Comments on: John Redwood’s budget speech

By: Citizen Responsible

Citizen Responsible — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 08:30:48 +0000

Thanks for this link. Good immediate hard hitting response from DC, followed up by broader and meaningful analysis from JR.

By: FatBigot

FatBigot — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:55:59 +0000

One must be fair to Mr Speaker, even if some might suggest he doesn’t deserve it. For as long as I can remember a Deputy Speaker has presided over the Budget debate. It is one of those quaint customs that might be questionable but is sufficiently well-established that Mr Martin can escape censure on this occasion.

By: Steve Tierney

Steve Tierney — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:35:20 +0000

As usual, amazing. Well done.

By: Bill Quango mp

Bill Quango mp — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:49:17 +0000

great speech. May I add this guide to the Pseudo-Chancellors realmeanings of some words in his speech.

By: mikestallard

mikestallard — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:44:46 +0000

Thank you for an excellent speech which truly reflected what your blogs and the comments have been saying for some time now.
Our host made all the right noises and even dared to mention the EU!
BUT
“If they do not, they will find that the public, far from being impressed by the Prime Minister’s action, will feel extremely let down that he has discovered another way to pump more money to Labour Back Benchers without any proper accountability.” You see, the back benchers, had long gone by the time of the speech. Yet this was, apparently, the most important budget there has ever been or something like that. Skiving? No – they were on full pay with bath plug expenses!
And where was Mr Speaker? I would have thought (silly me) that a thing like the most important budget there has ever been would have demanded the real (very expensive) person in gold robes rather than a stand-in Mr Deputy Speaker.
What came out of this debate, to me, was the fact that parliament is no longer the place where government policy is discussed and questioned.
U tube and the web and Newsnight are all very well.
But they are not at all democratic.
And I am.

By: Philip Hutchinson

Philip Hutchinson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:29:48 +0000

A brilliant speech. I am grateful that at least some MPs are taking the crisis seriously, offering sensible and reasoned critiques of the government’s policies, and suggesting achievable and common-sense policies to help us recover.

More of the same, please, Mr Redwood. I hope, for all our sakes, that they listen to you, but I suspect we will have to wait until next May before we can get back to sorting the problems out – a disaster in itself.

By: Adrian Peirson

Adrian Peirson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:14:50 +0000

any chance we could edit it and get it on youtube.

Reply: It is available I am told on the bbc site and I will post the link to the Hansard site when it is available. By all means edit it and send it where you like, as long as you do not distort its meaning.

By: FatBigot

FatBigot — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:21:40 +0000

Mr Redwood, I really enjoyed that. Thank you.

By: Denis Cooper

Denis Cooper — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:09:56 +0000

Why punish the electorate by reducing the number of their elected representatives, when the fault lies not with the electorate but with the current batch of representatives, and with the political parties which presented them as official candidates?

I’d say that banning and disbanding the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties would work wonders for our democracy, in the short term. But of course in a democracy you can’t start banning political parties, not even for short term benefit.

By: Denis Cooper

Denis Cooper — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:59:05 +0000

Happy St George’s Day.

Although I’d disagree on some points I thought this was an excellent speech, fluently and clearly delivered, and without a prepared text to boot … it’s just a pity that so many MPs had got up and walked out at the end of Cameron’s speech, as many of them could have improved their minds by listening to it.

I have a modest alternative proposal to paying MPs a daily allowance for attending Parliament, and that is to only allow them to vote if they have been in the chamber for at least half of the relevant debate.

Easy enough to arrange – swipe cards to clock into the chamber and clock out, when a division is called the computer immediately calculates which MPs are eligible to vote, and the list is displayed at both lobbies.

I’m being very reasonable here – I recognise that MPs will need to take breaks during a long debate.

Of course this wouldn’t mean that they’d actually listen to anything that was said, let alone think about it; but it would be a start for them to be there.