argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Happy St Andrew’s Day to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to all hon. and right hon. Members The Scottish National party tabled this motion of censure against the Prime Minister because we believe in a very basic principle, and we believe the public do, too: those in power deserve to face consequences for their disastrous actions, and they need to be held to account The charge sheet against the Prime Minister is, indeed, damning. In the past few weeks alone, he ripped up anti-lobbying rules when one of his own was found guilty, he is attempting to restrict the right to judicial review and he is seeking to undermine the independence of the Electoral Commission. But it did not start there, and it definitely does not end there Since coming into office a little over two years ago, the Prime Minister has been up to his neck in scandals involving cash for honours, cash for contracts, texts for tax breaks and even cash for curtains. As the motion states, he is constantly breaking the sixth principle of public life, the duty to be truthful Month after month, scandal after scandal, the charge sheet gets longer and longer, but not a single person is held to account. If the public are to have confidence in this place, that needs to change, and it needs to change today. Because unless the Prime Minister faces consequences—unless he is censured—he will not just think he has gotten away with the mess he has made over the last few months; he will think he will be able to do it over and over again. Let us be very clear: if the Prime Minister is not properly censured today, it will also be final proof that the Tories really do believe that its one rule for them and one rule for everybody else I remind Conservative Members that we have all been witness to events over the past number of weeks. They might want to forget what has happened, but the public definitely have not. The Tories marched through the Lobby—
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): What I am reflecting on is the behaviour of the Prime Minister that puts Members in the House of Lords, when the House of Lords Appointments Commission has ruled against their appointment. I have given the opportunity to anyone on the Tory Benches who wishes to rise to defend the actions of putting Tory donors in the Lords. It is £3 million for a peerage in the House of Lords. What a price to be able to undermine our democracy!
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: International Affairs
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The point is that the Prime Minister must respect democracy. He denies democracy when he stuffs the Lords with his Tory donor friends, but he must respect democracy when people in Scotland have voted for a Parliament that has a right to call a referendum to take us out of this toxic Union and find a way back for us as an independent country in the European Union.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Really, really. We are talking about corruption and sleaze—about a Prime Minister who forces Conservative MPs to go through the Lobby to get one of their own off a charge against parliamentary standards, and who rewards those who give money to the Tory party. That is exactly a subject of importance to the people of Scotland.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I was dealing with the sixth principle of public life. I have laid out for the House three examples—I could have given many more—of where the Prime Minister has not told the truth. I regret, in the context of where we are, that I had to make that point, which is important, because if we undermine honesty and truth in this place, what are we left with? That is why we have brought this motion today and that is what I am asking hon. Members right across this House to reflect on, because there is overwhelming evidence that the Prime Minister has broken that principle of public life. I am asking each and every Member in this House, particularly on the Government Benches, to examine their conscience on the basis of the evidence and think very carefully before they go through the Lobby tonight. The public are angry at what has happened in this place. The public are angry about the Member I mentioned earlier who had been sanctioned by the Standards Commission and who the Prime Minister sought to get off. There will come a time when the public will judge this House and this House should reflect very carefully on that tonight.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Ian Blackford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I ask Government Members to reflect. Most people in this House are decent people. People come here to provide a public service, and I say to hon. and right hon. Members on the Government Benches that they are being let down, we are being let down and these islands are being let down by a Prime Minister who simply does not know how to behave. On that note, it will be interesting to see how the Scottish Tories vote tonight, and we will be watching. They are a group who never fail to see conspiracy at Holyrood, but somehow always fall deathly silent when it comes to sleaze and corruption overseen by their own Prime Minister In truth, this debate is not about the Scottish Tories—I will leave them to explain their own hypocrisy—but what the public expect when standards and rules are so clearly broken by their political representatives. They expect consequences, and they expect censure. Let us also be clear about this: if we fail to censure this Prime Minister today, we will have failed that public duty for accountability. Not only that, but it will reveal something very telling; it will show a Westminster system that is broken beyond repair and a Prime Minister who believes himself to be above the law of the land The only comfort I take is that fewer and fewer people in Scotland can possibly look at the broken, corrupt, self-serving Westminster system and conclude that it produces a secure basis for the future of Scotland. We all know that Scotland can do much better than this; we can do better than this broken Westminster system and we can do better than this Prime Minister. We will do so much better when our country chooses independence. I commend the motion in the name of myself and my hon. and right hon. colleagues.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Social Welfare
Kirsten Frances Oswald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. I am not sure what he was asking me because, over the noise of his colleagues’ barracking, I could not actually hear him. He may have been asking me why we did not choose devolved topics in the Chamber, and I think that that somewhat answers itself The Minister speaks about the people’s priorities. I have to say to him that the people’s priorities are not stuffing the House of Lords with unelected donors and cronies, but worrying how they are going to put food on the table because of the cuts his Government are making to universal credit.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Marion Fellows (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I really do thank the Minister for giving way. Can the Minister confirm that he actually understands what devolution means; what matters are devolved to the Scottish Parliament and are debated there; and what matters should be debated here, such as the motion in front of him?
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Law and Crime
Andrew Egan Henderson Hendry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My right hon. Friend is talking about illegality. We should never forget that it is this Prime Minister’s Government who introduced the phrase into the lexicon—into this House of Commons—that it is okay to break the law as long as it is in a "specific and limited" way.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Limited and specific lawbreaking is still lawbreaking. I was also struck by the fact that the Government almost boasted about their intention to break international law, not by way of the "little Britlander" exceptionalism we are used to, but in a way that would have made the UK an international pariah I could add that this Government lost a key battle in the Tory covid cronyism row when the National Audit Office ordered them to name the VIP lane firms given public contracts. I could also talk about the disgraceful but, apparently, routine use of WhatsApp and Signal messaging systems, which have options to make messages disappear and which it appears have been used to avoid scrutiny of decisions made during the covid crisis. I could talk about the fact that the High Court granted a judicial review of the rules regarding the retention of records. But my favourite was when the Supreme Court ruled that the Prime Minister’s advice to the Queen that Parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful. Defeats in the courts, judicial reviews, trying to get Owen Paterson off the hook, cash for honours, voter suppression, weakening the Electoral Commission, ignoring dark money and unlawful prorogation—that is a pattern of self-serving, self-seeking behaviour, and an approach to governance that is grubby to say the least and smacks of dishonesty.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Steven Bonnar (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Two weeks ago, I stood in this spot and spoke about how parliamentary time was being wasted by the Prime Minister wanting to save one of his own corrupt former MPs; today, we have the opportunity to stand here and consider why we should put up with this We and people outside this place are living in a society of staggering inequality. We have thousands relying on food banks, with wages pitifully low and the cost of living extremely high, yet we have a Prime Minister who oversees the consistent approach of raiding benefits, keeping wages low and increasing taxes for the working poor, yet rewarding big business and those of accumulated wealth while turning a blind eye to wealthy tax dodgers. He is a Prime Minister with his own agenda—a Prime Minister who is a democracy denier, stood on a hill of sleaze. That is exactly why it is right that we have brought forward this motion in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Ian Blackford) The Prime Minister’s Government and his leadership have failed—from Brexit lies on buses to gleefully telling of handshaking with covid patients lying stricken in hospital beds. We have seen cash for honours, cash for contracts, texts for tax breaks, cash for curtains—I am trying to fit all this in—and handouts for wallpaper. Time and again, we see who he really is—a natiform metaphor for corruption, collusion and institutional sleaze engrained in this Tory party. We need always to remember that those who hide vast sums of money or hoard their wealth in offshore accounts are not hiding it from the authorities—oh, no, Madam Deputy Speaker—in the UK, they are the authority. The Prime Minister himself registered on his interests his stay at a luxury Spanish villa as being provided free of charge by the family of Lord Goldsmith, who, by mere coincidence the Tories will claim, had been handed a peerage and a ministerial job after an electoral defeat. Yet, at Cabinet Office questions last Thursday, the Minister had the temerity to claim: "There is no link between party donations and nominations to sit in the House of Lords."—[Official Report, 25 November 2021; Vol. 704, c. 436.] In the same session, in relation to the contributions—or lack of—of the Tory treasurer in the Lords, the Minister said that it was about, "Quality not quantity". Apparently, this is our democracy in action Let me make this clear: in my opinion, there is nothing noble about the men and women who are sitting in that place—nothing—and even less so when they buy their place in there and their ermine robe—
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Macroeconomics
Anum Qaisar (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho). I commend her on reading her briefing notes so very well. She says that we in the SNP do not know the priorities of the Scottish people, but I gently remind her that the Tories do not win elections in Scotland Over the course of the pandemic, the UK’s economy has shrunk at the fastest rate for a century, and unemployment has grown to one of its highest rates. At the exact same time, Britain created a record number of billionaires. There are now 171 billionaires in this country. While the rich were getting richer, the poor were getting poorer. When this Tory Government should have been lending a hand to the most vulnerable in society, some of those on the Government Benches chose to line their own pockets and the pockets of their rich mates, and the Prime Minister did nothing Let us be absolutely clear: the policies that this Tory Government have introduced and continue to implement are none other than an attack on working-class communities. My constituents of Airdrie and Shotts are in continual contact with me, outlining how Tory policies are impacting their day-to-day lives, and they have raised genuine concerns that the Prime Minister simply does not understand the hardships that people face. Rather than looking after his mates, the Prime Minister should be listening to the public. He is not here today, but I want to put on record how his policies are impacting my constituents.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Social Welfare
Anum Qaisar (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): No, I am going to make progress A constituent wrote to me saying, "I am a single woman that has learning difficulties. A £20 per week cut in my income would have a huge impact on me. I have struggled with my bills till the pandemic—the extra money has helped me out a lot." The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), is in his place and I have a few questions for him. How many people who are on universal credit does the Prime Minister know? And how many people does the Prime Minister know who have donated money to the Conservative party and subsequently joined the Lords?
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: International Affairs
Alan Brown (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Madam Deputy Speaker, "The Scotch—what a verminous race!" So says a racist poem that calls for the "comprehensive extermination" of the Scots—a poem that the current Prime Minister thought merited publishing when he was editor of The Spectator. We know that he thinks that "a pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country…than a pound spent in Strathclyde." That is his view of our place in the Union. We have already heard the hon. Member for Dudley North (Marco Longhi) telling us to be grateful for what we get The Prime Minister has suggested that it is English subsidies that pay for Scottish Government policies such as free personal care and free tuition fees. He has also called for the abolition of the Barnett formula. Not long ago, he told Tory Back Benchers that devolution was Tony Blair’s "biggest mistake" and a "disaster", so it is both bizarre and pathetic how the Scottish Tories defend this man and his attitudes. The Prime Minister tried to woo us with the Union bridge, but we did not need the feasibility study to tell us that it was a stupid idea and that it could not be done. Meanwhile, while he kept trying to find money for his vanity project, the Scottish carbon capture cluster—the most advanced such project—has been ditched in favour of two clusters in the north of England that are targeted at the red wall seats. Yet again, that is our place in the Union according to the Prime Minister This is also the Prime Minister who helped to inflict Brexit on us—a man happy to be on a bus with a slogan that was a downright lie, with a leave campaign that broke the rules on the use of data and was partly funded by dark money.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Mark Flynn (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It would be remiss of me not to start my contribution to a debate on the Prime Minister by reflecting on the characteristics of my own toddler back at home. He is fast approaching two, and he is developing a cute personality. He likes to re-enact or imitate the noises that cars make. Sometimes he loses his place, by complete chance, and does not know what he is saying or doing. I think it is adorable. Of course, my toddler is a massive fan of Peppa Pig, although he has not yet been to Peppa Pig World, and long may that continue. The House will imagine my surprise that I have not had a phone call asking whether he can deliver a keynote speech to the CBI, as the Prime Minister did On a more serious note, the veneer and the laughter that encapsulate the Prime Minister and that got many Conservative Back Benchers elected are disappearing like snow off a dike. The reason is simple. It is because the Prime Minister breaks his promises, whether it is protecting the triple lock on pensions, protecting the international aid budget or not raising taxes. That breaking of promises breaks trust with the public, which is why his poll ratings continue to plummet. That is before we get to the reality of the corruption and sleaze we have seen in the past few weeks and months, with the VIP lanes for Tory friends, families and donors, the Owen Paterson scandal and the fact that people with £3 million can get themselves a seat in the House of Lords It is not just at home that the Prime Minister’s reputation is plummeting; it is plummeting abroad, too. When we needed leadership at COP26, we got Kermit the Frog, belching cows and, of course, our Prime Minister sitting beside David Attenborough without a mask. On Brexit, our relations with the European Union are a complete and utter boorach. Last week, when people were dying in the channel as they tried to get to this country, the Prime Minister sought to do diplomacy via Twitter. That is a lesson in how not to do diplomacy I will break from the norm and agree with some Tories. I hope the Prime Minister stays in post because, when it comes to Scotland’s independence referendum, I sincerely hope he is in the vanguard of the push to protect their precious Union.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Gordon Thomson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I would like to say what a pleasure it has been to listen to the single transferable Whip’s speech that seems to have passed from one end of the Tory Benches to the other, but I am comparatively early in my parliamentary career and I have no wish to be hauled up for misleading the House Plenty of criticism can be made of policy, but the bit that everyone on the Government Benches, from the Minister to the Back Benchers, seems to have completely missed is that this debate is about the probity and suitability of the current occupant of No. 10 Downing Street to be there and to continue carrying out his duties as Prime Minister When I first started taking an interest in politics, I was a student during the tail-end of John Major’s time in Downing Street. There were scandals aplenty then, like now, from the petty and the embarrassing through to the corruption of cash for questions and the outright duplicity of the arms to Iraq affair. It was hard to imagine that the UK might ever again be led by a Government so chaotic, so lacking in scruple, so willing to bend the truth and so willing to hawk themselves around the broadcasting studios to assert that forwards is backwards and black is white, yet here we are. Although we can all no doubt highlight points along that trajectory where things really started heading for the ground, I do not think any reasonable person could dispute that the present holder of the office of Prime Minister has taken us to this nadir of public trust in Government and politics It is all part of a pattern of behaviour. If you want a photo opportunity in a hospital but can’t be bothered to wear a mask, just ignore the instruction to wear one. If you don’t like the Electoral Commission investigating who funds your party, your takeaways or your flat renovations, emasculate the Electoral Commission. You don’t like the fact that people without ready access to ID tend not to vote for your party—try to introduce voter ID. You don’t like the fact that voters in devolved nations don’t elect enough representatives of your party to have any influence—try to bypass devolution. You accidentally create a border in the Irish sea—just pretend it does not exist and tell people that black is white This Government clearly think the rules do not apply to them; it is one rule for the Government and another rule for everybody else. It comes from the top, led by a Prime Minister who clearly does not think that there are any rules at all or that if there are, they should not apply to him.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Environment
Hannah Mary Bardell (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Does my hon. Friend agree that for all this talk of the levelling-up agenda, when it comes to Scotland it is clear that it is a scorched earth agenda? Whether we are talking about carbon capture in his part of the country or the Valneva contract to deliver 100 million vaccines, which we need right now, this Prime Minister is not capable of doing the very basics and telling the truth.
Conduct of the Right Hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip — House of Commons, 2021-11-30
Topic: Government Operations
Richard Gordon Thomson (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she says it very eloquently and succinctly. We have a crisis of confidence in this country. We have a crisis of confidence in the Prime Minister, who is clearly not fit for the job with which he has been entrusted. This is being aided and abetted by the silence and complicity of far too many Conservative Members, and I cannot wait to see which Lobby the Scottish Conservative contingent, in particular, chooses to go through this evening.