Parlez~me~'n~Tory

Rightly Wry, Satirically RIGHT

A warning to the Government of cutting too deeply without proper consultation:

Ten Civil Servants standing in a line
One of them was downsized
Then there were nine

Nice Civil Servants who must negotiate
One joined the union
Then there were eight

Eight Civil Servants thought they were in heaven
‘til one of them was redeployed
Then there were seven

Seven Civil Servants, their jobs are safe as bricks
One was reclassified
Then there were six

Six Civil Servants trying to survive
One of them was privatised
Then there were five

Five Civil Servants ready to give more
But one left on long-term sick
Reducing them to four

Four Civil Servants full of loyalty
Then their jobs were advertised
And now there were three

Three Civil Servants under review
One left on secondment
Then there were two

Two Civil Servants coping on the run
One went on stress leave
Then there was one

The last Civil Servant agreed to relocate
Replaced by 10 consultants
At thrice the hourly rate

Ok, I did not expect to come out of retirement with my thumb so soon but I guess needs must. Today the Twitter world as well as the “real” media is full of David Laws and his apparent breach of the parliamentary rules governing MPs’ second home expenses.

There is a lot of speculation and argument about the exact situation of Laws and his partner, his sexuality and his right to rent rooms from his alleged lover. This is all going to become rather messier than it is even at present. I shall not enter into discussion regarding the private life of David Laws and I believe others should let that alone too but that is entirely up to them.

What I believe should happen now is that the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg should act by advising his Minister to resign his post by the end of the weekend. Now is the perfect time with Parliament being in recess, this would give chance for a new Cabinet Minister to get up to speed over the next few days.

This would also remove any overhang from the old politics that we so eagerly sought to move away from. This will also enable the Coalition, the Lib Dems and David Laws to stand on the moral high ground and enforce the reality of honest politicis upon the nation.

I believe right now that David Cameron is probably briefing Nick Clegg to the effect of the above and it will become clearer within the next 24hrs that David Laws will resign his Cabinet post for the sake of the Coalition, the nation and what is right for British politics.

Yes, Laws was in the wrong but Britain does not need another 5 years of hypocrisy from our Government and the Coalition does not need to be handing easy targets to the Opposition.

As described to me on Twitter by @SnappingLawyer this morning “The show must go on!”

With England now the World Champions in the Twenty20 it seems appropriate to use a cricketing analogy to describe the predicament that Jon Bercow finds himself in.

It is fair that Nadine, Kate and others can call the vote for the chair of the Speaker, after all, this House is supposed to be the bastion of democracy, the last place whereby man can call his master to account.

With that in mind it is somewhat disappointing that Twitter is full of self-interested bloggers today calling Nadine a liar and a spiteful person. What Nadine is doing in fact is issuing more chance for free speech than these bloggers ever have or ever will.

Personally, I hope the vote is called for Mr Bercow today. The vote would take place as an open vote, we would all know where those die-hard MPs had voted or indeed where those newbie’s had voted. Or, whether either had abstained.

One could argue that to usher in the new form of Politics, leaving behind the old term bias and scandal we need to have a vote on the Speaker. In my personal view Jon Bercow has done an admirable job, not spectacular but admirable, he, however, has let himself down on a number of ocasions but I put that down to the heat of the moment in the Political meltdown that was the death of the previous Government, a man is permitted to mourn.

So, at 14:30 Sir Peter Tapsell, The Father of the House will call for the Aye’s and the No’s and there will be sufficient No’s that in Sir Peter’s mind the House will split and a vote forced.

That vote will see the return of Jon Bercow to the role of Mr Speaker and leave Ming Campbell rueing his missed opportunity.

Jon Bercow will be returned not because he is necessarily the best man for the job but because this would be one change too far in too quick a time for the House to subsume. It is right that his authority is tested but the public would not thank the Coalition for what would be seen as a “dirty tricks” campaign to unseat The Speaker of the House.

Jon Bercow will be returned simply because now is not the time to do this.

In this blog post I attributed certain quotes to a member of David Heath’s campaign team in Somerton and Frome.

Following a discussion (within the comments of that blog post) it transpires that I was somewhat accosted not by a member of the campaign team but an everyday “passionate” supporter of the Liberal Democrats. I, as you all know am a staunch Conservative but of the most pleasant order. I am conciliatory, I am considerate, I am caring.

It seems that now David Heath’s campaign team probably believe I am the devil in carnate whilst not strictly true I have taken the opportunity to set the record straight in the original blog post but wish to affirm to my readers that there was some dirty campaigning that has no place in our society.

If, David’s team takes the trouble to view Twitter and the rest of the blog posts over the past year they will see that I am very much on board with the coalition, very much in tune with what we are trying to do and very much mindful of people’s feelings and correcting any “misunderstandings” (this, incidentally, is the first correction to be made in a year of blogging).

In addition, I would welcome any support shown by my Liberal Democrat followers or readers to affirm on here and/or via Twitter that I am not in fact the devil incarnate, that nomenclature is reserved for Ed Balls!

Commenting on his appointment to Government as Housing Minister and Privy Counsellor, Grant Shapps said:

“It’s a huge honour and privilege to be appointed as Minister of State for Housing and I very much look forward to getting down to the issues of state.

“It’s a role I feel very comfortable in and well prepared for, having shadowed the brief for three years, facing four different housing ministers in that time.

“I look forward to continuing and developing my relationships with the industry and feel sure that our new Government will be able to make genuine improvements to the housing industry which has suffered so badly under 13 years of Labour Government.”