British prime minister David Cameron has been under fire for the revelations in the Panama Papers that his father used that tax shelter and that he benefited from it. He did not help matters by providing many different responses over the first few days, only grudgingly revealing the facts.
In parliament, opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said that what the Panama Papers reveal is the hypocrisy of the prime minister and the Conservative government and two-tiered system that we live in, with one set of rules for the super rich and another for the rest of us.
Another Labour MP, 84-year old Dennis Skinner who has the nickname ‘beast of Bolsover’ for his outspokenness, referred to Cameron as ‘dodgy Dave’. When rebuked by the Speaker and asked to withdraw the term, he instead repeated it, leader the Speaker to expel him from that session of parliament.
The Speaker bears a strong resemblance in both looks and speech to Monty Python‘s Terry Jones and the way he tries to quell the uproar over the ‘dodgy Dave’ remark looks like one of their sketches.
Great fun to watch.
Man, I wish Canadian Parliament was half as entertaining.
When I was living in Taiwan in the late 80’s, reading the news coverage of the legislature’s antics was always good entertainment. There were seltzer water battles on the floor, mobs of legislators storming the podium, and fist fights. The legislature didn’t have any genuine power, so they couldn’t actually affect the running of the country. I suspect their very triviality contributed to the circus in the chambers: they didn’t have any REAL work to do.
What a bloody awful system of posturing the parliament is, with too much pomp and standing on dignity and not enough digging in to the meat of the issue
Why did Skinner give up so quickly? If he had only retracted the “dodgy” reference, he would have had another round to call for public accountability of Creepy Cammy’s hijinks.
Bercow is great. I especially love his colourful ties :).
Also fun: googling for “dodgy dave” brings up Cameron’s bio in Google’s side bar :).
@5 thebook ofdave
Why did Skinner give up so quickly?
Publicity/tactics
Getting ejected from the House is worth much more in press coverage than one or two questions that may or may not be reported outside of Hansard. Skinner is appealing to public opinion not to members in the House.
By the next morning probably most of Britain knew the nickname “Dodgy Dave Cameron”. If he had a substantive question he could/would have passed it on to Corbyn where it would get better coverage. Double bang for one buck.