A couple of weeks ago, Ruth Bright wrote of her admiration for Jenny Willott after seeing her and her family on the Inside the Commons series. I can only echo her sentiments after finally catching up with the programme late last night. What I saw was a happy family eating together, making a difficult work/life balance situation work in a way that suited them. Of course, I did wonder why Parliament couldn’t schedule its votes in a more family friendly manner and, why, in the 21st century, casting a vote requires running across your workplace then standing in a lobby for quarter of an hour, but that’s hardly Jenny’s fault.
I was appalled to see, from her speech to Welsh Liberal Democrat conference, that she’d taken some Twitter abuse after the programme was shown, as WalesOnline reports.
The Liberal Democrat MP jokingly described herself to party activists as “the one with the child who screamed the place down when I left him in the whips office and went to vote”.
She said: “I’m also the one who got completely vilified on social media for daring to be a woman who wants to both work and have children. It’s absolutely amazing how many people thought it was okay to tell me my children would turn into delinquents, that I wasn’t up to the task of being an MP if I was also thinking about my children, that my children should be taken into social services care… that I was letting down my children and my constituents etc.”
She continued: “It’s extraordinary to think that even in 2015 there are plenty of people out there who think that women can’t be both MPs and have children successfully – I don’t hear any of them suggesting that men can’t be both MPs and have children.”
Ms Willott said her experiences made her “even more determined to show them how wrong they are,” adding: “It also proves to me that we need to get more women elected overall to change attitudes.”
I had a wee look back through her Twitter and found this example of the nonsense thrown at her:
Shocking parenting by @JennyWillott 8:30pm & your young son is dumped in office whilst u run off 2 vote Not the way to be a working parent
— Greg Galvin (@GalvinGreg) February 17, 2015
There were, however, many more people who totally identified with Jenny.
MPs make the laws we all have to live by so I’d much rather that more of them understood what it was like to be a modern day parent.
Last night, Jenny’s children were the focus of some Twitter attention again, but in a good way.
Mr Speaker’s apartment taking a bit of a battering from @JennyWillott’s kids during #ROTYA15 – 3 awards down, 5 to go pic.twitter.com/yVH30EhN4c
— CRAiG B (@craigie_b) March 2, 2015
In the same speech, by the way, Jenny also laid out what life would have been like if we hadn’t been in government, if the Tories had been governing alone:
In a blast at her coalition partners, she said: “After five years of Tory-only Government, people would be paying £800 more in tax every year. Public sector employees in Wales would have been paid less than those over the border.
“Companies would have been given the right to fire staff whenever they wanted without having to give a reason. The Human Rights Act would have been scrapped…
“State schools in England could have been run for a profit by private companies and young people would have had their housing benefit taken away. Now, that’s not a country that I would want to live in and I think that most people would agree that the Lib Dems have saved us from that.”
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
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54 Comments
The abuse is unacceptable. We need to support working mums.
Abuse is unacceptable, but I would classify the example given as adverse comment rather than abuse. It is not a comment I agree with, but something in a free society we have to put up with.
There may be worse examples on the Twitter feed, I cannot check because I am in China at the moment and Twitter is blocked (but interestingly LDV is not). My point is that I prefer to enjoy the open debate, and would only draw the line when the comments become threatening.
why, in the 21st century, casting a vote requires running across your workplace then standing in a lobby for quarter of an hour
Perhaps because five centuries of history and tradition is just a little bit more important than momentary convenience?
Dav, just because something has been done in a certain way for a period of time is no excuse to keep doing it that way if a better alternative is presented.
“Perhaps because five centuries of history and tradition”… I hear it’s going to cost £3 billion to rebuild the Palace of Westminster. What an opportunity to rebuild it somewhere else, modernised – including electronic voting. How about Birmingham, just near the new HS2 station? It could include rented apartments for MPs and families to live in while being MPs. And the old site could become social rented housing.
Dav 3rd Mar ’15 – 3:01pm
“…five centuries of history and tradition is just a little bit more important …”
This is the sort of ridiculous nonsense that people with a limited knowledge of history trot out to justify all sorts of stupidities.
Where exactly do you get “five centuries” from?
The building where this voting rigmarole takes place is less than 200 years old.
Women have been voting there for less than one hundred years.
Even if your “five centuries” had any historical validity what has it got to do with 2015 ?
Are you suggesting that bear-baiting, slavery and public hangings should be brought back because they also had centuries of “important tradition” ?
If you want to defend the irrational circus that is the House of Commons you are going to have to do better than that.
Abuse should be unacceptable; sadly it seems to ‘go with the territory’…Perhaps, when abuse within the House is properly dealt with, outside abuse will go the same way….
As far as “centuries of important tradition” goes, the ‘Member’ playing computer games during debate didn’t seem to worry too much….
Where exactly do you get “five centuries” from?
From when the House of Commons moved into the Old Palace at Westminster in the sixteenth century. Voting then was done by division; admittedly there was only one lobby (the second was added when the Palace was rebuilt) so one side left and the other stayed, but still, the tradition of voting by physical division (rather than just pushing a button) goes back at least that far.
Even if your “five centuries” had any historical validity what has it got to do with 2015 ?
We are the product of our history and our traditions, and we should hold them in esteem and not discard them lightly for frivolous reasons.
These are votes which can change the direction of the United Kingdom. Is it not right that they be attended with some pomp and ceremony and, yes, a bit of physical effort? Would nto something be lost to reducing them to the pressing of a button?
Perhaps you’d like to add a giant LCD screen too, with a countdown timer and red and blue coloured bars that go up as MPs press their buttons? You could have sound effects too, and make the whole thing indistinguishable from a weekday teatime quiz. I’m sure that would increase public engagement.
I hear it’s going to cost £3 billion to rebuild the Palace of Westminster. What an opportunity to rebuild it somewhere else, modernised – including electronic voting.
Why not go the whole hog and just hire Endemol to design it?
Dav
“These are votes which can change the direction of the United Kingdom. Is it not right that they be attended with some pomp and ceremony and, yes, a bit of physical effort? Wouldn’t something be lost byreducing them to the pressing of a button?”
Actually, I rather agree with that particular argument. It’s got precious little to do with your original assertion that “five centuries of history and tradition is just a little bit more important than momentary convenience”, however, or your mockery of, apparently, any change in the layout or practices of the House of Commons, which seems to amount to “bah, it’s new, I don’t like it”!
Actually, I rather agree with that particular argument. It’s got precious little to do with your original assertion that “five centuries of history and tradition is just a little bit more important than momentary convenience”, however, or your mockery of, apparently, any change in the layout or practices of the House of Commons, which seems to amount to “bah, it’s new, I don’t like it”!
On the contrary it’s entirely based on my original assertion that you shouldn’t lightly discard history and traditions. It is the connection with the long history of our democracy which gives the votes such weight. The fact that the votes are conducted much as they were in the reign of Henry VIII reminds (or should remind!) MPs of the great tradition in which they stand, of the House which they serve which was there fore centuries before them and will hopefully be still sovereign centuries after we are all dead. It should impress upon them their responsibility to the history of the nation.
It is the continuance of that tradition that reminds, or at least should remind, MPs that it is not them as individuals who matter but rather their stewardship of the legacy of history. That their discomfort is neither here nor there compared to the duty they have to discharge, and that they should discharge that duty with due thought and respect for that history.
All of which is why you shouldn’t just go changing things.
“These are votes which can change the direction of the United Kingdom. Is it not right that they be attended with some pomp and ceremony and, yes, a bit of physical effort? Wouldn’t something be lost byreducing them to the pressing of a button?”
Here’s Caroline Lucas’s comment on the noble traditions you are defending, Dav:
“I have seen whips literally pushing people through the aye lobby and the no lobby, even if they are remonstrating and saying, ‘I don’t want to vote this way.’ They are pushed over, and once you go over the entrance way, you can’t come out again. You just have to hide in the toilets.”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/28/caroline-lucas-im-not-playing-about
Stephen Donnelly I think Jenny being told that her children should be taken away by Social Services counts as abuse!
You could retain the building and still introduce electronic voting. The Houses of Parliament did not suddenly become in need of huge refurbishments. It does not say much for the quality of our political leaders if they could not even maintain the building they operate in properly. No wonder the country is badly governed and the public have so little respect for these people. The shouting and raving during PMQs has shown them up for the awful people they are as has their pathetic attempts to justify it ( people with deeply held convictions !) when they are ordered to do it by the Whips.The cost of demolition would be quite high but the loss of this historic building which I always admire every time I pass it would be a terrible mistake. Our Parliament, for all its faults, is almost unique in its origins and its quirky traditions are part of its uniqueness. I believe Iceland has an older Parliamentary Institution but presumably not the building. I once saw the new Czech Parliament. It looked ghastly and totally out of place in its beautiful surroundings.
I have seen whips literally pushing people through the aye lobby and the no lobby, even if they are remonstrating and saying, ‘I don’t want to vote this way.’
I would think it’s harder for the whips to push people over a lobby threshold than it would be for the whips to just go around and push peoples’ buttons for them, which is what would happen in the the Brave New World of the Marti Caine Parliament.
Yes Ruth, and the one about “tell me my children would turn into delinquents” is also abuse. However I think the other comments quoted, nasty and sexist though many of them are, don’t count as abuse.
You’re joking, Dav.
You mean, you think that whips wouldn’t reach over an MP’s shoulder and press the right button for them? Honestly, you think that wouldn’t happen?
And yet you’re happy to believe they physically push people through doors?
But they wouldn’t march into an office / lean over a desk and press a button?
Excuse me while I snigger.
Good gracious Dav, I hope you are not going to rue the day when the tradition of the Cucking pool was lost! -( only joking).
The man who tweeted that the female MPs behaviour was bad parenting should in my opinion, have been blaming a bad system that made this the only alternative open to her. It is a system that was developed for men -less than half the population when I last checked.
My own view, is that a woman’s place ( particularly a mother’s place), is where she wants it to be. I would, however, refine the idea of wanting more women and mothers in parliament and positions of power to one where there are more working – class women in parliament . I don’t necessarily believe that having more women in positions of power leads to that power trickling down to all women. The current push and financial incentives to get more women into work when some if they could afford it, would rather be at home with their children, is one example of what I see as a particularly middle class perspective on what ‘women’ want.
@ Dav,
Sorry cucking stool not pool
Again, Dav has a good, practical point which deserves to be taken seriously. To do that, it may help to ignore his necrophiliac nonsense.
Dav, it is not MPs’ “stewardship of the legacy of history” that matters (that’s the responsibility of historians, archivists and museum keepers and the like); their responsibility is to the people of the present and the future. They should “discharge that duty with due thought and respect” for the needs and wishes of the people they serve, not the pageantry of an institution whose history is largely that of a small, privileged class defending its interests against both the monarchy and the people.
But to return to the more important point: making MPs vote in a very public, physical way, taking some time and effort over the process, may well serve to focus the mind on the importance of what they are doing; whereas pressing a button for “Yes” or “No” might feel as significant as doing the same thing on an online survey for LDV — which, with all due respect, is not quite the same thing.
Dav, you honestly think that a whip would do that in a chamber where television cameras are filming everything? One of the reasons you get such nasty tales coming out of the voting lobbies is because they’re a place where the cameras, the press and the public can’t see. It’s much harder to get away with that sort of bullying behaviour when millions of people can see you.
Unless, of course, you can give examples from any of the many, many televised chambers with electronic voting where this has happened?
Jayne
For a moment there, I thought you were calling Dav a cucking fool … I was quite shocked!
their responsibility is to the people of the present and the future
See, it’s to stop exactly that kind of myopic focus on the ephemeral present moment, rather than keeping a proper perspective on our place as merely a tiny spec on the crest of a great history of many centuries, that we need to make sure we don’t mess about with the pageantry and traditions.
Otherwise we will end up doing things like adjusting the constitution to suit transient contemporary circumstances, and other such nonsenses.
I’m sorry you stopped reading too early to get to the words “and the future”, Dav.
Nick Barlow
“Unless, of course, you can give examples from any of the many, many televised chambers with electronic voting where this has happened?”
You mean like this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzGt_E5SIoA
Or this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Button_pusher
Dav, you honestly think that a whip would do that in a chamber where television cameras are filming everything?
There aren’t television cameras in MP’s offices, and the point about push-button voting was to stop MPs ‘running across [their] workplace’.
If they have to go to the chamber to press a button, then they still have to run across their workplace.
On the other hand if they don’t have to run across their workplace, that implies voting stations in their offices, and probably in other locations across the Palace of Westminister.
These would not be on camera, would they?
(But to answer your question: actually, yes, I wouldn’t put it past the whips to wander around, even on television, and make sure that MPs voted the right way, physically assisting them if necessary. It’s not like MPs would complain, because they would know that if they said, ‘Excuse me Mr Speaker she pressed my button!’ that would be their career dead right there.)
I’m sorry you stopped reading too early to get to the words “and the future”, Dav
The only value of the future is that it will have more history. That is what really matters.
Dav
“Perhaps because five centuries of history and tradition is just a little bit more important than momentary convenience?”
Is centuries of tradition more important than efficiency?
If so I assume you travel everywhere by foot or horse?
“That their discomfort is neither here nor there compared to the duty they have to discharge”
Does the physical act actually act of voting make MPs take it any more seriously? It disrupts work that is going on at the time, I could accept your argument if there weren’t so many votes going on, too much legislation, too much trying to get one over on the other party by voting against things you agree with (as the documentary illustrated).
Jenny Barnes
“How about Birmingham”
I’d suggest Manchester.
“I did wonder why Parliament couldn’t schedule its votes in a more family friendly manner and, why, in the 21st century, casting a vote requires running across your workplace then standing in a lobby for quarter of an hour, but that’s hardly Jenny’s fault”
Spot on Caron it is time voting was changed. For those that like the tradition it is a farce now anyway, these aren’t usually great debates followed by a division. Usually it is forcing hundreds of MP’s to leave important work to vote on Bills where they have not attended the debate or Ministers leaving their departments… I don’t say this as a dig at MP’s, not every MP can be involved in every debate, running the UK at the national level is far more complex than it was hundreds of years ago. In slim majorities do we really still need Ministers leaving important overseas events to rush for a vote. In my view it is ludicrous we have the technology to allow secure electronic voting and we should use it.
Whether people like it or not the HoC has female and male members with young families. Apart from exceptional circumstances it should not be beyond the whit of man to ensure they can fulfill their duties without negatively impacting on their family life.
Not Birmingham or Manchester but Plymouth or Truro then we may get some infrastructure spending in the South West to allow our businesses to be more competitive!!!
Dav
“The only value of the future is that it will have more history. ”
Oh dear. I realise now that I’ve been supporting the arguments of a parodic character. Well done. You got me!
On that 5 Centuries thing, cant speak for what happens there but the building itself dates from the 1950s except for some of the outer shell which is about 150 years old. It has one of the worlds biggest collections of mediocre painting & really bad sculpture. Most of the tradition is fake. Unfortunately the arrogance & sexism are all too real.
@stephendonnelly. I’m a bit worried that LDV is considered acceptable by the Chinese regime. Their atrocious human rights record makes them anathema to every decent Liberal. Let me know if you ever get to read this comment.
But telling someone their parenting is shocking in public is abusive. It’s not the sort of thing you can ever or would ever want to ban, but it surely is not behaviour that I would consider acceptable.
paul barker 3rd Mar ’15 – 5:35pm
Yes you are right. You sum up the place perfectly in three and a half lines!
The sooner we move our parliament out of this daft museum, the better.
Newcastle…in a Newcastle accent “dav is in the voting lobby”
Caron Lindsay 3rd Mar ’15 – 6:24pm
“@stephendonnelly. I’m a bit worried that LDV is considered acceptable by the Chinese regime. Their atrocious human rights record makes them anathema to every decent Liberal. Let me know if you ever get to read this comment.”
Problem is Caron, if he doesn’t respond, we won’t know if it because LDV has been blocked or Stephen’s cell doesn’t have Wi-Fi 😉
Dav,
You are right to argue that electronic voting done from the convenience of an MP’s office is too liable to interference by the whip. It should be done by MPs who have to be present in the Chamber, and must vote within a brief time window, on film. It will then prevent the whips from doing what Caroline Lucas has seen them doing, pushing MPs physically into the voting lobbies.
Malcolm Todd does show a very entertaining film of Russian political cheats racing around their Chamber pressing voting buttons at empty seats. However I don’t think the film makes the point Malcolm would like it to make. We all know that Russian democracy is a sham. The Russian cheats might very well have filmed it all themselves, in order to show everybody that they had the votes “sewn up”. Now, British democracy has gone a certain way downhill, but I don’t think a film of electronic votes getting stolen in plain sight in a British Parliament would pass without massive protest from the public!
paul barker
well said…..I am all for respecting history but I think your post breaks through some of the flummery!
JohnTilley 3rd Mar ’15 – 6:35pm
“paul barker 3rd Mar ’15 – 5:35pm
Yes you are right.”
Sorry, I saw the above post in the ‘Recent Comments’ area and wondered what on earth could have brought about such a celestial alignment!
Oh well, in for a penny … Yes Paul, I have to agree with John – you are indeed correct! 🙂
Stuart as well !!!
If Simon Shaw now agrees with Stuart Moran, I will know I am dreaming!
@ Stephen Donnelly,
I have to disagree with you that the example given is not abuse. For a woman, it is possibly the worst type of abuse. Trying to shake off an accusation of bad parenting is very difficult, given that as women and mothers we seem to have been programmed to feel guilty about wanting more than motherhood , in a way that men who want more than fatherhood have not.
As for tradition, pomp and ceremony, well, A study by Birkbeck College in 2004, ” Whose secretary are you, minister?” found ‘shocking’ levels of sexist behaviour, with male MPs of all parties pretending to juggle imaginary breasts and jeering ‘Melons’ as women made commons speeches.
This tradition seems to have continued. Sarah Campion MP for Rotherham stated one year after her election in 2010, on a radio interview that some Tories are very good at gesticulating about female assets. According to BBC News when interviewer Rony Robinson , asked for clarity whether she was saying , ‘ MPs opposite you, you’re standing making a speech about something, and they are using their hands to imitate breasts and bottoms?” Her reply was yes.
What women have to experience in the commons is something we really don’t hear about. Perhaps the women concerned feel the best way forward is to keep their heads down and tough it out, but trying to keep women out of politics by criticising their parenting skills is below, low.
And before anyone says, this is not about keeping women out of politics, in my view that is precisely what it is about, but I don’t expect any great degree of insight from male MPs and the sort of men who behave in the ways described.
Stephen
I would change my view if that was the case!
e
To be fair to Paul, he may often be far too optimistic about Lib Dem chances in my view but his posts are frequently interesting and he is unfailingly polite (unlike me) and takes things in good humour.
I disagree with him on many things but I read all his posts and treat his views with more respect that certain others who will remain nameless
as women and mothers we seem to have been programmed to feel guilty about wanting more than motherhood , in a way that men who want more than fatherhood have not.
Isn’t the issue basically that you can either have a career, or you can be a parent, but not both?
Women are, by social pressure, expected to go one way: to forego their career for the sake of being a parent.
Men, on the other hand, are expected to do the reverse: to forego being a parent, for the sake of their career.
Now the thing is as far as I can see there is an element of truth in this, in that being a parent pretty much is incompatible with having a career. You can’t both be there for little Johnny’s school play, and work the hours required for a top-flight job. It’s just not possible. If you try, all that happens is that your non-parent colleagues end up having to pick up the slack, and that is simply not fair on them.
So clearly we need to get rid of the sexism of expecting that women are supported to choose parenting, and men are supposed to choose their career, without pretending that it’s possible to both be a parent and have a career. We need to get to the stage where men can choose to be fathers, and women can choose to have careers, and those are viewed as equally valid options.
But we need to stop pretending that you can have a career and be a parent, of either sex. You can’t. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do both.
Why don’t they just give MPs more time to get to the voting lobbies?
Less emphasis on sticking to the party line would be welcome too, seeing as our parliamentary party are meant to be liberals… 😀
The reason voting through division lobbies has persisted is backbench MPs find it invaluable for buttonholing ministers informally and raising issues with them. It may have its flaws but MPs (of all parties so far as I can tell) that I’ve discussed this with seem to want to keep it for this reason.
I thought Jenny was brilliant, irrespective of which party she came from. This will be a tough seat to defend … I will be living in Pembrokeshire at the time of the election – just wish I could vote in Cardiff Central!
Tim 4th Mar ’15 – 12:04am
Your suggestion that it is not possible to have a career and children seems to be disproved by every working parent that I know.
Although to be fair most of the people I know have “jobs” rather than “careers”. I am not sure of the distinction. Is a “career” just a posh person’s “job”?
Jenny Willott demonstrates that it possible to be a good parent and juggle the several demanding jobs that are rolled into being an MP.
George Crozier 4th Mar ’15 – 9:32am
“…. MPs find it invaluable for buttonholing ministers informally and raising issues with them. It may have its flaws but MPs (of all parties so far as I can tell) that I’ve discussed this with seem to want to keep it for this reason.”
George Crozier, I have no reason to disbelieve what you say. MPs rapidly fall into the “club” mentaity of the House of Commons and defend all sorts of arcane practices like having a ribbon to hang your sword and yelling testosterone fuelled abuse at the other side every Wednesday.
It says something about the lunacies of our parliamentary system that MPs seem to value being locked in a cupboard with ministers as the only way to get their attention. This sort of ‘parliamentary cottaging’ is completely absent from many democracies around the world and yet they often function more effectively than our’s.
Is this desire to be locked up with a minister a hangover from some public school game that I am unaware of?
May I point out that 5 centuries ago the House of Commons only represented England & Wales. Given that there have been a few minor changes, e.g. in 1707 and 1801, since then, I would have thought the institution could cope with more a more modern voting system. I recall that about 20 years ago a canton in Switzerland still only allowed men to vote in elections? Why? Because to vote one had to march across the square brandishing one’s sword and of course women had no swords. It was seriously argued that to change this would ‘spoil’ things; it was even suggested that women could wave rolling-pins instead as a second-best. What is it with men waving things about, I wonder?
Oh, and Holyrood has push-button voting at the seats in the Chamber. Rather difficult for whips to look over several shoulders at once in the limited time, not to mention voting themselves, and as far as I know this does not happen.
I was proud of Jenny as I watched it
The malevolent texts show ignorance of children’s needs. Jenny’s are with a loving mum and there is no better place for them. Much better than leaving them with a nanny during the week.
Oh, but I do remember that Party Conference where I arrived after a horrid journey of 7 hours, having broken down on the motorway, and savouring the first sip of a well deserved pint, with my 2 years old daughter playing at my feet in the conference hotel bar, and the nice, supposedely liberal, old conference delegate turned round and said : isn’t it her bedtime? The abuse was in Italian, so he didn’t understand the exact meaning of the words, but he got the message!
George – it is an often claimed point. But:
David Cameron – voted in 16% of votes in this Parliament
Nick Clegg – 21%
William Hague – 33%
Vince Cable – 52%
Theresa May – 48%
(Figures from They Work For You)
It seems to be a fairly hit and miss way of getting to be able to button hole a minister
For “five centuries of tradition” read “five centuries of the haves resisting any concession to the have-nots”.
I don’t know his political allegiances, but spiritually Dav is clearly a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.
Thank goodness our Scottish Parliament has (1) business conducted within a sensible working day, and (2) voting undertaken electronically in a single “decision time” session at the end of the day’s proceedings. Not surprisingly attendance, especially at votes, is much better.