(no subject)

Happy birthday, oyceter!

When one considers what has gone down in Parliament... sticks, stones, maces and words

It seems, let us say, a little quaint and anachronistic to rule that an MP may not accuse another MP directly of lying: Dawn Butler ejected from Commons for saying Johnson has lied repeatedly. Labour MP accused the prime minister of misleading the Commons and the country over coronavirus.

This dates from the epoch, surely, when 'honourable member' was not just a form of words? (though thinking back over one's recollection of O-level political history, perhaps not...) But a period, anyway, when 'honour' meant something and could be impugned.

As for 'It's In The Roolz!!!', an argument I have seen some people making: Come On Down, Charles Bradlaugh, militant atheist, who upon election to Parliament refused to take the requisite religious Oath of Allegiance and wished to affirm instead (concessions having already been made for Quakers and Jews). His principled and contentious stand on this led to him being prevented from taking his seat as MP for Northampton from 1880 to 1886 and even being imprisoned. Eventually a law was passed granting the right to affirm.

As for unParliamentary behaviour, even if we leave out Cromwell marching into the Chamber and forcibly dissolving the Rump Parliment in 1653: 'Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!':

In 1902 the Speaker was given power to suspend or adjourn proceedings in the case of 'grave disorder' (I discovered this by going to myself, 'wasn't there some incident with Hesletine and the mace?'): Incidents of Grave Disorder in the House of Commons, 1905-2017

While some of these pertained to external events and intrusions (19 May 2004 'Tony Blair was hit by some purple flour-filled condoms thrown from the gallery by a member of the group Fathers 4 Justice'), they included, 4 Mar 1975 'Angry confrontation continued and Nigel Lawson was seen to hit junior Minister Clinton Davis with his House of Commons Order Paper' and 27 May 1976 'Opposition Industry Secretary Michael Heseltine removed the House of Commons mace from its place on the table and advanced towards the Government front bench'.

This very interesting article by Collier and Raney, Understanding Sexism and Sexual Harassment in Politics: A Comparison of Westminster Parliaments in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada indicates the vast array of discriminatory and sexist behaviour that is just part of the way Parliament does business at Westminster and in the Westminster boys-school/mens'-club tradition:

Adversarial norms and parliamentary privilege are both on display during the formal proceedings of the House, and especially during Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs). PMQs often feature masculine styles of communication, including shouting, braying, put-downs, jibes, heckles, and taunts on both sides of the House. In addition, more overt sexist statements have also been made during PMQs. In 2011, David Cameron told the Labour shadow chief secretary Angela Eagle to “calm down, dear”, which was followed by laughter and further heckling from the government benches. In 2013, Secretary of State William Hague could be seen calling MP Cathy Jamieson a “stupid woman” twice during PMQs (Stevenson 2013). The need for parliamentarians to score political points against their rivals, combined with an informal acceptance of sexist language and behavior in the House, disproportionately disadvantages women. For Lovenduski, these highly ritualized displays of “public masculinity” send “a strong symbolic message to women that politicians are men who have repertoires of behavior that are not available to women (and some men)” (Lovenduski 2014b, 135). Some female MPs have recently stated that they find PMQs so adversarial and off-putting that they no longer attend (Mason and Edgington 2014). We see the three unwritten norms of myth of neutrality, adversarial politics, and parliamentary privilege working together to reinforce an accepted culture of behavior.