Thursday, April 09, 2009

John Leech MP: Making a Mockery of MP-Constituent Relations


Lib Dem Voice's Mark Pack has mounted his white charger and ridden to the rescue of damp squib in distress John Leech MP whose low rent fibbery in his tax payer funded "parliamentary report" has been called into question. I guess that this is progress from his blatant abuse of such reports in 2006, 2007 and 2008. Just a gert great dollop of self-aggrandising fibbery is apparently all.

Some correspondence between Leech and one of his constituents has been published
at Labour List. Leech's knock about correspondence style is quite a treat. Do other constituency MPs engage in personal attacks and schoolboy banter "you should get out more" in responses to serious letters from constituents?

My response at LDV is as follows:

... The underlying story appears to be that Leech voted for the Climate Change thing in the first reading but didn’t bother to turn up or at any rate express a preference for the second and third readings.
Most reasonable people would think the latter reading would be more important than the first reading would they not? And that voting in only the least important of three divisions on the matter is scarcely worth a footnote, never mind blowing his own trumpet.
You may disagree Mark but I for one don’t think that this constitutes “voting strongly” whatever TheyWorkForYou’s formula might decide.
It is actually pretty weak I’d say. What do you actually think about Leech’s actual voting record on this issue? Is it exemplary? Is it worthy of headlines? If it were a Labour or Tory MP in your patch claiming this how would you - Mark Pack, Mr Reasonable - present this to your dear readers?
I’ve seen you quibbling with far less.
John Leech has told some terrible porkies in his time. This is hardly the worst. I’ll give you that.
One of Leech’s big lies in his 2005 campaign was that his rival had not voted against the war. In fact Bradley did vote against the war in the last division on the matter. The one that most people count. The only one where the LDs yourselves actually turned out in force.
Leech did not even take part in local demos, never mind getting on a platform or actively organising against the war in 2002, 2003, 2004, or 2005. He found his anti-war legs only in 2006 …
Another lie of course was Leech’s assertion that Christie Hospital was threatened with closure. It was not. 60 doctors had not signed or submitted any petition saying anything at all. Still less that the hospital was threatened with closure as Leech claimed. They were simply trying to influence changes to retain more services on site and resist the idea of satellite centres. And the level of distortion (arguably) that they were employing was amplified to a full on closure threat by Leech and his cronies.
Amusingly enough Rowen’s recent PMQ point was about two such satellite centres.
He (Leech) even claimed this in leaflets distributed to cancer patients in waiting areas for radio and chemotherapy. I find this to be an example of monstrous stop-at-nothing lib fibbery of the lowest order of filth. You may not agree Mark.
But he’s been caught out here exaggerating his performance in respect of Climate Change and there’s nothing whatsoever wrong with pointing out that exaggeration. You are protesting too much. And TheyWorkForYou might take a look at their algorithm because in this case it seems to have turned up an anomaly. Leech was either absent or abstained on two-thirds of the votes on the matter, including the final one. This is not “strong”.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It gets worse for John Leech.

Page 3 of the MEN today.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1107503_mps_tax_disc_error

What a prat! I can't believe he's blaming the DVLA!

Anonymous said...

It's in the Lib Dem DNA to always blame others for their fuck ups. Never accept responsibility, lad. That's what big Cyril preaches.

What I can't understand is why the journalist descibes Leech as a 'top MP'.

What???

Anonymous said...

Come on Chris, you're missing an open goal here!!!

Leech's explanation for his muppetry is hilarious!