argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention, because it goes to the heart of the matter. Some have tried to suggest equivalence between these fixed penalty notices and speeding. That just does not understand the enormity of the difference. It is very rare that the whole nation goes through something together—a trauma together, that was covid. There are awful cases of funerals, of weddings that were missed, of parents who did not see the birth of their children. They are awful cases, but I think almost every family was marked during this period, including my own, by things we did not do that we would have liked to have done—usually visiting elderly parents and seeing children. There was a huge sense of guilt that we did not do it, including in my own family: guilt that because we followed the rules, we did not do what we thought was actually right by our elderly relatives. That is why it hurts so much. That is why anybody trying to say, "This is just like a speeding ticket" does not understand what this goes to politically and emotionally Going back to the principles, I want this debate to be about the principles, because that is where I think the debate should be. The Committee will be charged, if the motion goes through, with determining whether there was any misleading. But this is about the principles we all care about. That is why I think everybody should simply vote for the motion this evening to uphold those principles. Those principles, that we do not mislead the House and in return we do not call each other liars in this House, ensure that we make good decisions and avoid bad ones. It is what makes our democracy grow in ways that reflect the hopes and tackle the fears of those we represent. It is what makes our democracy thrive. It is what makes this House thrive. It is what makes Britain thrive Mr Speaker, we do not have to look far to see what happens when that faith is lost and there is no hope of reason resolving disagreements. When nations are divided, when they live in different worlds with their own truths and their own alternative facts, democracy is replaced by an obsession with defeating the other side. Those we disagree with become enemies. The hope of learning and adapting is lost. Politics becomes a blood sport rather than a quest to improve lives; a winner-takes-all politics where, inevitably, everyone loses out.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I am grateful for that intervention, because it raises a very serious point. A lot of our conventions, rules and traditions are based on the principle of honour and on the fact that Members of this House would not, other than inadvertently, mislead the House. That is why the rules are set, and they are set on that proposition. If a Member of the House—whoever that is—does not abide by those honourable principles, we have that stress test of the rules.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
John Martin McDonnell (Labour, Centre-left): I understand completely the point made by the right hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) about toning down the rhetoric—[Interruption.] I understand that position, but let me make this point, because I have known him over the years: we cannot tone down the seriousness of this matter. I was in the Prime Minister’s constituency earlier this week; it is the neighbouring constituency to mine and we are campaigning for the London Borough of Hillingdon in the election. There is some shift in the vote from Tory to Labour because of this issue, but that is not the significant point. What is significant is the number of people we found who were totally disillusioned, who had had enough of the system and who were blaming the system itself. That is what we are fighting and campaigning for. We are campaigning to restore the credibility of our country’s democratic processes.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): That is a really important and powerful point, because if we do not pass this motion and take this opportunity to restate the principles, we are all complicit in allowing the standards to slip. We are all complicit in allowing the public to think that we are all the same, that nobody tells the truth and that there are alternative sets of facts.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Civil Rights
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will make some progress and try to come back to hon. Members when I can The conventions and the traditions that we are debating are not an accident. They have been handed down to us as the tools that protect Britain from malaise, extremism and decline. That is important, because the case against the Prime Minister is that he has abused those tools, that he has used them to protect himself rather than our democracy, and that he has turned them against all that they are supposed to support. Government Members know that the Prime Minister has stood before the House and said things that are not true, safe in the knowledge that he will not be accused of lying because he cannot be. He stood at the Dispatch Box and point-blank denied that rule breaking took place when it did, and as he did so he was hoping to gain extra protection from our good faith that no Prime Minister would ever deliberately mislead this House. He has used our faith and our conventions to cover up his misdeeds.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I will just finish this point. After months of denials, absurd claims that all the rules were followed and feigned outrage at his staff discussing rule breaking, we now know that the law was broken. We know that the Prime Minister himself broke the law, and we know that he faces the possibility of being found to have broken it again and again and again As the police investigation is ongoing, we do not need to make final judgment on the Prime Minister’s contempt of Parliament today. When the time comes, the Prime Minister will be able to make his case. He can put his defence—of course he can. He can make his case as his defence that his repeated misleading of Parliament was inadvertent; or that he did not understand the rules that he himself wrote, and his advisers at the heart of Downing Street either did not understand the rules or misled him when they assured him that they were followed at all times; or that he thought he was at a work event, even while the empty bottles piled up. He can make those defences when the time comes.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): If the debate descends into a shouting match, Mr Speaker, we lose the principle that is there to defend all of us, including all the Conservative Members. We are not claiming a principle to support those on the Opposition Benches and not those on the Government Benches; it is a principle that supports us all. If we fail—
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Keir Starmer (Labour, Centre-left): I have heard the hon. Gentleman put his case on natural justice a number of times, and of course he has every right to do so. I disagree, but that is the point of the debates we have. However, a debate about natural justice, or due process, need not hold up the current process. This motion can and should be passed today, and everyone should support its being passed today to uphold the principles to which I have referred. There is a discussion to be had about natural justice—an interesting debate, in which we will take different views—but it need not hold up this process.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Lindsay Harvey Hoyle (Labour, Centre-left): Order. I said this at the beginning, and I know the right hon. Gentleman will want to stick to what I said. We cannot go beyond the terms of the debate. I know he is very good and can stick to the script that I have explained.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Christopher John Bryant (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Member makes a good point. We have had some discussions about that issue outside the Chamber. The difficulty is that I am not sure that is a matter for the Standards Committee or the Privileges Committee; I think it is a matter for the Committee on Procedure. There is a good argument for putting something in place so that there is a right of reply. I cannot go further, for reasons of which the hon. Gentleman may be aware—
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Stella Judith Creasy (Labour, Centre-left): I am mesmerised by the hon. Gentleman’s psychic powers if he does not understand that all offences are retrospective—unless he knows someone who is going to commit an offence. To err is human and to forgive divine, but to transgress repeatedly, as the report already shows us, is something else. Is it not important that we have this inquiry now to understand whether that has happened and there has been a repeated offence against the House? In the past year, half of the public have lost what little trust they had in politicians. The longer this goes on and the more repetition there is, the more all of us are besmirched. Is it not right, in the spirit of forgiveness and redemption, that we are all given the opportunity for salvation?
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Catherine Elizabeth West (Labour, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that this boils down to trust, and that the motion refers to trust within this House, trusting a Committee that reflects the proportional balance of the House to deal with the matter in a proportionate way once all the evidence is in?
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Clive Stanley Efford (Labour, Centre-left): Several hon. Members have referred to the collateral damage that the Prime Minister leaves in his wake, as he has done throughout his career. For example, the Paymaster General, who is on the Front Bench today, said on 9 December during a statement on the Christmas party at No. 10 Downing Street: "The Prime Minister has been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no covid rules were broken."—[Official Report, 9 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 561.] We now know that there were several parties, not just one, and that the rules were broken, because fines have been issued, one of which the Prime Minister has received. Part of the collateral damage, therefore, is that the Paymaster General came here to make a statement, based on the same information that allegedly was given to the Prime Minister, and misled the House. I accept that the Paymaster General did so inadvertently, but what has he done about that? The record needs correcting. Surely he should be investigating how he came to be misinformed and to misinform the House This has happened on too many occasions for ignorance to be the defence. There is this idea that, throughout lockdown and all the occasions on which these parties took place and the rules were broken, none of the bright young things who had been invited ever thought that any one of those events might break covid rules. Is it conceivable that no one raised a single question about whether they might be breaking the rules? Some of those events were drinks events for people who were leaving. In our constituencies, people missed funerals and cancelled weddings and birthday parties. However, the people in No. 10 thought that it was okay to have leaving drinks. Where are they? What were they thinking? How out of touch with our constituents can they be to think that they can have a leaving drinks party and are more important than our constituents?
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. I must reiterate that it is important to think of others in this debate and try to stick to five minutes. It is possible, and I know that every Member present is capable of it. If you could all do that, everyone will get in.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): In our arcane system, the Prime Minister can sit as judge and jury on himself. As other Members have pointed out, this is a ridiculous system. I am willing to bet that the Prime Minister will not find himself guilty, even though the Metropolitan police have found him guilty of at least one breach of the covid rules, and my guess is that there are more crimes to come. This is a breach of rules that his own Government wrote, and that he then took to the airwaves to defend The Prime Minister "sometimes seems affronted when criticised for what amounts to a gross failure of responsibility. I think he honestly believes that it is churlish of us not to regard him as an exception, one who should be free of the network of obligation which binds everyone else" Those are not my words, but those of his former classics master at Eton. It is not hard to draw the conclusion that those words still stand, so it is natural that we have had no proper apology to the British people for his multiple breaches of covid rules. This Prime Minister is both capable of multiple lawbreaking and incapable of genuine contrition. This attitude to the rules has marked his entire career, both in journalism and in this House. For him to say "I am sorry for any offence caused" is not an apology for repeated wrongdoing. For him to say, "I was not aware of my own rules" is the defence of the ignorant, which does not stand in law. And for him to claim, "I have not misled the House", "All the rules were obeyed" and "No rules were broken" is a serious cover-up. I could use another word, but I will refrain out of respect to you, Madam Deputy Speaker For the Prime Minister to say there were no parties at No. 10 when 50 financial penalties have been handed out, when he attended many of those parties and stood barman for at least one of them, insults the intelligence of the people of Britain. The issue with the Prime Minister is that he clearly believes there is one set of rules for him and his cronies, and another set of rules for the rest of us, including the electorate. These were not just rules but orders from the Prime Minister and his cronies, who consider themselves to be better than the ordinary people of this country.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Diane Julie Abbott (Labour, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend makes a very important point. We are told that we must rely on the integrity of the Government if the rule of law, the principle that no one is above the law and, even more importantly, people’s respect for the political system are to be upheld in this country. Well, we shall see Conservative Members have complained that the Opposition are engaging in politics, and of course there is a political dimension. My email inbox has been deluged with complaints about this matter, and I am sure I am not alone. I am sure many Conservative Members, if they dared admit it, could say the same. The Prime Minister has to accept that this is not just a Westminster row that nobody outside SW1 is concerned about The public—Tory voters, Labour voters and those who have never voted at all—have had to endure untold misery during the Prime Minister’s premiership. No fewer than 190,000 people have died from covid, and more than 1 million people have long covid. Because of the rules, as we have heard, so many people were unable to be with their loved ones as they were dying. These are the people the Prime Minister is scorning. These are the people to whom the Prime Minister thinks he can get away with making a manifestly ingenuine and mealy mouthed apology. It did not have to be that way The background of this issue is that living standards are plummeting, the NHS is in crisis and the spring statement rubbed salt into the wounds, making tens of millions of people worse off. I do not believe the public are in a mood to forgive and forget. The Prime Minister and his acolytes like to say he was at the party for only nine minutes. Many people would have liked to have been with their loved ones for nine minutes when they were dying The country wants the Prime Minister gone and these Benches want the Prime Minister gone. He broke the law. The question for Conservative members is very clear: are you just going to do nothing, today and in the future, while Boris Johnson sacrifices you to save himself, as he has done throughout his life and career?
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. I remind hon. Members of what Mr Speaker said at the beginning of the debate: "While it is perfectly in order for hon. Members to question the veracity of the Prime Minister’s responses to the House cited in the motion, it is not in order to challenge more generally the truthfulness of the Prime Minister or any other hon. or right hon. Member." I am sure the hon. Gentleman will adjust his speech accordingly.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Peter Christopher Dowd (Labour, Centre-left): In September 2020, the Prime Minister stated in relation to covid guidance: "There is nothing more frustrating for the vast majority who do comply…than the sight of a few brazenly defying the rules, so these rules will be enforced by tighter penalties."—[Official Report, 22 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 798.] Those were his words. On 16 December 2020, he said: "This Christmas it’s vital that everyone exercises the greatest possible personal responsibility." That was on the same day that London went into tier 3 restrictions. Two days later, there was a party at No. 10 Downing Street. The Prime Minister promised the House that he would publish all his personal exchanges with Sir James Dyson in relation to covid-19 contracts, but those have never appeared This list goes on. Those at Downing Street tell us that he "follows the ministerial code" and principles to the letter. The Prime Minister then told the House that it is "common sense" for people to wear a mask "in confined spaces", but, surprisingly, he was photographed later the same day at Wembley stadium without a mask on. He stated in relation to covid that "all guidance was followed completely in No.10."—[Official Report, 1 December 2021; Vol. 704, c. 909.] Was it? He then said at Prime Minister’s Question Time: "I have been repeatedly assured since these allegations emerged that there was no party and that no covid rules were broken."—[Official Report, 8 December 2021; Vol. 705, c. 372.] As hon. Members have said, either the Prime Minister was not being candid or his staff were not. So who was not? Possibly, it was both. He said he was "furious" to see the clip of his own staff discussing No. 10 parties, as though somehow he did not live there—he did! On 15 December 2021, at a Downing Street press conference, he said: "I follow the rules. Everybody across politics should follow the rules." Indeed, they should, but the Prime Minister did not. And so it goes on What we are trying to do today is set in train a process whereby this House really does need to look into the concerns of so many Members and, more importantly, of the many constituents who have written to each of us about their concerns. They deserve answers. They are not that interested in parliamentary protocols often; they just want answers to their deeply held concerns and questions. This House, and surely Members opposite, cannot allow allegations of the Prime Minister’s insouciant and nonchalant attitude—allegedly—towards the truth to go unchallenged. We need to send a message to the country that when all the police inquires have been completed, this House will through its own processes, the very ones that have protected the Prime Minister from blunt assertions on the Floor of this Chamber, and consider those allegations thoroughly and openly. Finally, let me say that the mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa approach from the Prime Minister does not wash with my constituents.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Mixed Topics
Paula Barker (Labour, Centre-left): It is often said that people are the products of their environment. Where I come from, empathy, tolerance and a sense of decency and fairness are all characteristics that many of our people in Liverpool hold dear. We struggle with the concepts of self-entitlement, haughtiness or selfishness. We pride ourselves on looking out for one another—our family, our friends and our communities—above all else By and large it is our commonality as human beings that has seen the British people come through difficult years. Contrary to the words of Margaret Thatcher, there is such a thing as society, and it has been on show each and every day of the pandemic. It is the food bank volunteer, the supermarket assistant, the care worker, the nurses and doctors who held the hands of the dying, and those who did the right thing and played by the rules as their mental health plummeted, who bit the bullet of loneliness and separation because the Prime Minister said that was what we had to do. However, what he meant to say was, "Do as I say, not as I do.", because he was ripping up the rules and partying The pain endured by our people over the past two years has left a deep emotional scar on our collective psyche. The British people are now struggling to overcome the fact that their Prime Minister is incapable of the very sacrifices that they made for their loved ones and for the loves ones of people they had never met. No person like that is fit to be Prime Minister of this country. The Teflon has come off I am sure the Prime Minister will attempt to reinvent himself, for he covets power above all else. Before I entered this place, I asked myself why, as I suspect many hon. Members across the House did—"Why do I want to do this? What difference can I make?" I am still asking those questions today, hoping to leave a small mark on this place and on my constituency. I do not believe the Prime Minister has ever asked himself those fundamental questions. The "Why?" and the "Who for?" were never important to him. He has spent his whole life chasing power for power’s sake, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. He has no interest in my Liverpool, Wavertree constituents, and the people of Uxbridge and South Ruislip will decide whether he has any interest in them The Prime Minister could fall on his sword, but of course he will not. The choice for Conservative Members is simple. Will they do the right thing today, in the interests of this country and of the office of the Prime Minister, or will they stick with the rotten apple? As the Prime Minister is so fond of a party, the right and proper thing for this House to do today is to give him a party he will never forget—a leaving party. Anything less simply undermines our democracy, and that is not good enough.
Referral of Prime Minister to Committee of Privileges — House of Commons, 2022-04-21
Topic: Other
Rosalie Winterton (Labour, Centre-left): Order. The hon. Lady needs to refer to the Prime Minister or the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, not Boris Johnson. We do not refer to each other by name—apart from me; I am allowed to do that.