A quick ID card vote question
Last night the government won their ID card vote by just 25 votes.
The House of Commons has 636 sitting MPs (not including the 5 non-voting Sinn Fein members, obviously or the Speaker and Deputy Speakers). In the vote, 309 voted in favour of the government's bill, 284 against.
So, my question is this - where the pissing fuck were the other 43 MPs? That's nearly double the number of the government's majority, and more than enough to have sent the revolting little thing back where it came from.
I want names and I want to hear the excuses. Anyone who has spoken out against ID who didn't vote without an EXCEPTIONALLY good reason, I want to make their life an abject misery. Nosemonkey is angered, despite knowing this was an inevitability.
Update: Right - here we go:
TORIES (in favour of the rights of the individual versus the state, remember) who weren't present for the vote -
David Davies (Monmouthshire), Quentin Davies (Grantham & Stamford), Roger Gale (North Thanet), Michael Gove (Surrey Heath), Greg Hands (Hammersmith & Fulham), Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury & Atcham), Peter Lilley (Hitchin & Harpenden), Michael Mates (East Hampshire), Richard Ottaway (Croydon South), Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex), Anthony Steen (Totnes), Gary Streeter (South West Devon), Ian Taylor (Esher & Walton), Edward Vaizey (Wantage), Ann Widdecombe (Maidstone & The Weald), George Young (North West Hampshire)
WIDDECOMBE? That's the last time she goes on the fucking Today Programme ranting against the things. And Soames? He above all others should realise that one of the best things Churchill ever did when PM in the 50s was scrap wartime ID. Pretty much everyone there should know better. Dicks.
LIB DEM absentees
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley), John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross)
Hemming, eh? He seemed quite the opponent of ID on his blog - perhaps we should all pop over and ask him what the fuck he was playing at yesterday?
I'll let the Labour lot off the hook for now - them absenting themselves did, at least, mean Blair's lot had fewer people to bully into voting in favour. Although I'd be interested to know where the hell Frank Dobson and Dennis Skinner were. They've both been constant campaigner against these bloody things, yet don't bother showing for the vote? It's not even like Dobbo's constituency's far away - it's only a 20 minute walk to Westminster, if that.
Update 2: John Hemming has responded (in the comments) - apparently he was in hospital yesterday, which sounds like a good reason to miss the thing to me.
Now what about the rest of them, I wonder?
8 Comments:
Not another case like the tuition fees malarkey, where the Government sent a delegation of opponents off to Spain for a few days?
That list sounds a bit like the David Cameron victory party... Bloody modernisers.
Easy NM, perhaps some were 'paired' with their opposite number on the Labour benches and arranged a mutual no-show. Pairing does still happen in the HoC, right ?
Sam - These days they'd just detain them under the Terrorism Act...
Andrew - David Davies is in his near-namesake's camp, surely? Can't find the list of voting intentions to check against the rest, but if Camron himself made it to the vote, it's unlikely his boys would stay behind to get pissed, surely?
Infoholic - pairing does happen, but generally not on such contentious issues. And that still wouldn't explain the likes of Widdecombe who have claimed to be ideologically against the things. You're not likely to pair up on an ideological issue that's this divisive.
Good work, sir!
Thankfully my own MP, the dear Glenda Jackson (who failed to secure my vote solely thanks to being a member of a party led by Tony Blair) was one of the Labour rebels. I'm still not sure I can forgive my former MP, Frank Dobson, for failing to attend, but as I'm no longer one of his constituents I imagine it would be bad form of me to contact him...
John at The England Project has had a reply from Peter Lilley. Apparently, he was at a dinner when the vote happened. Ho hum.
M'Lord Thurso may have been detained with trouble on't river
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=2056722005
Too busy taking care of the family estate to vote in Parliament? Always embarrassing.
Since the numbers are almost equal could it be a result of pairing; not sure if it was a 3-line whip or not.
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