M01: Cronyism

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Barclay A.A. Stanley
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Re: M01: Cronyism

Post by Barclay A.A. Stanley »

SPEAKER: THE AYES HAVE IT, THE AYES HAVE IT. UNLOCK.

Breakdown... 264 // 215 // 43

Breakdown... Aye // Noe // Abs

Labakdown... 62 // 212 // 75
Conakdown... 125 // 0 // 85
Libakdown.... 55 // 0 // 15

Othakdown.... 22 // 3 // 5*
Breakdown.........................*inc 4 SF & 1 Speaker
Lt. Col. Sir Barclay A.A. Stanley, Rtd., KBE
Member of Parliament for Macclesfield

Armed with nothing but a pint of gin, Sir Barclay went to battle against the forces of Communism, Socialism, and Liberalism.
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Marty
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Re: M01: Cronyism

Post by Marty »

M-1: Cronyism

Dame Evelyn Redgrave opened the debate with a powerful speech in which she slammed New Labour's record of cronyism. I thought the imagery quite brought to mind William Hague's notable contribution where once he said of the same Lord Mandelson that "one day, we'll find he's been made an Archbishop - that's what happened to Cardinal Woolsey!" It was well done and an effective example of Commons invective.

Of course, this is a bit like electoral reform - it's something oppositions like to pursue, but governments never quite do. Labour ruthlessly exploited this immediately by pointing out that the Conservatives have hardly been saints in this department either. I thought that Sir Jack Anderson struck the best tone here by calmly pointing out this political dynamic. He calls out Conservative hypocrisy while still appearing measured and moderate, which is a good look when it's all too easy to be too quick to defend an appointment that doesn't look great from the outset. And when both parties have got their hands dirty, you can be sure that the LibDems won't be far off to remind them of it. I thought Sir Bryant Wolfe did that quite nicely, with the reference from the Scottish Play, but I felt the parallel to America, however appropriate, was perhaps a bit too American for the British Parliament, even if it is a valid argument.

I enjoyed Clarice Ashbridge's line that "he thought he could do one better than Christ" for much the same reason as I enjoyed reading Dame Evelyn's remarks. I imagine it was greeted by the kind of exaggerated laughter that causes such a stir that Madame Speaker had to put in a few shouts of "order! order!" to calm everyone down again. As arguments go, both Ashbridge and Baker after her managed to seize upon the defenses by Cabinet Ministers to undo some of Labour's argument, but it's hard to entirely dismantle a contribution like Sir Jack's. I thought Dylan Macmillan did better in that regard by shifting the debate somewhere else after what I thought was an effective rebuttal of much of the Labour benches' arguments. It helped address Sir Jack's measured approach by moving the matter to solutions. Dame Evelyn built on this as she returned for her conclusion, hitting home both the open goal from New Labour's slightly hysterical defence of Mandelson (which kind of proves the Tories' point) and making her party seem the one that is interested in solutions.

Altogether, this debate turned out a slim Conservative win. While their credibility was called into question early on, they seized upon the shift to solutions well and this has helped their case come through in the end. Labour doesn't come out of this debate with that much damage. The LibDems could've done more to hit their case home.

I'll award +2 Conservative momentum for this one, and XP to Sir Jack and Dame Evelyn.
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