Tag Archives: edm

Mark Pack

An Early Day Motion to change Early Day Motions

By Mark Pack | Tue 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. …

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Posted in News and Parliament | Leave a comment
Mark Pack

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

By Mark Pack | Fri 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, …

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Posted in Op-eds and Parliament | Also tagged and | 1 Comment
The Voice

Lamb criticises “MMR scaremongering”

By The Voice | Thu 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

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 3 Comments
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Recent Comments

  • John B Grout
    Excellent piece, Josh. As for seeking others' thoughts on the pitch, here are mine: Labour and the Greens want to do things for you, the Conservatives and R...
  • David Evans
    It's an interesting article, which gives us more to think about, but when it ends with "Government and politics can strive toward this platform ... giving ind...
  • Neil Sandison
    This one of a series of articles recently published in the Liberal Democrat Voice that defines our social liberal values . Frequently the hot house of Westminst...
  • Pawel Urbanski
    This is the right problem to be working on, and I think the answer may be less about the words than about the moments. In my experience people learn what we sta...
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    It's good to have an MP putting herself forward for this. The manifesto seems a bit vague though. All good thoughts and nothing you can really disagree with, b...