The House of Commons is being turned into Birmingham city council on a bigger scale, and we all know what just happened to that.
Inshallah, innit?
What made the biggest impact on all our lives in the last parliament? Covid.
He thinks this is a good argument for parliament. Oh dear.
When the candidates come to the door, ask something more than if they went to the school down the street. Ask how they will lead in a world where the events that change your life come from much further away than that.
Don’t come to my door unless you want to be on the news.
Well I suppose a bloke boasts of drinking 12 pints at a sitting with a dubious choice of sleeping companions has a right to an opinion like anyone else. Whether you wish to take note of it is up to you.
The MPs of the main parties are a freak show, aren’t they? One wonders where the hell they find ’em?
BiS – The MPs of the main parties are a freak show, aren’t they? One wonders where the hell they find ’em?
I assume it’s at a men’s public toilet near Clapham Common.
As I have pointed out before, all but 3 of UK Prime Ministers since Winston Churchill attended Oxford.
Of the remainder:
one went to the Scottish equivalent.
one passed the entrance exam but couldn’t afford it
one one was surreptitiously porking an Oxford graduate
So one might possibly detect a common factor in the decline of a world power to a decrepit second rate shithole.
So, Steve, possibly not a men’s public toilet near Clapham Common. But close, very close.
“one passed the entrance exam but couldn’t afford it
one one was surreptitiously porking an Oxford graduate”
Who dem?
Callaghan and Major…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_prime_ministers_of_the_United_Kingdom_by_education
Being an MP is a crappy job. You have to meet your constituents, especially the ones who are moaners. You come to hate and despise them and you apply those feelings to the entire electorate. You have to vote as you are told and you have no influence on policy. The pay is lousy so you have to cheat or fiddle your expenses. And then there’s the dubious sexual practices and risky behaviour which seem to be required.
Ts that a foundation to become a statesman? Or just ask the WEF or Soros to fix you up.
James Callaghan passed the Oxford entrance exam but opted to join the Civil Service instead. I can’t imagine that John Major passed the Scottish equivalent so there is our candidate for BiS’s third spot.
You have to meet your constituents, especially the ones who are moaners. You come to hate and despise them and you apply those feelings to the entire electorate. You have to vote as you are told and you have no influence on policy. The pay is lousy so you have to cheat or fiddle your expenses. And then there’s the dubious sexual practices and risky behaviour which seem to be required.
I’ve heard similar complaints from prostitutes, Rhoda. But at least that’s honest employment.
Very disappointed that Refarrage is now advocating AV. The William Hagues of the world would love that and bagsie the plumiest of the plum, top of the list impregnable sinecure with no pesky constituents. What Nige has to do, what anyone has to do is decisively defeat the old party on FOPTP and job done not deliver us unto permanent Belgium.
I’d say there’s an understanding among the electorate if your local MP is in the Cabinet, he’s somewhat not going to be on top of the the pot hole situation, but if he ain’t got a top job but instead spends time going on fact finding missions to ulam batur i don’t see why there shouldn’t be an electoral cost.
And they don’t force you into pain & degradation. Not unless you pay them extra.
No I don’t want my MP getting the potholes fixed,: that’s the council’s job.
I want him scrutinising legislation, not just nodding it through.
“one went to the Scottish equivalent.”
The only Scottish university with a collegiate system comparable to Oxbridge*, and also the oldest – therefore, I’d argue, “the Scottish equivalent” – is St. Andrews. Broon went tae Embra.
*Two of them merged in the 18th Century, and in the 19th one went off and decided it was the University of Dundee instead, so there’s only two left – United and St. Mary’s – and it’s really only a ceremonial thing nowadays. But it does exist.
Sorry to be a pedant but Hague claimed it was 14 pints not 12. He must have been full of piss after 14. Pity he decided to not unload it.
BiS – not a men’s public toilet near Clapham Common. But close, very close.
The University of East Anglia?
Moq – yarp, it was 14 pints, and Little Willie’s compulsive lies are no less stupidly brazen these days.
It’s a measure of how much contempt he holds the electorate in, that he thinks he’s fooling anyone. A complete nonentity now LARPing as some kind of statesman.
Both geographicaly & amusingly, Steve, the University of Oxford is far closer to Clapham Common than that of E Anglia. The latter being full of idiots & the former full of dangerous idiots. But one wouldn’t expect someone from distant & hopefully unvisited suburbs to know that.
I my day (gawd, I am old!) the best MPs were the ones who had done their proper stint at local government. And a *proper* stint, actually administering things, making decisions, and wotnot. Nowadays, local government is seen as passing time as a stepping stone to MP, even if it is considered lowering oneself in the first place; along with local government being stipped of so much independence and power.
BiS – But one wouldn’t expect someone from distant & hopefully unvisited suburbs to know that.
Let’s take a ride, and run with the dogs tonight.
Hague was working as a drayman when he performed that claim. Traditionally they would be offered a gill or even a half at each pub. Also beer then was usually only around 3.5% ABV, some less.
It’s certainly possible that he drank 14 pints across the whole day and then in to social drinking in the evening. There’s bound to be some rounding up in the numbers and I doubt it was 14 pints, but as a feat it’s not as easily dismissed as some would have it.
BiND – Yarp, it’s certainly possible that William Hague drank 14 pints while working without getting fall-down drunk.
It’s also possible that he invited that hunky young man to share his hotel rooms because William Hague is a no-frills skinflint in the vein of the famous Scottish miser, Donald Dewar.
And it’s possible England will win the Euros.
I thought this story on Guido from way back in 2010 was marvelously written, if you used to be a Private Eye reader:
Seems odd that young Christopher Myers (25) should go from driving William Hague (49) around his constituency during elections, where according to the Mirror, “although he never worked at Tory HQ in London… they became close during campaigns”, to become his third Special Adviser at the Foreign Office.
According to Peter McKay the FCO says the Foreign Secretary “needs another adviser because he has additional responsibilities, having bagged the Peter Mandelson title of First Secretary of State. Perhaps so, but Mandelson didn’t hire young friends as special advisers, so far as I know.” Quite.
But enough about that, naughty missus. Can you think of a single achievement William Hague has to his name? What has he done? If he wasn’t so ridiculous, you wouldn’t know he exists.
Don’t be silly, Steve, Hague has no time for that sort of thing, he’s too busy shagging Fffion.
There was a time – long ago I know – when parliamentary hours and pay were tailored to make being an MP an ideal second job for barristers and company directors. Who, whatever their other failings, do tend to have an idea of what the law is meant to be and do.
Now, of course, it is all “family friendly” to let the barista’s and housewives in.
But having the parliament made of lawyers and that type causes it’s own problems.
Where are the engineers/tradies?
The type of person who would look at mandating ev transition and heat pumps and think “what fooking planet you on mate?”
We have lawyers and professional politicians now. And they think it’s possible to just go “alakazam, EVs now, by law” and it’s actually going to happen instead of just screwing up the automotive industry and turning our transport fleet into the Cuba model…
“ We have lawyers and professional politicians now. And they think it’s possible to just go “alakazam, EVs now, by law” and it’s actually going to happen instead of just screwing up the automotive industry and turning our transport fleet into the Cuba model…”
That used to be the role of the HoL before Blair set to work and filled it with party stooges. There were a lot of very good working peers who took it seriously, now it’s full of paid off party hacks and donors. It should noted the Conservatives joined in with glee instead of conserving.