British Politics: debate in the HoC

[DanaC]

Just found this video on the toob. It's a collection of funny moments in House of Commons debates.



Dont know why it suddenly breaks into music about 7 minutes in. It goes on for a few seconds then back to the debates.

If you dont want to plough through the whole thing (it jumps about chronologically across about 15 years or so) at the very least watch William Hague's speech beginning at 8:04.

It is one of the best and funniest speeches I have ever heard in the House. It takes place whilst Gordon Brown was Prime Minister, and Tony Blair was being touted as a hypothetical President of Europe. There was very little love lost between Blair and Brown by this point.

[Blueflare]

"Order! ORDER!"
Lol @ Tom Watson at 4:21. What a ridiculous man.

I love watching parliament. It's like watching adolescents squabble on the playground. Everything is met with "Aaaaaaaaaaaaa!" "Nooooooooooooo" or exaggerated laugher. They stand opposite each other two sword lengths apart and hurl insults.

This one especially reminds me of my school days:



Our democracy is truly magnificent.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by DanaC

snip--
Dont know why it suddenly breaks into music about 7 minutes in. It goes on for a few seconds then back to the debates.
--snip

I think I do.

Go back and rewatch it, especially at this point Dana. Look behind and to the left of the person speaking and notice what's being done to the magazine in the hands of one of the other members.

[infinite monkey]

Good catch, V. That's funny!

[Sundae]

I was listening to it the other day (I was laid low with acute bronchitis, okay?) and Milliband was rubbishing the Queen's Speech with repetition of the word "Nothing!"

A whole chorus of backbenchers joined in. It was like groupies at a concert, or comedy fans seeing a sketch live. Sadness.

Thanks for the vids.
What, no Beast of Bolsover?

[Rhianne]

Originally Posted by Sundae

What, no Beast of Bolsover?

That's exactly what I thought when I listened!

What a shame too that the televising of THoC missed his (almost) namesake Denis Healey at his peak.

[DanaC]

Setting aside the cat calls and audience participation, this has some pretty interesting debate in there :p



It's a full Prime Minister's Question Time (just over half an hour) but some interesting stuff. if nothing else the battle a few minutes in between Cameron and Milliband (leader of the opposition) is pretty fiery stuff.

A large chunk of PMQ is very tame though, it's feeder questions from loyal back benchers. The middle section is mostly that. And incredibly local stuff as well.

[DanaC]

Slight sidestep, but seems to fit best in a thread on Brit politics ;p

It's a news report on yet more sudden changes in the budget, so-called 'u-turns' and studio interview with a junior minister, who'd been sent out to answer difficult questions as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was unavailable.

With Paxman interviewing this amounts to sending a lamb to the slaughter...

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Slight sidestep, but seems to fit best in a thread on Brit politics ;p

It's a news report on yet more sudden changes in the budget, so-called 'u-turns' and studio interview with a junior minister, who'd been sent out to answer difficult questions as the Chancellor of the Exchequer was unavailable.

With Paxman interviewing this amounts to sending a lamb to the slaughter...

She held up pretty well and kept to the talking points, pretending to answer when she really wasn't. She came off looking very bad, but you can't fault her discipline. She showed a lot of backbone at the end.

Has this guy ever interviewed any US politicians? I'd like to see that.

[DanaC]

Here he is interviewing John Bolton a few years ago:




And interviewing Condoleeza Rice:

[DanaC]

This is the classic Paxman interview. In the dying days of the 90's Conservative goverment, the Home Secretary became embroiled in a political row, which culminated in this interview:gets really hardcore from around the 1:30 mark. Bear in mind this man is the third most powerful government minister in the country at this point.And this interview marked the beginning of the end for his political career.

His reputation was dented on 13 May 1997 when a critical inquiry into a series of prison escapes was published. In advance of the publication Howard made statements to assign blame to the prison service. A further controversy came when the television interviewer, Jeremy Paxman, relentlessly asked him the same question 12 times in all, (14 if including two earlier inquiries that were worded somewhat differently) during an edition of the Newsnight programme.[4] Asking whether Howard had intervened when Derek Lewis sacked a prison governor, Paxman asked: "Did you threaten to overrule him?" Howard did not give a direct answer, instead repeatedly saying that he "did not instruct him", and ignoring the "threaten" part of the question.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael...#In_government

[chrisinhouston]

I love watching PM's question time. American politicians could never do this, they aren't smart or quick enough to reply without a team of policy people in their offices telling them what to say.

I got to sit up in the gallery for question time once back when Blair was the PM and my cousin, IDS was the Tory leader. We also got a really good tour of Parliament and even got to see the Queens Robing room and some other rooms that aren't usually open for visitors.

[DanaC]

Two of my favourite speeches from the recent debate on gay marriage, both Conservative members.





And a nice Labour speech too:

[DanaC]

Whatever else this government has done, and there is much I find unforgivable, this was a brave thing for the a Conservative Prime Minister to throw his weight behind. He carried less than half of his party with him on free vote. He knew that was likely, but he went for it anyway.

[Griff]

That is remarkable especially compared to the US right now.