Twenty eight Labour MPs voted against the expansion of Heathrow. I salute them all;
Diane Abbott, Harry Cohen, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Cousins, Frank Dobson, David Drew, Frank Field, Paul Flynn, Dr Ian Gibson, John Grogan, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Dr Lynne Jones, Peter Kilfoyle, John McDonnell, Andrew Mackinlay, Bob Marshall-Andrews, Michael Meacher, George Mudie, Chris Mullin, Gordon Prentice, Nick Raynsford, Martin Salter, Virendra Sharma, Alan Simpson, Andrew Slaughter, Andrew Smith, and David Taylor.
Special mention also needs to go to anti-expansion Labour MP Martin Linton (pictured) who claims to be a vociferous opponent of Heathrow expansion but accidentally voted for it. It's what I've always said - when Labour do us over it's always partly design and partly utter incompetence.
Never underestimate the ability of well intentioned people to accidentally do completely the wrong thing. Martin, half a salute to you sir.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Labour's roll of honour: twenty eight and a half rebels
Labels: Environment, Labour
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3 comments:
I'm glad they rebelled, but such a small number is pathetic if they expect to be taken seriously on the environment. Could it be that many of these MPs will be affected by flight path noise and so will struggle to hold on to their jobs at the next election.
Adrian! Wonderful to hear from you!
It's true quite a few of these people's constituencies are directly effected, it's also a list of the same old rebels though - God bless them.
If I'd been asked to name the 28 without looking I reckon I'd have got at least twenty without even trying. Whilst that stands in these MPs favour, it says much of the Labour Party as a whole that no-one outside the ranks of the awkward squad thought this was worth rebelling on.
Well that's Linton's feeble excuse. But what about the other 28 Labour MPs on the roll call of shame?
Early Day Motion 339 (session 2008/09) ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THIRD RUNWAY AT HEATHROW tabled by Martin Salter on 17.12.08 states:
"This House... calls upon the Government not to proceed with the third Heathrow runway or mixed-mode and to put the matter to a vote on the floor of the House."
51 Labour MPs signed this motion. (http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=37350&SESSION=899)
6 of yesterday's 28 rebels did not sign it, 22 of them had done so. Which leaves 29 Labour MPs who signed a motion asking the government not to proceed with the runway and asking for a vote on it in the House of Commons, who when presented with such a vote, failed to register a vote against the runway. This is the roll call of shame:
Austin, John
Bayley, Hugh
Berry, Roger
Caton, Martin
Challen, Colin
Chaytor, David
Clwyd, Ann
Cruddas, Jon
Cryer, Ann
Dean, Janet
Gerrard, Neil
Godsiff, Roger
Hamilton, Fabian
Heyes, David
Illsley, Eric
Keen, Alan
Linton, Martin
McCafferty, Chris
Murphy, Denis
Olner, Bill
Palmer, Nick
Riordan, Linda
Soulsby, Peter
Stoate, Howard
Taylor, David
Thornberry, Emily
Tipping, Paddy
Truswell, Paul
Turner, Desmond
Vis, Rudi
All of these people have some serious explaining to do. Accidentally going into the wrong lobby is quite funny, but less so when we realise what was at stake. "Gordon Brown burst into tears on me" is simply not good enough.
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