I can’t comment on the degree of civility in the UK Commons, but the Canadian version of Question Period does on occasion get somewhat heated, and MPs sometimes get into hot water for inappropriate comments.
Wow that’s hilarious! I wish Congress could do that. Might get more people interested in politics. But something like that probably wouldn’t sound right with an American accent. And I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Americans left who are that polite. They’d probably just say, “Senator McCain, you’re a dick.”
It’s funny – the UK gets the reputation as stuffy and reserved, but their legislature has much more fun. You never hear US congresspersons grunting loudly in unison, and interrupting another during debate (outside of procedural norms) would be scandalous.
There are rules for Parliamentary procedure, and there are limits on what MPs can call each other without being rebuked by the Speaker of the House. I’m pretty sure that calling another member a liar, for example, would be an “unparliamentary expression”, which “the honourable Member must withdraw”. There’s probably a list somewhere of what “unparliamentary expressions” are … We do try to keep it moderately civilized; it’s only occasionally that some honourable Member gets overheated and starts waving the mace around. (ISTR an incident where the Speaker “named” one MP, who was barred from the House for a couple of days thereafter - was it Ken Livingstone? Strikes a chord somewhere … )
A couple of quick notes. First of all, Parliament sessions are shown on the internet on the BBC’s website.
Second, after the election, doesn’t the Queen the ask the leader of the party which has won the most seats to then form the government? Britain rarely has
a situation in which one of the major parties fails to win an absolute majority. I think the last time in which a no party had an absolute majority was the Callaghan government in 1979. Labour needed the support of the 13 Liberal party members to remain in power after they had lost seats in by-elections. Callaghan lost a no confidence vote and the Conservatives won. Thatcher became PM and the rest…
I have here in my office in the Irish Parliament a book called “Salient Rulings of the Chair” which includes a whole section on things the members aren’t allowed to call each other, including “chancer”, “guttersnipe” and “scumbag”.
“Liar” is also a no-no.
A couple of other points about Parliamentary procedure (off the top of my head):
Members do not address each other directly (this may be true of the US) - everything goes through the Speaker of the House, who is addressed as “Mr/Ms Speaker”. The Speaker is a sitting MP, but if they take up the position when nominated, they are no longer allowed to vote. Thus an MP will say things like “Mr Speaker, is the Prime Minister aware that he is an absolute ass?”
The most grevious ‘offense’ against Parliamentary language is to call another member a “liar”. This is very serious and will lead to a request from the Speaker to withdraw the comment. If the MP refuses to withdraw (or does other stuff like throwing books, stealing the Mace and waving it around, as famously happened a few years ago), then the Speaker has the right to suspend the MP from the House.
There is a thing called ‘Parliamentary privilege’ whereby members can name members of the public in connection to crimes without risking any legal recourse. This isn’t very often abused, but it happens occasionally.
Shouldn’t that be “Madam Speaker”?
Oh yeah.
A few details:
Nobody has been talking about Parliament. Everybody has been talking about Commons. Commons is only one part of Parliament. Lords (made up of lifetime appointments–no more hereditary holders, at least not when the current crop dies) has the power to delay and amend bills but not halt them. Finally, the monarch has to “grant assent” to bills. Nobody knows what would happen if a monarch refused assent.
In my history and politics class at school, this hypothetical was always explained with the supposition that the monarch would be required to abdicate.
Years later, in 1990, a similar thing happened in Belgium, when the King refused to give assent to an abortion law. He was declared unfirt to rule, the bill was passed, and he was reinstated the next day. More.
I would presume this indeed to be the case in the UK, though of course one can never tell…
You really cannot get away with many insults - words that have been ruled unparliamentary include:
stool pigeon
cad
blackguard
curmudgeon
dog
rotter
Lord Haw Haw
coward
rat
swine
hooligan
git
traitor
This isn’t exhaustive, the Speaker can tell a member off for any language he thinks is inappropriate.
You cannot accuse another member of lying, nor of being drunk (the prefered euphemism is “tired and emotional”) and you cannot swear (I can only remember the F word being used once in the House, I think it was Piera Khabra quoting from racist hate mail sent to a constituent. The C word has also only been used one, when John Spellar mispronounced cuts)
Two MPs have grabbed the mace in recent times. The first instance was Michael Heseltine in 1976, in protest over Labour misuse of the tradition of pairing MPs (so MPs can have an evening off once in a while, they arrange “pairs” - i.e. a Conservative MP agrees that he will not vote if a Labour MP agrees not to vote in return, cancelling each other out). On a very close vote, a Labour MP who was supposed to be paired voted anyway, thereby winning the division. Heseltine brandished the mace at the Labour benches, who were busy singing the Red Flag and the Speaker suspended the House as it descended into chaos.
The second was Labour MP Ron Brown, who picked up the mace in protest against social security cuts. he attempted to swing it, but dropped and broke it.
The Prime Minister is actually the person who can command a majority in the House of Commons. This is usually the leader of the largest party, of course, but this need not be the case: if you were to have a coalition of three parties, the two larger ones might agree to serve under the leader of the smallest where they wouldn’t serve under the other.
We colonials are less reserved at times.
Does anyone know if this has ever actually happened, or if it’s just hypothetical?
Oops. Forgot the link.
The mace? As in a wooden handle with a chain and a big spiky ball on the end?
Can someone please elaborate? What’s the history behind it?
It’s happened, in the National Government 1931-1935 - it was overwhelmingly made up of Conservative MPs, but the PM between 1931 and 1935 was Ramsay Macdonald, a Labour MP. I’m sure someone else can provide the history behind it.
Actually, Eleusis, the thing you described is a flail. A mace is the same thing, but without the chain.
[/nitpick]
But I was wondering myself. My dictionary says it’s a staff used as a symbol of authority by some officials. So, is it the speaker’s mace? And you wave it around if you’re pissed off about something?
And I could call someone a prat. It’s not on the list of prohibited words. And what’s so bad about “Lord Haw Haw” anyway? It’s too bad you can’t say git. I like that word.