[Tealeaf]

Originally Posted by g jones

No one shuffled near me. There was some interest, slightly more the usual.

As a working class person who resides up Plantation Street I to find hard to swallow that you would kick ordinary struggling Accy families in the teeth when it is a fact that 95% of people don't give a toss about Europe but do care about jobs and the economy. As a WC person I'll say what I think, you are letting us down.

Cedar Stret/Hodder Street resident 23 years. Accy resident 45 years.

Oh Dear. I appear to have upset the Honourable Member for Hyndburn and Haslingden. But I can’t in the least think why. Certainly, like most people on this forum I am fully aware of the direct and indirect financial costs of metal theft and of the unquantifiable distress caused by those criminal acts involving the destruction of war memorials and grave plaques. That is why I asked in post No 9 on this thread what exactly was being proposed in GJ’s bill, to which he gave a detailed reply in post No 13. In post No’s 16 & 19 I fully backed the outlawing of cash transactions in answer to a few subsequent posts defending the lamentable status quo.

Being aware that GJ was due to present his Private Members Bill before the House this week, I checked on the Commons timetable to find exactly when. The 10 minute period allocated for GJ’s bill was immediately after questions to the deputy PM and the Attorney General, so being unsure exactly how long those would last I tuned in to the BBC Parliament Channel at 11.30am. Clegg gave his usual waffle and that was followed by the AG and the Solicitor General mainly answering questions on the passports and border fiasco (this was at the same time as Brodie Clark was being grilled in a committee room, which was being shown live on BBC News 24).

The Commons chamber was certainly not anywhere near full for these questions. Upon completion at 1pm, there was a partial exodus from the chamber and GJ’s name was called by the speaker, where he had been sat on the opposition benches at the rear of the chamber. At that point, several of his labour colleagues rose from their previous seating position and went and sat directly next to him as he rose to begin his speech. This was clearly visible on the TV picture and this is what I referred to when I said they shuffled in beside him. This is of course, now the normal practice for an MP’s colleagues to group alongside him when a lengthy statement is in progress.


I stand by my marking of 7/10. I am not a GCSE or ‘A’ level marker so I don’t go in for grade inflation and summat for nowt. However, given that the highest mark I have given for a parliamentary speech is 9/10 (and that was when I was in the Strangers Gallery for the Saturday morning Falklands debate of 1982), and the average is 5/10, then I would have thought that GJ would have been relatively pleased. I certainly don’t give any allowance for inexperience which if I was to, would have made it an 8/10. But it’s not my marking that counts – it’s that of the House. There was not one call against the bill proceeding to the next stage. So congratulations on this point to GJ and we all trust it will go all the way to the Palace for Her Majesties signature and a new and much needed law for her noble realm.

But now things get really puzzling. Why would I want to kick ordinary struggling families in the teeth? When I’m not in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets - which on most scores is regarded as either the poorest or second poorest borough in the country - I’m back in Church, (which is not exactly the poshest part of Hyndburn) and when I’m there I stay in the same terraced house I was in as a resident new born 55 years ago.

Initially, I left Church for higher education in 1974; that was shortly after the UK had joined the EU. There was still plenty of jobs then – I spent several summers working at Ewbank, Arnolds and various other companies and it was never too difficult to get a job even though Accy was certainly not the most prosperous of towns. The intervening years, however – coinciding with our membership of the EEC/EU - have been an absolute economic and social disaster for Hyndburn. The vast majority of people, while they may not know the intricate details of the Lisbon or Maastricht treaties or the workings of the CAP are fully aware of the link between that membership and the borough’s decline and fall.

I am more than prepared – as are others on here – to have a serious debate with GJ about the costs, consequences and ‘benefits’ of our continuing membership of the EU. Anytime, Mr Jones. But in the interim, may I possibly suggest that you avoid posts such as your last which is no more than a silly little insult. I’ll tell you what – I’ll even give you a starter for the debate. I mentioned Arnolds earlier on. This company – now Express Gifts – is, I believe, the largest private employer in Hyndburn. When I worked there, the workforce – about 600 – was all British. Now half the workforce is Eastern European. That is entirely due to our membership of the EU and the Labour government’s decision to allow workers into the UK from the accession states (most of the rest of the EU said ‘no’ to ‘em). If you are truly concerned about jobs for the people of Hyndburn – especially the younger ones – then how can you defend this stupidity?