Interesting little item at the end of business today.
Under 'Presentation of Public Petitions' the Tory MP Christopher Chope will be presenting a petition on 'Bellamy's Bar Closure'. And no, it's not a matter of vital importance for his constituents of Christchurch. It's about plans to turn Bellamy's, one of the many bars on the parliamentary estate, into a creche. Mr Chope objects. Will be interesting to see how many signatures he's got from 'the public'.
Mr Chope is also fighting a rearguard action, along with Philip Davies MP (Dinosaur Jr) to stop moves by Harriet Harman to enshrine in legislation a rule that parliamentary committees should use the term 'Chair', and not Chairman from now on. I can see this might be a point of principle for the 'political correctness gone mad' brigade, but I look forward to seeing his justification for trying to scupper plans for a creche.
2 comments:
So much for the Tories policies on supporting families!!
I was in Bellamy's on Thursday, having a drink with a researcher when a petition came round. Not actually working in the p'mentary estate, most of my group didn't sign it, but the researcher (Labour of course), did, and didn't seem to think there was anything too 'dinosaurish' about it.
I don't know if it's the same petition (it was handed around by a young man, and there was talk of "putting it behind the Speaker's chair", if that's something that happens?), but they apparently had an alternative location in mind on the Ground Floor of No.1 P'ment Street. Another justification they gave was that it was (one of?) the only bars that parliamentary staff could drink in without actually being Members...
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