Tag Archives: edm

An Early Day Motion to change Early Day Motions

By Mark Pack | Published 1st March 2011 - 8:55 am

Never let it be said that self-referentiality is dead in Parliament. I give you Early Day Motion 432 for 2010-11 which calls for EDMs to be reformed or abolished.

EDMs have come in for a fair degree of flack (and it’s hard to see what the David Hasselhoff And Morecambe Winter Gardens EDM really achieved). However, many of the criticisms are easily dealt with by simple reforms, such as abolishing the expensive printing of hard copies of EDMs in large quantities.

With a few such simple reforms, EDMs could be an effective, and cost-effective, part of our Parliamentary processes. …

Continue reading »
Posted in News, Parliament | Leave a comment

Three simple ways to reform EDMs, without harming the fibreglass sheep

By Mark Pack | Published 12th November 2010 - 5:53 pm

Dizzy Thinks has been on the case again about the costs run by Early Day Motions in Parliament. As he delicately puts it:

Yes, we really do have to spend £150K alone on the salary, pension and NI contributions for the poor sods that have to sort out the latest self-congratulatory bollocks that our MPs want to spout off fruitlessly about.

The combination of cost and triviality of many EDMs has caused some people to call for their abolition. I think this is going too far, as some EDMs do provide a useful mechanism, as a focus for external campaign groups, …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds, Parliament | Also tagged , | 1 Comment

Lamb criticises “MMR scaremongering”

By The Voice | Published 12th February 2009 - 10:40 am

Norman Lamb has tabled Early Day Motion 754, “MMR vaccine and the media“.

This follows a public dispute between award-winning blogger Ben Goldacre and radio station LBC over a broadcast by Jeni Barnett that Goldacre describes as a “44 minute tirade against MMR”.

According the party’s press release, Norman said:

“Suggesting that the MMR vaccine is dangerous in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary is massively irresponsible and could put children’s lives at risk.

“This kind of scaremongering has had a serious impact on public health in the last decade.

“Cases of measles have risen dramatically in the

…

Continue reading »
Posted in News | Also tagged , , | 3 Comments