Tag Archives: sir robert smith

Caron Lindsay

Smith, Crockart, Bruce and Williams win in Great Parliamentary Raffle

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 17th May 2013 - 11:38 am

Well, I learned something I didn’t know about parliamentary procedure yesterday. I had always assumed that the Private Members’ Bill Ballot was an actual ballot, where MPs voted for themselves or their colleagues. How naive was I? The secret is now out, and available on You Tube. It’s actually a big raffle as you can see here:

440 MPs’ names went into the box and just 20 were drawn out. Among them were 4 Liberal Democrats. We had Sir Robert Smith in 9th place, Mike Crockart in 11th, Mark Williams in 13th and Sir Malcolm Bruce in 14th.  I …

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Posted in News and Parliament | Also tagged , , and | 7 Comments
Paul Walter

PMQs: The importance of Doncaster, almost to the exclusion of everything else

By Paul Walter | Thu 26th January 2012 - 12:56 pm

At Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, David Cameron and Ed Miliband first clashed on the subject of economic growth (or, indeed, contraction). That entanglement was, more or less, a score draw. But Ed Miliband was much stronger during a later exchange on the NHS reform bill, culminating with this belter:

I shall tell the Prime Minister what is happening in the NHS: waiting lists up, morale down. What does the majority-Conservative Select Committee on Health say about his reorganisation? It says that it will be a “disruption and distraction that hinders the ability of organisations to” release savings.

Let us be frank: this

…

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Posted in PMQs | Also tagged , , , , and | 3 Comments



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