Brown, Cameron and Clegg at PMQs on the Prison Votes Case

Brown, Cameron and Clegg at PMQs on the Prison Votes Case

Parliamentary Sketch

PMQs

DC: “For individuals, and for those advising them, the road to Strasbourg is long and hard. Even when they get there, [says Tony Blair] the Convention enforcement machinery is subject to long delays. This might be convenient for a government which was half-hearted about the Convention and the right of individuals to apply under it, since it postpones the moment at which changes in domestic law or practice must be made. But it is not in keeping with the importance which this Government attaches to the observance of basic human rights”.

“Does the Prime Minister not agree, that so basic a human right as the vote under the Convention should not be postponed for a moment, let alone 5 years in the Prisoners Votes Case? So, why the inordinate delay? ”.

GB: “Mr Speaker. I have asked the Home Secretary whether he can make the Association of Prisoners a proscribed organisation because I describe their activity as seeking to undermine the government and therefore in my book (to be published by Biteback, out in all good bookshops very shortly) suspected legal “terrorists”. At least Marie Antoinette said ‘Let them eat cake’. When the member opposite worked under Michael Howard as Home Secretary, he said ‘Let them eat dry breadcrumbs’ and the prisoners were subjected to a cut in their food budget. Now those same prisoners have blown them up in his face”.

DC: “As a former Chancellor, the Prime Minister, will no doubt be aware of the wise old saying ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’. Does the Prime Minister not agree but for his penny pinching by blocking prisoners seeking a pay rise from £4 to £5.50 per week, that the country would not now be lumbered with the taxpayers having to pay the prisoners £70m in compensation for denial of their human right to the vote?’.

GB: “Mr Speaker. There’s an elephant in the room. And the elephant doesn’t forget. All the member opposite can say is ‘Tusk, tusk’. The current terrorism threat level is critical. Only last week we were alerted to a security breach in Parliament. A legal ‘terrorist’ was spotted gaining entrance to Black Rod’s back passage. The video was posted on YouTube. Apparently he entered Parliament with good intentions and spoke at a meeting to other subversive elements. Subsequently, it was discovered that the Secretary of State for Justice had been taken hostage. The intelligence agencies report that the ransom demand was secretly given to the Press Association. Reports received from our police liaison officers within prisons say that the prisoners are rattling their cages. We must stop The Great Escape, their Escape to Victory, it’s not over by The Longest Yard nor The Green Mile. It’s an uneven playing field, the referee is not a whistleblower, instead we are hounded with the sound of Gideon’s Trumpet. The member opposite may like playing the stud, but the man who has brought down the House of Cards is Cool Hand Luke. At the Station, Euston, ‘We have a problem’ reports the Evening Standard, ‘Constitutional crisis hits Westminster’. And all the member opposite can worry about is a Labour MP calling the Tories Scum Sucking Pigs”.

DC: “Norman Stanley Fletcher, as I seem to recall, tended to pigs in prison and fed them pig swill mainly of porridge. Pigs have a tendency to squeal. There are troughers on all sides of this House. When the pigs start questioning, how many will ask members Deal or No Deal? It’s opening Pandora’s Box. The Association of Prisoners has been asking for years for MPs to go into prison. Does the Prime Minister not agree that now would be the right time to grant convicted prisoners the right to vote? The Thieves Parliament formed by supporters of the Prisoners Rights Movement is drawing comparisons with Parliament. The government argued to the European Court of Human Rights that prisoners have lost the moral authority to vote. The Court rejected this submission. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, has since stated, when the expenses scandal broke, that Parliament has lost the moral authority to govern. The public will make us all pay a heavy price at the next general election. But, before that, does the Prime Minister not agree, when the legal ‘terrorists’ release the Secretary of State for Justice, that we can all start our reform with one last act; The Prisoners Votes Act?”.

Compo: Mr Speaker, the Lib Dems have often been accused of sitting on the prison fence. The German Razor Wire exposes our private parts. I wish to apologise to Charles Kennedy, who, although he likes a drink, was not drunk at the time he said that Ian Huntley should have the vote. In hindsight, I now accept it was the right thing to say and he was very courageous for doing so. And those of us who stabbed him in the back are political cowards. It wasn’t Jailhouselawyer with an axe to grind who claimed his scalp, we beheaded our leader and we have been running around like necked chickens ever since. We can save Compo, we don’t have to pay the prisoners anything other than debating the Prisoners Votes Case in Parliament. We might as well be hung for a duck as a bath plug, I’m joining forces with the Tories and support their call for The Prisoners Votes Act.

Mr Speaker: “Order, order, order! Ayes to the Right, Noes to the Left. Why are there no noes going to the Left?”