I’m just saying that if the Parliamentary equivalent of Joseph McCarthy is saying “I’m holding in my hand a list of seventy eight known Communists who are working in the State Department” then I’d want to be able to say “Good for you. Hand over the list and we’ll arrest all of them.” and if he doesn’t have a list of names, I’d want to say something a little stronger than he was mistaken in his claims.
This article gives a lighthearted overview of these aspects of the Commons. In terms of procedure, an appeal for the list of names to be handed over would be made to the speaker, not to the other member directly. (Note that all statements are actually made this way, or at least phrased as such.) If the speaker considers the statement to have been untrue, then they’re in trouble.
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/G07.pdf
You also need to get your terms of address in order…
Members of the House are “honourable”
Members of the House who are also Privy Councillors are “right honourable”
When referring to a member of your own party it’s “my (right) honourable friend”
When referring to a member of another party it’s “the (right) honourable member”
If the person is a QC it’s “my (honourable and) learned friend”
If the person is a serving military officer it’s “my (honourable and) gallant friend”
If the person is holder of a courtesy title (son of a duke, marquess or earl) they are “my (honourable and) noble friend”
unlike his Congressional counterpart, Mr. Speaker is supposed to be a neutral, non-partisan figure (although the present incumbent, ‘Gorbals Mick’ Martin, is generally agreed to be one of the worst speakers in many years)
The rules on address are less strict in Canada. I’ve heard, without comment, assorted variations on “the member,” “the hon. member,” “the member for Outremont,” “the hon. member of the NDP,” “my friend,” “my hon. friend,” “my colleague,” “the member opposite,” etc., or if the member has an office, “the Leader of the Opposition,” “the hon. Leader of the Opposition,” “the leader of the NDP,” “the hon. parliamentary secretary,” “the minister of Finance,” “the hon. minister of Finance,” “the Prime Minister,” “the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister.”
I don’t know if it’s okay to snark, say, the Prime Minister by calling him “the member” or “the member for Calgary Southwest” but I do know that when listing votes, Hansard gravely referred to former Prime Minister Martin as “Martin (LaSalle-Émard)” as there were several other Martins in the House.
Basically you just can’t call them by their name. In fact, you can’t even call them by their name even indirectly, or when quoting someone. I’ve seen MPs quoting newspaper articles or the like and saying "… '[and here they name the Prime Minister]‘s softwood sell-off…’ ", or being admonished for referring to “the Harper Government” or “the Harper Conservatives”.
The rules on address are less strict in Canada. I’ve heard, without comment, assorted variations on “the member,” “the hon. member,” “the member for Outremont,” “the hon. member of the NDP,” “my friend,” “my hon. friend,” “my colleague,” “the member opposite,” etc., or if the member has an office, “the Leader of the Opposition,” “the hon. Leader of the Opposition,” “the leader of the NDP,” “the hon. parliamentary secretary,” “the minister of Finance,” “the hon. minister of Finance,” “the Prime Minister,” “the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister.”
I don’t know if it’s okay to snark, say, the Prime Minister by calling him “the member” or “the member for Calgary Southwest” but I do know that when listing votes, Hansard gravely referred to former Prime Minister Martin as “Martin (LaSalle-Émard)” as there were several other Martins in the House.
Basically you just can’t call them by their name. In fact, you can’t even call them by their name even indirectly, or when quoting someone. I’ve seen MPs quoting newspaper articles or the like and saying "… '[and here they name the Prime Minister]‘s softwood sell-off…’ ", or being admonished for referring to “the Harper Government” or “the Harper Conservatives”.
Also, the distribution of terms of address are different. Members of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada have the title Honourable for life (including ministers, leaders of the opposition, and other party leaders (often), as well as various other functionaries who may be appointed from time to time), as do provincial lieutenant-governors and senators. Others are Hon. during their term only, including Speakers of the House, judges, provincial premiers and cabinet ministers, etc. Although MPs refer to one another as “the hon. member,” they aren’t entitled to the title Hon. by virtue of being an MP.
The title Right Honourable is granted to Prime Ministers, Chief Justices, and Governors General for life, a holdover from when those officials were made members of the British Privy Council. Other prominent Canadians are, on very rare occasions, granted the title Rt. Hon. as an honour; the most recent was former Deputy Prime Minister and Solicitor General Herb Gray, who was Canada’s first Jewish cabinet minister when he was first appointed to Cabinet in 1969.
A couple of points to ponder:
–I regularly saw British Question Time on C-Span back in the late 90’s. It always struck me that the PM’s party always tossed softballs, while the opposition parties questions sounded highly scripted. Indeed, the Economist featured an article how the demands of good TV had largely eroded the original point of Question Time–when all parties could get updates from the cabinet.
–One thing impeding Queston Time in the US is that the Constitution (Art. 1 Sec. 6) prohibits congressmen from holding a post in the executive branch, thus excluding cabinet members from congress. One of the reason British Question Time works is because both questions and answers are by legislative members. Plus, since the President is Head of State, he has tended to be given more reverence (executive priviledge, etc.) than a mere Head of Government like the PM.
–A lot of those bizarre speeches you see congressmen deliver on C-Span are actually delivered to empty chambers after the main session. A gentlemen’s agreement has C-Span only shooting closeups. (It’s not always adhered to, though; Tip O’Neil once caused a ruckus by supposedly ordering a long shot of Newt Gingrich orating to an empty room.)
A related question that I ponder is the pros and cons of a parliamentary system compared to a presidential system with a separate executive who has power of veto etc.
I’m sure big changes happen much easier with a parliamentary government. In New Zealand at least, without a written constitution, the government is pretty much a dictatorship for the the length of it’s term. The Governor General can fire the government under extreme circumstances (it happened in Australia long ago) but the only real constraint is the desire to be re-elected. That’s especially true if the government is only one party with a majority rather than a coalition. Luckily we haven’t had a government go completely off the rails yet.
The US system seems to be designed for stability which makes big changes much more difficult.
There are pros and cons to both I guess but I wonder if it goes some way to explain why the US doesn’t have universal health care, is slow to do much about climate change, doesn’t use the metric system, still uses pennies …
Do British MPs waste time sponsoring idiotic bills and “resolutions”, like they do in the USA House? Is time wasted on important stuff like naming government buildings , honoring half-senile politicians, and awarding money to build bridges to nowhere?
Perhaps the closest to that is the Private Member’s Bill. These are, in the main, serious proposals for new laws, although with the understanding that the vast majority get nothing more than fifteen minutes of fame on Radio 4, if that. These are all a national matter however - the trivial stuff such as building-naming is the responsibility of local authorities and other organisations.