More hypocritical MPs

In this post I listed some MPs who are supporting the Campaign for Marriage's attempts to prevent equal marriage legislation.


Since then some more MPs have nailed their colours to the anti-equality mast. and yet again we find that some of them have personally struggled to live up to C4M's standard which is

"I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."

Therese Coffey, Robert Halfon, Alec Shelbrooke & Nicola Blackwood have yet to tie the knot. As they have similar views perhaps they could form two couples?

Geoffrey Clinton Brown and Eleanor Laing failed at 'for life' aspect and are both divorced.

Laurence Roberson hasn't got divorced yet but it hasn't stopped him shacking up with his new partner.

Andrew Turner appears to have formed a voluntary union with his partner but forgot to actually get married, doh.

The undoubted star of this batch is Roger Gale currently on his third wife. [insert your own cheap 'Roger' Joke here]

However I have to give an honourable mention to Jacob Rees Mogg. As far as I am aware he is happily married but his father in law . Wow!




 Once again, I am more than happy to blame Wikipedia and amend any errors.

Wed as I say not as I did

The Coalition for Marriage website has a petition where people can sign up to the following

I support the legal definition of marriage which is the voluntary union for life of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. I oppose any attempt to redefine it.

A number of MPs are signatories. Others have express their views on the subject to newspapers or constituents. The Coalition for Equal Marriage are compiling a list detailing way MPs are likely to vote.

I make it 49 MPs who have said they will vote against an equal marriage bill. How many of them do you think would have their own relationship categorised under the definition above? All of them? 90 percent? Lets count and see who wins the race to be the biggest hypocrite.

I will start with those who didn't even get out of the blocks and have yet to embrace this whole marriage thing.

John Stevenson,
Paul Murphy
Philip Lee
Richard Fuller
Ann Widdecombe
Sammy Wilson
Robert Alexander Stewart and
Paul Maynard

Now it starts to get interesting. Bronze medals go to those who tripped up over either the 'for life' or the 'exclusion of all other' hurdles.

Robert Syms - Divorced
Simon Burns - Divorced
John Whittingdale - Marriage Dissolved
Stephen Pound - has a child from a previous relationship and
John Glen - married a woman with children from a previous relationship.

Silver medals go those who stumbled at the 'one man and one woman part', who so embraced the idea of marriage they did it twice or three times.

Sir Roger Gale, 3 wives
Richard Drax, 3 wives
Tony Baldry, 2 wives
Ann Main, 2 husbands and
Craig Whitaker, 2 wives

However we have a clear winner. The gold medal goes to

Nadine Dorries

Who not only got divorced but then went on to have an affair with a married man. Congratulations Nadine.

So to answer my earlier question less than 62% can be advanced as role models for the alleged marriage definition.


P.S. In awarding medals above I am not criticising the failure or otherwise of the relationships concerned. The end of marriages or relationships can be a painful and traumatic event, but it happens. Sometimes one party may be to blame, other times both, but it can also be neither.

My criticism is in the attempt by the Coalition for Marriage and the signatories to try to promote a false definition of marriage. I have said before 'Marriage is not defined a life-long exclusive commitment between a man and a woman. It is not life long. Married people can get divorced and if they choose may marry again. It is not exclusive either. People who have affairs are still considered married.'

The MPs highlighted above are promoting a false definition of marriage in order to exclude certain people despite personally failing to live within their own definition.


PPS. The information above was taken from the internet mainly Wikipedia. I am happy to amend any errors.

The Blue Square Bet Conference approach to influencing polititians

Ok, let's assume you're not in the Premier League with £250,000 to spend on a candle lit dinner with a top Tory - so how else can you get MPs to push your point of view?

It might be best illustrated by working though a hypothetical example.

Imagine you are a lobby group, let's pick one at random - how about CARE the Christian organisation who have a goal to get more people praying?  


What you could do is set up a program which pays bursaries to graduates, allowing them to offer their services to an MP for four days a week, for free.  So again, to show how it could work, let us select a random MP.

Then let's say an issue comes up that falls within your area of interest. How about the ASA banning an advert, which had irresponsible, misleading and unsubstantiated claims over the efficacy of prayer?

Perhaps your paid intern's MP could sign a letter which protests the decision to the chairman of the ASA and includes a threat to raise the issue in parliament.

Of course, someone could suggest something undemocratic is  happening, but you could point to the line on your website which says something like "Programme members are at no time asked to lobby on behalf of CARE" and pretend it is just a coincidence.


Please note, that the examples above are included for illustration purposes only. Any connection between the above and decent, moral, democratic behaviour is purely unintentional.

Perhaps I should finish this blog post with a warning.  This approach can on occasion have a downside and can lead to your MP being ridiculed and called hapless in a national paper and may lead to bloggers and tweeters mocking your beliefs.