Kevin Davis has a good piece on Tony Blair's voting record compared to Major's & Thatcher's. He makes the point that he may have missed to vote on Tuesday because he had forgotten how to vote. OK, obviously a joke, but it would be nice to know that our Prime Minister had just the teensiest bit of respect for Parliament. It is truly appalling that he has only voted in 6% of votes since the election. I made a comparison between Blair and Thatcher in one of the reshuffle posts below, and I wonder if there is another compariosn to be made here. In her last years Thatcher lost touch with some of her backbench colleagues, and a cause of this was the fact that she appeared less and less in the Division lobbies, as the graphic (right) from Andrew Tyrie in The Times demonstrates. The same thing is happening to Blair.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Perhaps it was Because Blair Forgot How to Vote
Kevin Davis has a good piece on Tony Blair's voting record compared to Major's & Thatcher's. He makes the point that he may have missed to vote on Tuesday because he had forgotten how to vote. OK, obviously a joke, but it would be nice to know that our Prime Minister had just the teensiest bit of respect for Parliament. It is truly appalling that he has only voted in 6% of votes since the election. I made a comparison between Blair and Thatcher in one of the reshuffle posts below, and I wonder if there is another compariosn to be made here. In her last years Thatcher lost touch with some of her backbench colleagues, and a cause of this was the fact that she appeared less and less in the Division lobbies, as the graphic (right) from Andrew Tyrie in The Times demonstrates. The same thing is happening to Blair.
But at least Mr B submits himself to regular grilling by committe chairmen (quite good telly if you like that sort of thing) which is more than the others did. I think PMs have always found parliament pretty tedious but some are better at concealing their feelings.
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find Thatcher and Major submitted themselves to twice weekly Prime Minister's Question Times (as did their predecessors). The overall length may have been the same but two sessions meant it was possible to raise topical questions that these days may get lost if the events occur from Wednesday afternoon to the end of the week. Clearly Blair considers himself too important for this level of Parliamentary scrutiny.
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