Monday, October 22, 2007

Labour Peer to Apologise for Misleading the House?

Last week I accused Labour Finance Spokesman in the Lords, Lord Davies of misleading the House. See HERE. I suggested he might like to make a Personal Statement to apologise. It seems that he is making a personal statement this afternoon. It may be nothing at all to do with what I wrote about last week, but we shall see.

UPDATE: His statement was very short containing the required apology to the House and then maintaining that what he had meant to say was that UK corporation tax was one of the lowest amongst the G7 rather than the OECD!?! Yes ... well - not the sort of 'mistake' that one would expect a Minister on top of his brief to make.

20 comments:

  1. How many people died because of this atrocity? I think we should be told. This kind of trivial pedantry is what made blogging the force it is today. Keep it up.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anon 2:59 - if threat of death is the minimum test, we wouldn't do much, would we?

    Anyway, Govt. parties don't have 'spokesmen', they have 'ministers'.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Another of Dale's taking himself far too seriously moments. Shame because you'd cut down on them lately.
    http://gtrmancfabians.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  4. The comment by "anonymous" at 2:59 PM helps to explain why "New Labour" has become a synonym for liar.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NEW LIEBOUR... We can always rely on some toady or gravtrain riding appologist to defend our crooked ways or our dishonest spin!
    Comrade Brown is building a rotten Zimbawe type cesspit based on patronage, graft and plain old corruption!
    And there are many sycophants with their snouts in the trough now! Half the LabRat Trolls that post on the GF blogs are from BBC servers, does that tell you anything?
    NULIEBOUR soft on corruption, soft on the causes of corruption!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The truth can never be "trivial pedantry" - especially when someone is trying to make a case based on a falsehood. "How many people died because of this atrocity?" Well, perhaps none in this case - but New Labour has plenty of form on that - God alone knows how many died from the lies that got us into Iraq. For that single instance alone, from now until the end of time, New Labour should never be allowed to make even a minor indiscretion without being picked up on it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I don't think getting things wrong is trivial whether in the House or on the blog. But I do think this is pot calling kettle black pedantry as Mr Dale cannot go a day without either a careless error or repeating a silly Tory fib or both.

    Hopefully the Lord Davies of Oldham will be telling all Tory Boy bloggers who can't even be bothered to use the correct full address for their noble lordships in their inaccurate, intemperate and hypocritical publications to "go swivel", with sign language for the hard of hearing.

    Or perhaps a trade off will be offered whereby proper politicians elected and otherwise will make apologies from time to time if and only if the most important blogger in the universe, prospective future Chancellor, and all round accuracy monitor Iain Dale is up to date in correcting all his Daleisms, and apologising for every single time he's Daled Up good style?

    meanwhile that joker Gideon Osborne has been in my local paper claiming everyone in Manchester is £50 a week worse off after recent tax changes.

    What a complete and utter liar and charlatan (or incompetent) that man is.

    ReplyDelete
  8. "How many people died because of this atrocity?" Perhaps as little as none. So what?

    It's precisely because this integrity-deficient shower get away with these little lies that they attempt the big lies like the Iraq Dossiers and "It's not a constitutional treaty, honest guv".

    The depressing thing is that they only seem to get bang to rights on the little ones.

    A plague on them.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anon. 2.59

    The Government does have spokesmen in the Lords. Not all Government Departments have ministers in the Lords, so Government whips (unlike in the Commons) serve as spokesmen for Departments. Lord Davies of Oldham is the Deputy Chief Whip and serves as a spokesmen for, among others, the Treasury.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Chris Paul, you talk about hypocrisy and pull up Iain for leaving out "of Oldham" from Lord Davies' name... and then you refer to George Osborne as Gideon.

    You are a ridiculous little man.

    ReplyDelete
  11. mitch said... Anyway, Govt. parties don't have 'spokesmen', they have 'ministers'.


    Mitch, Didn't know that Andrew Marr was a Government Minister, but all in all, I'm not surprised. A closet minister. I wonder how many ther are in the BBC?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Lord Davies of Whatever is a liar.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Chris Paul. 5.36 pm .... "Hopefully the Lord Davies of Oldham will be telling all Tory Boy bloggers who can't even be bothered to use the correct full address for their noble lordships ..."

    I think Iain got it right first time. "...Lord Davies of Misleading-the-House".

    ReplyDelete
  14. Has Des liar Browne apolagised to the house yet for his damned lies?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Thanks goodness Lord Davies of Oldham is not a blogger, he'd be up and down all day apologising ... like Iain is, or should be.

    Oh, and Iain's sock puppet 6:36 I was TRYING TO BE RIDICULOUS so thanks for that, but I'm not little.

    Iain makes lots and lots and lots of mistakes and he rarely if ever apologises. That is the point of the comment.

    And second that whatever anyone calls Mr Osborne the shadow chancellor he is either a liar or an incompetent. People in Manchester ARE NOT being taxed £2600 a year each more as a result of recent announcements.

    That is either a bad mistake or it is a lie. Both of which are damning.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Chris Paul, Firstly, if I get something wrong I do apologise. Secondly, I am not a Minister of the Crown.Thirdly, I suspect the people of Manchester have been taxed a damn site more than an extra £2600 since this vindictive Labour government came into power. Does that give you something to write another post about on your increasingly deranged blog? Thought so.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Did Poohbear 4.37 get lost on the way to Guido's blog?

    ReplyDelete
  18. Could Chris Paul try to understand that there are some fundamental differences between a minister and a blogger?

    The former is paid for by the taxpayer - the other provides their service free, or funded by advertising.

    The taxpayer ensures that a minister is supported by a team of civil servants, researchers and spin doctors – the other works alone.

    A minister makes decisions that affects the lives of millions – decisions that should be made on the basis of the evidence, not what it would be convenient for the evidence to be. A blogger merely hopes to be able to exert some, little influence over those decisions.

    There is therefore a fundamental difference in the obligations of each and people would do well to remember that ministers owe us a much greater duty.

    ReplyDelete
  19. And - anon and GM Fabian - why the hell should NOT these (alleged) public servants be called to account for their errors, both of omission and commission. For the most part, out New Labour masters behave as if they rule the world.

    Can't believe I voted for them (until Iraq that is). Now I'd prolly vote Hitler Youth to get rid of the lying cheating authoritarian bastards.

    ReplyDelete
  20. No. You didn't have anything to do with it.

    ReplyDelete