Archive for hansard gems
Hansard gems: a sombre final extract
It’s time to bring this series of entries from Hansard’s past to an end as there are only so many speeches about paperclips and potato salad to be written. So to finish off the series, here’s a rather more sombre written question and answer from 1938 which was horribly and tragically overtaken by events: Mr. Mander [...]
Hansard gems: every motor car must have a steam-roller preceding it
It’s an obvious road safety move isn’t it? Don’t lets cars loose in our roads unless each of them has its own steam-roller heading in front of it. And a person with a red flag in from of the steam-roller. So indeed said Patrick O’Brien in 1902: For the protection of the public, he would [...]
Hansard gems: is someone counting ladies rubberised raincoats?
Michael Meacher has been an MP for a long time. So long in fact that it was he who, as a government minister in January 1977, gave a written answer revealing the shocking statistical news that: Ladies rubberised raincoats are not separately distinguished in the overseas trade statistics. Liked this story? Find other gems from [...]
Hansard gems: peanut butter, tooting trains and industrial relations
It’s May 1971 and the House of Lords is debating the weighty matter of industrial relations. Step forward Lord Mansfield: The older among your Lordships may remember a ditty of our youth called “It ain’t gonna rain no mo’” which contained a number of rather amusing verses. One of them was: A peanut sitting on [...]
Hansard gems: when is a dog really a cow?
When Parliament gets involved, of course. Step forward Arthur Champion in May 1956: I remember that in commenting on the matter with which this new Clause is concerned [the MP for Leeds West] once used the phrase that the dog was the sacred cow of the British way of life. Liked this story? Find other [...]
Hansard gems: Blunkett talks confectionary
It’s 2003. Parliament is debating foreign surveillance. The then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is debating a point with Liberal Democrat MP David Heath. Blunket makes a one word interjection. The word? Chocolate. Obvious, really. It sets off a whole debate about how a hypothetical case of Belgians smuggling chocolate into the UK might be handled [...]
Hansard gems: who hates mice more, cats or foxes?
It’s February 1940. The country is at war. The question of the moment: inter-species enmity. Sir Arthur Heneage: Is it not a fact that foxes are the greatest enemy of rats and mice? John Morgan: Cats. Liked this story? Find other gems from Hansard on my archive page for this series of posts.
Hansard gems: someone has fun at Dennis Skinner's expense
It’s February 1992: Mr. Skinner To ask the Minister for the Civil Service how many civil servants in employment at the latest date are (a) men or (b) women. Mr. Renton All of them. Liked this story? Find other gems from Hansard on my archive page for this series of posts.
Hansard gems: The big issue of 1982 was angle-poise lamps
July 1982, and what’s on the mind of Conservative MP Harvey Proctor? Angle-poised lamps of course, as Hansard tells us: Mr. Proctor asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many new angle-poised lamps have been installed in the West Cloisters of the House to replace old angle-poised lamps during the last three months; [...]
Hansard gems: We have no plans to use the internet
In (partial) fairness to the government department concerned, this is from May 1994: Mr Newton The Privy Council has no plans to use the internet. The same answer was also given in December 1994. Liked this story? Find other gems from Hansard on my archive page for this series of posts.
