Tory MPs block bill to give first aid training to children by talking until time runs out

[LeftishBrit]

Conservative MPs have blocked a bill to bring first aid training to schools by talking non-stop until time to discuss and vote on it ran out.

The Compulsory Emergency First Aid Education (State-Funded Secondary Schools) Bill would have required schools to teach first aid training to children as part of the national curriculum.


Tory MP Philip Davies, who is famous for “talking out” bills during Friday sessions of parliament, gave the longest speech of all, lasting around 50 minutes.

“The title gives away the principle of this bill: compulsory emergency first aid education in state-funded secondary schools. The point I am trying to make is that I do not agree with the principle of compulsory first aid education in schools. Why on earth would I allow a bill that principle of which I don’t like a second reading?” he said....


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tory-mps-block-bill-to-give-first-aid-training-to-children-by-talking-until-time-runs-out-a6742251.html

[LeftishBrit]

1. Philip Davies again!

I would not have thought first aid training to be a party political issue (and indeed I note that some Tories support it).

[Denzil_DC]

2. The man's an absolute arse.

And a serial ego-tripping absolute arse at that.

He's a "libertarian", and would fit better with the worse US Republicans than any political grouping in the UK short of the fringes of UKIP. I hope karma pays him a timely visit where he needs casualty aid and nobody around knows what to do.

There's a petition to "Reform the rules on filibustering or 'talking a bill to death'", prompted in part by his previous antics, that needs support: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/111441

[T_i_B]

3. It's not the filiblustering tactic I have issues with

Last edited Sat Nov 21, 2015, 06:38 AM - Edit history (2)

It's the fact that people like Phillip Davies and Jacob Rees-Mogg use it in such dreadful causes.

Perhaps the real issue is what to do with rotten MP's like Phillip Davies.
And also, given that he's an ultra-reactionary "hang 'em & flog 'em and send 'em all back" authoritarian, he cannot ever be described as a Libertarian. Far from it. Also worth noting that his father was elected mayor of Doncaster for the far right English Democrats (and was predictably dreadful in the role)

[Denzil_DC]

4. Well, he's on the record as a self-described libertarian a number of times.

But like so many (on both sides of the Pond) who claim that title, he's very selective in its application IRL.

From the OP article:

Among reasons he listed for blocking the bill was that he himself had been taught first aid in school but had forgotten what he was taught.

He does have the air of someone who's forgotten more than he was ever taught.

He also said the Government should not expect teachers to assume a “pseudo-parent role”, and that he did not want "the Government to be sticking their nose in at every turn trying to lecture [teachers] every five minutes that they should be doing this, that, and the other".

The man's a ninny.

If they're going to filibuster, they should have to stick to the subject under debate, and be barred from further participation after a speaker's warning (I'm not a libertarian!).

[T_i_B]

5. I smell bullshit pretty much any time that anyone calls themselves "Libertarian"

At best it means little more than "I'm a selfish arse". In the case of Phillip Davies it would appear that he is being especially misleading in describing himself as such.

[Denzil_DC]

6. Agreed. I'maselfisharsian doesn't trip off the tongue so lightly, though. n/t

[LeftishBrit]

7. In other words, 'I was too thick to learn it, so no one else should!'

I suppose I could understand a true libertarian being opposed to compulsory education altogether, but why first aid in particular? Indeed, I would have thought that those who most support the concept of 'personal responsibility' would be all in favour of people being taught to exercise it effectively.

It should be noted that he seems to come by his idiocy honestly, through heredity and environment. His father Peter Davies was the far-right English Democrat, then RW independent, Mayor of Doncaster.

[T_i_B]

8. Has Philip Davies MP just proposed the stupidest law of all time?

http://thesecretbarrister.com/2016/03/11/has-philip-davies-mp-just-proposed-the-stupidest-law-of-all-time/

Naturally when it comes to legal folly, you can’t beat a bit of everyone’s favourite professional twit – arise, Philip Davies MP. Today he has been in the House of Commons introducing the Foreign National Offenders Bill, the brainchild of those dildos-in-arms Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone. This short Private Members’ Bill, referred to by Davies in Parliament today – I kid you not – as “the “Send Them All Back Bill”, aims to “make provision to exclude from the UK foreign nationals found guilty of a criminal offence committed in the UK.”

It is, without a doubt, one of the stupidest, crassest legislative proposals I’ve ever seen. Its draftsmanship appears to be the work of a particularly poorly-educated dormouse typing in elasticated mittens. The Bill provides for automatic deportation for anyone convicted of a “qualifying offence”. Or, to be more accurate, a “qualfying” offence. As the Bill manages to mis-spell the word “qualifying”. What is a qualifying (or qualfying) offence, you ask? Something pretty bad, presumably? Violence? Sex? People smuggling?

No, in Mr Davies’ Bill, a “qualifying offence” is, per section 1(4):

“any offence for which a term of imprisonment may be imposed by a court of law.”

The key word here is “may”. The test isn’t whether prison is in fact the sentence in a particular case. It is whether the offence is imprisonable in theory. The question is: “Does Parliament allow a court to impose a prison sentence for this offence, even if no court in their right mind ever would?” If the answer is Yes, you’re out, Mr Foreign, with your funny accent and weird trousers.

Out of interest, here are some imprisonable offences, the commission of which would, if this Bill ever became law, see a non-British citizen, who had never been in trouble before, deported:
•Taking your daughter out of school to go on holiday (section 444(1A) of the Education Act 1996)
•Kissing your wife in a public toilet (s.71 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003)
•Bringing a can of beer onto a coach on the way to a football match (section 1(3) of the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985)
•Taking that can of beer into the football stadium (section 2(1) of the Sporting Events (Control of Alcohol etc.) Act 1985)
•Writing “I love you” in chalk on a pavement (section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971)
•Travelling on a railway without buying a £1.80 ticket (section 5(3) of the Regulation of Railways Act 1889)
•Making an offensive joke on Twitter (Section 127(1) of the Communications Act 2003)
•Standing in the street holding up a placard reading: “Philip Davies MP is a flipping ninny” (section 4A Public Order Act 1986)