House of Commons Visit for Tynwald members

[Uhtred]

1 hour ago, woody2 said:

shame they didn't stay around for pmq's......

Proffering Manx Queenies..?

[woody2]

15 minutes ago, Uhtred said:

Proffering Manx Queenies..?

don't spain nick all of them.....

[llap]

1 hour ago, Manx Bean said:

The saddest part for me (after the sheer waste of our taxpayers money sending these idiots to London) is that our lot are arrogant enough to genuinely believe that they are meeting their equals. Deluded doesn't cut it.

To be fair, they were meeting their equals. Equally a bunch of parasitic scum.

[Donald Trumps]

Given how Watterson has almost completely ignored Lisvane in his super-daft, super undemocratic report to Tynwald on LegCo (please reject it MHKs, MLCs even) - you do wonder what he actually learns from these freebies

[2bees]

My god man haven't you noticed? It's obvious, he is learning in which direction to instruct his coiffeur to point his quiff, darlink.

[Roger Mexico]

The IOM Newspapers story is now online.  I couldn't help noticing what they were supposed to have learned in their three day visit:

Quote

The programme covered a wide variety of topics including the current political landscape in Westminster, the role of select committees, the daily procedure in the House of Commons and the work of the UK Public Accounts Committee. In addition to an intensive programme of meetings, the delegation also attended Prime Minister’s Questions[1], viewed committee evidence sessions and visited a constituency to explore how MPs serve their constituents.

What strikes me about most of this is that it Politics 101 as the Americans would say.  You would expect anyone with any sort of interest in British politics to know most of this anyway - and anyone who didn't could discover it in half an hour on Wikipedia.  You can watch PMQs and all Committee Meetings on the Parliament Channel or online on parliaments own website.  Professional politicians shouldn't really need to be told any of this - especially as Tynwald's procedures fairly closely mirror those at Westminster.

That's not to say that the occasional trip to make personal contacts can't be useful.  But I can't really see why it needs three days.

 

[1]  This was actually the week before last so they weren't there for Corbyn raising the '957 business jets'.

[Declan]

I see what you are saying Roger. But I would have thought there would be "tricks of the trade" to be learned too. 

[Roger Mexico]

16 minutes ago, Declan said:

I see what you are saying Roger. But I would have thought there would be "tricks of the trade" to be learned too. 

Given the revelations from Westminster over the last week, I'm not sure that I dare ask.

[Declan]

I thought more effective surgeries, constituencies offices, how to prepare for a committee. Sharing best practice I would have thought. 

[Manximus Aururaneus]

Personally I prefer to be governed by politicians who are well travelled and who have been reasonably successful in other walks of life. I think that this is even more important in a  small country like the Island where it is all too easy to have a situation where major decisions affecting our future are made by inward-looking, small minded individuals with little knowledge of the world beyond their local parish.

As far as I'm concerned, if they want to learn how others tackle similar problems then let them. It used to be just the 'professions' that engaged in lifetime CPD  - Nowadays everybody from a builder to a sports coach is expected to update their skills in accordance with latest practice - why should those heading up major departments and passing our laws be discouraged from engaging with their counterparts when in every other discipline we encourage training, qualifications and networking.

[Donald Trumps]

They (or we) have just paid Lisvane £20k+ & Tynwald members more or less completely ignored him

[Roger Mexico]

15 minutes ago, Manximus Aururaneus said:

Personally I prefer to be governed by politicians who are well travelled and who have been reasonably successful in other walks of life. I think that this is even more important in a  small country like the Island where it is all too easy to have a situation where major decisions affecting our future are made by inward-looking, small minded individuals with little knowledge of the world beyond their local parish.

As far as I'm concerned, if they want to learn how others tackle similar problems then let them. It used to be just the 'professions' that engaged in lifetime CPD  - Nowadays everybody from a builder to a sports coach is expected to update their skills in accordance with latest practice - why should those heading up major departments and passing our laws be discouraged from engaging with their counterparts when in every other discipline we encourage training, qualifications and networking.

That's all true - I'm just not sure that this is the best way to go about it.  And I'm not really sure how much contact they actually get with UK politicians this  way, especially as they're going down as a group.  It rather resembles those CPA visits that come as a group from those Pakistani provincial assemblies to the Island or whatever, but they at least seem to be getting some technical stuff done, which our people shouldn't need.  But I doubt they have much contact with MHKs apart from a welcome chat from Mr Speaker.

[Manximus Aururaneus]

6 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

That's all true - I'm just not sure that this is the best way to go about it.  And I'm not really sure how much contact they actually get with UK politicians this  way, especially as they're going down as a group.  It rather resembles those CPA visits that come as a group from those Pakistani provincial assemblies to the Island or whatever, but they at least seem to be getting some technical stuff done, which our people shouldn't need.  But I doubt they have much contact with MHKs apart from a welcome chat from Mr Speaker.

I don't think that there are any easy answers, and there will  always be those who will abuse the system or be next to useless in any case.

But, whether we like it or not, they do manage around £1Bn of our hard-earned each year and anything that assists them to reach the correct decisions should be encouraged IMHO. I'm no fan of politicians in general - but I think that to navigate the politics en-route to achieving a successful outcome on any project is a much harder game than many appreciate (whether here, the UK, or elsewhere). I've occasionally had to get involved some (local) politics in order to progress some business stuff and by-jeez it was a mind-blowingly frustrating experience every time.

[gettafa]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

[1]  This was actually the week before last so they weren't there for Corbyn raising the '957 business jets'.

OK, just a thought, but how about if this troop of fresh faced but nonetheless self-important highly prominent politicians from the um, Isle of Man who were swaggering around Westminster invading ego central for a few days suddenly raised the profile of our Island. So much so that IoM was in the consciousness of Corby when he tabled that first question.

Add Howard's press conference to the mix. And come on, perlease don't try and tell me that at least some UK politicians didn't watch that little publicity beaut (it was after all meant to be widely seen - but maybe not for all the right reasons of course).

 

 

 

 

Edited November 6, 2017 by gettafa

[Boo Gay'n]

hubris

/ˈhjuːbrɪs/

noun

1.

pride or arrogance

2.

(in Greek tragedy) an excess of ambition, pride, etc, ultimately causing the transgressor's ruin