Pooh, Pooh, Where Are You?

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Well, surprise, surprise; Doris Pooh is not present at the debate on Parliamentary standards: the very debate that has been triggered by his own actions in last week's abortive attack on Parliamentary democratic process. The collective smirk of the Tory party is being wiped off their collective physiognomy, with the entire Opposition laying into - entirely justifiably - every last infringement that the Bear-Of-Little-Brain has committed since becoming Prime Minister. And the Leader of the House simply sits silently without contribution - his job is House business, after all - in his place, normally to the right hand of the Prime Minister; predictably absent, as I've said.

Now we have Alberto Costa (Conservative, Leicestershire South) arguing that the processes operated in enforcing standards are flawed and that reform of those processes is necessary. This is generally agreed upon on both sides of the House, although Sir Keir Starmer's contribution to the debate as Leader of the Opposition pointed out that in the case in question that spurred this debate, there was ample opportunity afforded to the individual involved to offer rebuttal to the accusations against him.

The point that the Opposition - and anyone else who cares a whit for democracy - are making is not that the standards process currently extant is at fault, though might it be; rather that the Prime Minister and his Government sought last week to force through a vote which, with it's subsequent rapid reversal has seriously damaged the public's trust - once again - in the probity of it's Government and Prime Minister alike. Still the stalwarts of Tory obfuscation and misdirection - Sir Bill Cash offering  his usual blather to the debate - operate the tired old "...who me/us?..." stratagem, blithely ignoring the simple facts of the matter laid before them.

The point of the debate is not the particulars of the specific case of lobbying misconduct against Owen Paterson - the facts of the case itself are incontrovertible and the individual has resigned - but the fact that the Prime Minister  has consistently sought to subvert Parliamentary democracy in the service of his friends and allies and by extension himself. If there is any natural justice in this world, his legacy on leaving office will be that he presided over one of the most corrupt administrations hitherto seen in this country. I think Pooh should just bugger off back to the woods and leave the rest of us in peace. Oh, I forgot, that's where he's already hiding...

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