Followers and long-term readers of TRAROTL may remember that a few blog posts ago (scroll down, you'll find it) I expressed my displeasure at the Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, the Rt. Hon. (Arf!) Paul Uppal MP. If you want daily critical analysis of the Uppalster, obviously Voley is your man, but once again Uppal has infuriated me so much I just cannot let his ignorance and stupidity slide. He's not the only Tory MP who's caught my eye in the past few days, mind. In the case of Mark Pritchard MP, I'll get to him at the end of this post. But how about Nicola Blackwood, eh lads? Eh? Eh? Know what I mean?! I wouldn't mind showing her my Black Rod, geddit?!
I'm not black, just to clarify that one.
ANYWAY, yes. Paul Uppal. On Wednesday our leader, David William Donald Cuthbert Pontesbury Blythe Cameron made a statement on "Hackgate" before answering any questions (lol) that were fired in his direction. Let's see what question the great man asked our leader, eh?
'There are very few places in the world where the leader of the Executive would subject himself to two hours of questioning.'
Really, Paul? I heard someone say the other day that all of this furore is our equivalent of Watergate. Now, I don't know whether it's that big or not, but it's pretty damn big right now, isn't it? It's seen a 160 year old newspaper brought to its knees. It's seen the (pretty scary) revelation that very, very senior people in the Met are incompetent, and perhaps worse (please don't sue me). It's seen Rupert Murdoch turn up to a Select Committee/episode of Tiswas. It's seen Rebekah Wade-Brooks leave News International.
You know what I'm saying? Now when it comes to Cameron, the pressure is on a little bit, due to his (rather cosy, it seems) relationship with Andy Coulson and everything that's entailed. As the top man, it was absolutely right that Cameron faced the questions of his peers (even if he dodged most of them) and it's absolutely right that he rode it out for as long as it took. Two hours? That's hardly a ridiculously long period of time, Paul. 'Very few places'? We all know the naughty boys of the world's political stage - Gaddafi and Mugabe and President I'm A Dinner Jacket and those lads - but most countries have accountable leaders. I think 'very few places' is a tad OTT. Anyway, let's have a gander at Uppal's question:
'One thing that shames our democracy, though, is that there are elements in the House that seem to want to make political capital out of the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.'
Now I don't want to criticise Voley, but in his post about this nonsense, I cannot believe he missed this. It's basically left an open goal for me, yet one that's made me very angry. Because what Paul Uppal is thinking when he says this - and remember that this man represents 60,000 people - can be simply boiled down to this:
"This is good. I now have an opportunity, live on TV, in front of my exalted leader, to make petty political capital out of petty political capital."
Because that's what that is, no? Just sheer, blatant hypocrisy. "They've shamed our democracy with their political pettiness!" he cries, whilst shaming our democracy with his political pettiness. Once again, I'm left astonished by this man, and not in a good way.
And as for the question? There simply isn't one. Now I know I'm stressed at the moment, and I know I haven't slept much recently, but I find this pretty fucking poor. Once again I'm left reading something from Paul Uppal and thinking "Dude? Really?" before getting pissed off with him. Happily, I'm not the only one, as Margaret Curran, the Labour MP for Glasgow East wasn't too impressed either:
'May I ask the Prime Minister, in all sincerity, to dissociate himself from the comment of Paul Uppal?
Naturally, Dave duly dodged that question.
One final thing - I was reading a VERY interesting webpage the other day which listed and detailed MPs remunerations and sponsorships. Did you know that Diane Abbott receives £800 for every 'This Week' appearance? Or that Ed Miliband was sponsored by Lord Sugar in the lead-up to the Labour leadership election? If you fancy a browse yourself, it's here: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?d=2011-07-06
It was perusing that page that led me to this interesting little titbit about Mark Pritchard, the MP who stands in my constituency:
Payment of £500 for article for News of the World newspaper, 1 Virginia Street, London E1 9XR. Hours: 5 hrs.(Registered 24 January 2011)
Having not hassled the letters page of The Sloppy Star for a wee while, I thought firing off a quick, rather smug letter based upon this information was a good idea. Sadly, it seems the editorial people don't agree - letter was sent via e-mail on Monday, at the time of writing (Friday) it has not been published, and I suspect it won't be considering how Conservative leaning the rag is. But I shall not be silenced! Here is the letter in full. I'm tempted to write another version and send it to Mr Pritchard directly in the vain hope of a reply.
Sir,
The allegations against the 'News Of The World' have made for depressing reading over the past fortnight. From a murdered schoolgirl to victims of terrorism, there were, allegedly, no depths to which this deplorable rag wouldn't stoop to when hacking into phones. These revelations have been brought to light recently, but the allegations against the paper on this subject have been simmering for at least two years now. How interesting it is to read then that Mark Pritchard MP received a payment of £500 for an article in the paper registered on 24th January, 2011 (information taken from TheyWorkForYou.com http://www.
