What can he mean?Mr. Speaker: I call Alan Clark—sorry, I mean Alan Duncan.
Alan Duncan (Rutland and Melton) (Con): Do not worry, Mr. Speaker, I assure you that I am sober. What is the Secretary of State’s assessment of the number of company directors and entrepreneurs who are choosing to bail out of their shareholdings before the Government’s entirely destructive changes to capital gains tax start on 6 April, and of the consequences of those people’s actions?
Mr. Hutton: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman has nothing in common with Alan Clark—that is obvious.
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From Wikipedia:
To date he is the only Member of Parliament to have been accused of being drunk at the dispatch box. In 1983 while at Employment he was making a reading of a bill in the Commons after a wine-tasting dinner with his friend of many years standing, Christopher Selmes. The complexities of the bill were too unclear for him to answer questions, and the opposition MP, Clare Short, stood up and, after acknowledging that MPs cannot formally accuse each other of being drunk in the House of Commons, accused him of being "incapable", a euphemism for 'drunk'. Although the Government benches were furious at the accusation, Clark later admitted in his diaries that the wine-tasting had affected him.
Was the Speaker joking or is he really that stupid?
Hutton probably meant that Clark was intelligent, witty, urbane and charming.
No chance of Bob Piper being mistaken for Alan Clark, then.
That gave me a nostalgic smile. I miss Alan Clark terribly. A remarkable personality.
Such an annoying historian - Clark has a lot to answer for on that score. But who could stay mad at such a loveable, acerbic drunken rogue?
I shudder to think of the implications of Hutton's off-the-cuff remark.
It was a poofophobic jibe. Shame on him.
A great loss to Parliament and life in general. Who is today's Alan Clark?
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