Complete Contempt For Parliament – Again

There was a rather angry exchange in the House of Commons today when Liam Fox raised a point of order regarding the publication of the 296 page Gray Report into the government’s defence policy. The issue is that the report was published in the Commons library less than an hour before the defence debate which as the speaker quite rightly said is, “rank discourtesy to the House”.

Bob Ainsworth then replied stating that, “the report was not completed some time ago” and this was the earliest opportunity to publish it. That has to be a lie, or as the chairman of the Defence Select Committee put it, “a surprise”. He said he had read it in July and read today’s version and apart from a few words it was pretty much the same document. Mr Ainsworth continued: “I sincerely regret that we were not able to get it to Opposition Members earlier this morning”. Presumably he will also ‘sincerely regret it when the same situation arises in the future as it is bound to do.

This is clearly Labour’s complete and utter contempt for Parliament shining once again. How many more times will they use their governmental privilege to circulate reports to ministers months in advance of public publication in the full knowledge that the time they provide in doing so, for the opposition to effectively hold the government to account?

What is clear here is that we have a government in the Labour party that is more concerned about it’s own reputation than the reputation of Parliament. Indeed, for a party that has been banging on for the last decade about democracy and the importance thereof, this is somewhat hypocritical to say the least.

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time they’ve played these dirty games and I fear it won’t be the last. At least we only have a maximum of 230 days before the electorate has the chance to get rid of this decrepit thing that they like to pretend is some sort of government.