Thursday, February 02, 2006
Labour behaving badly
It was not just the chamber where things were getting heated yesterday. Behind the scenes those opposition members who were in the know were outraged at the way that normal practice was cast aside for apparently vindictive reasons.
As in the House of Commons there is a convention in the Assembly that when a Labour member is unavoidably absent and has a good reason for being so, then the opposition will 'pair' one of their members with him or her, so as not to gain an unfair voting advantage.
This week, the Labour AM, Tamsin Dunwoody, was away following a family bereavement. As a result on Tuesday she was paired with Tory AM and MP, David Davies. This arrangement enabled David to vote against the UK Government on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
On Wednesday it was the intention that Tamsin would continue to spend time with her family and as a result a pair was requested of the opposition. Labour were offered Peter Law, who has also suffered a recent family bereavement, however they refused to accept this offer, indicating that it was unacceptable to them. As a result, Tamsin Dunwoody was called into the Assembly to vote, whilst Peter Law was driven straight from his family funeral to Cardiff Bay.
Neither member needed to be there but because of the bitterness felt towards Peter Law by the Labour Party, commonsense and decency were cast to one side.
As in the House of Commons there is a convention in the Assembly that when a Labour member is unavoidably absent and has a good reason for being so, then the opposition will 'pair' one of their members with him or her, so as not to gain an unfair voting advantage.
This week, the Labour AM, Tamsin Dunwoody, was away following a family bereavement. As a result on Tuesday she was paired with Tory AM and MP, David Davies. This arrangement enabled David to vote against the UK Government on the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.
On Wednesday it was the intention that Tamsin would continue to spend time with her family and as a result a pair was requested of the opposition. Labour were offered Peter Law, who has also suffered a recent family bereavement, however they refused to accept this offer, indicating that it was unacceptable to them. As a result, Tamsin Dunwoody was called into the Assembly to vote, whilst Peter Law was driven straight from his family funeral to Cardiff Bay.
Neither member needed to be there but because of the bitterness felt towards Peter Law by the Labour Party, commonsense and decency were cast to one side.
Comments:
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You do have to wonder whether some politicians will grow up...
Stupid grudges like this and party animosity just get in the way of politics.
You can see it in the government's claims that the recent defeats were just people trying to defeat the government for its own sake. So wrapped up are they in oppositional politics (as well as convinced of their own infallibility) that they can't conceive that it might be the case that the bill was badly drafted.
Then again, it seems like Labour opposed for oppositions sake considering how many things they now propose which they opposed when the Tories suggested them...
Stupid grudges like this and party animosity just get in the way of politics.
You can see it in the government's claims that the recent defeats were just people trying to defeat the government for its own sake. So wrapped up are they in oppositional politics (as well as convinced of their own infallibility) that they can't conceive that it might be the case that the bill was badly drafted.
Then again, it seems like Labour opposed for oppositions sake considering how many things they now propose which they opposed when the Tories suggested them...
Yesterday's Guardian ran the obit of Tamsin's father:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1699075,00.html
Labour argue that they couldn't be persuaded that Mr Law would certainly abide by a pairing agreement - he has stabbed them before and they can't trust him.
Also of course Labour felt a political need to place Mr Law on the record as having totally flipflopped over the bonfire of the quango's and in particular the Arts Council, to voting with his new Tory, Nationalist and even Lib Dem buddies and against a government which wanted to direct spending on arts and culture to better involving people, especially young people and children from deprived communities which appear on the face of it to have missed out for historic and social reasons - and those communites very definitely include Peter Law's constituency of Blaenau Gwent which Labour determined to recover.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,1699075,00.html
Labour argue that they couldn't be persuaded that Mr Law would certainly abide by a pairing agreement - he has stabbed them before and they can't trust him.
Also of course Labour felt a political need to place Mr Law on the record as having totally flipflopped over the bonfire of the quango's and in particular the Arts Council, to voting with his new Tory, Nationalist and even Lib Dem buddies and against a government which wanted to direct spending on arts and culture to better involving people, especially young people and children from deprived communities which appear on the face of it to have missed out for historic and social reasons - and those communites very definitely include Peter Law's constituency of Blaenau Gwent which Labour determined to recover.
Nice try. Clearly you are seeking to live up to your non-de-plume. You clearly believe that these political reasons obviously justify dragging two grieving members into the chamber. When exactly did Welsh Labour lose its sense of decency?
The other point of course is that if the pairing with Peter Law had gone ahead he would not simply have sat around at home after attending the funeral but would have been able to head down to the House of Commons to deliver his adjournmont debate on the "proposed new court complex at Ebbw Vale". In the event when Peter indicated that he would not be taking up this slot it got passed to the next MP in the ballot, the Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke.
I'm not aware that there ever has been any formal agreement on pairing between parties in the Assembly as there is in Westminster where the threat to withdraw from pairing is one of the few cards the Opposition's business managers have to wield - but i can see why Labour would find Peter Law unacceptable as a 'pair'.
By the way, which business manager 'offered' Peter as a pair? Which parties whip is he now taking?
I'm not aware that there ever has been any formal agreement on pairing between parties in the Assembly as there is in Westminster where the threat to withdraw from pairing is one of the few cards the Opposition's business managers have to wield - but i can see why Labour would find Peter Law unacceptable as a 'pair'.
By the way, which business manager 'offered' Peter as a pair? Which parties whip is he now taking?
That is not for me to say. However, if pairing was unavailable then Labour would find themselves in a lot more difficulty. I do not think they want to go down the route of abandoning all pairing arrangements - formal or informal.
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