Business of the House

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Thursday 21st April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

I too would like to wish a very happy birthday to Her Majesty, and also to his majesty the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), as we on these Benches always refer to him.

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us a full day’s debate on the privilege motion. We cannot wait to see the hordes of Tory Back Benchers getting to their feet to say what a wonderful, truthful and honest character the Prime Minister is. Of course, he is not here; he is in India. I do not know who is advising him, but apparently the first thing they got him to do when he arrived was to spin some yarn. I see that the Government’s amendment is jointly in the Leader of the House’s name, in what must be a supreme effort to kick the can down the road. I say again to colleagues on the Tory Back Benches that they had better be absolutely certain of what is in that can, because I suspect that, when they eventually have to open it, it will be packed full of the most rancid, noxious contents that they will then have to feast upon. This is not going to save the May elections. At some point, they are going to have to decide whether they get rid of him or whether they go down with him.

We are also going to have to have a debate about the type of language we use in this House, because it cannot go on like this. We cannot refer to the Prime Minister with the one word that the public now most closely associate with him. We cannot even refer to a fictitious Disney character who is associated with the word that the public most use about him. The public think we are absolutely mad, and that view will only have been compounded by the activities of last night. We had one hour to debate countless important amendments and two hours to vote on them. Then the card readers broke down, and we were back to pen and paper. Some cartoon classics may indeed be out of bounds in this House, but at some point this Disney wonderland is going to have to enter this century.

[Mr Speaker]

Can I just say for clarification—and I think we ought to be a little bit more honest—that we have very good Clerks and that two card readers were still operational? All those in the other Lobby were operational. Please let us not discredit a system that did actually work, and it worked quite well.