The Labour MP for Rhondda received a knighthood in the New Year’s honours. It is assumed this is to recognise his numerous gaffes and stupid comments.
Missing out his unfortunate choice of photo on a dating site, there are numerous examples of pillockness deserving of this honour. Most of this seems to stem from an arrogance that mere mortals are too stupid to check up on anything.
Pronouncing on Peruvian politics
In August 2021 after an election in Peru Mr Bryant took to Twitter to comment : “Perú is a wonderful country but it’s depressing that voters were left with a choice between Fujimori and Castillo. Sadly the new cabinet looks set to take the country down a failed Marxist route.”
This was noticed by Alan MacLeod (senior staff writer and podcast producer at the independent outlet MintPress News) who commented “It is truly extraordinary that a Labour MP in south Wales could say such a thing. It goes to show how bought out the party has become.”
At this point a smart person might check the profile information of the person commenting before posting . “Do you know anything about Peruvian politics? Have you even been there?”, but not Mr Bryant. Dr McLeod replied “I’ve got a PhD in Latin American politics, lectured about it in universities, and have produced a book and five peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic.”. The car crash carries on a bit more, and just gets more embarrassing.
view exchange on Twitter
False accusation of money laundering
Back in 2021 he had to make a formal apology in court to Christopher Chandler, a New Zealand-born investor. He had accused him of money laundering in Parliament in 2018. Comments in Parliament are protected from legal repercussions by Parliamentary Privilege. Only a total pillock would then post a copy of the accusation on Twitter and put it in the public domain. Well done Sir Chris.
Lack of interest in Member’s Interests Registry
As every MP knows, it is important that all interests are registered in a timely manner. For someone who spent time on the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges committee it was very embarrassing to have to register a trip to Poland two years late. At least he had the self-awareness to say “our rules are too complicated, but frankly I’m just an idiot because I forgot – I’ve no excuse whatsoever.”
Obligatory link to more info….
At this point it is starting to feel like shooting fish in a barrel, however my philosophy is; if the fish didn’t want to get shot then they shouldn’t have got into the barrel.
No actual fish have been harmed.
Surely every MP knows their expenses will be scrutinized by now
Only a total pillock would think that no-one would notice an MP claiming rent expensed for a property in London when they own a two bedroom penthouse in London. This was being offered for rental at the time.
Is anyone following these info links?
Breaking confidence and erroneous evidence
It is an important matter of principle and procedure that the contents of enquiries are kept confidential until it is published. If you are going to divulge something you do it as an anonymous leak. Only a pillock would get up in Parliament and accuse the Prime Minister of lying about meetings with Rupert Murdoch based on erroneous information from the then unpublished Leveson Enquiry. The voracity of the information had not been checked by the enquiry team. More grovelling apologies were the order of the day.
Yep, another information link. Do take the effort to look at least one of them.
Civility in Politics
While there is so much more mileage in the rich vein of Sir Chris’s life, his general demeanor is a good end point. As Chair of the Parliamentary Standards committee anyone would expect him to be well behaved. In December 2020 he stormed out of the chamber after allegedly telling Speaker Lindsay Hoyle in an altercation to ‘fuck off’. Bryant denied this but still apologised to Hoyle.
In an interview on TalkRadio with Dan Wooton, in an Bryant in an outburst said ‘You’re a nutcase. You’re a complete and utter nutcase’. This resulted in Bryant being removed from the programme.
In what seems like an unlikely decision he received the 2022 Civility in Politics award. He did admit he was surprised. Bryant has recently tried to add ‘respect’ to the Parliamentary Behaviour Code.
Has he done anything useful?
Ir would be churlish not to acknowledge things he has managed to do right.
Bryant called for and led the parliamentary debates on referring the phone hacking scandal to the Standards and Privileges Committee in September 2010, and an Emergency Debate on whether there should be a judge led enquiry in July 2011 which led to the setting up of the Leveson Inquiry.
He won the Stonewall Politician of the Year Award in 2011 for his work to support equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. In February 2013, he voted in favour in the House of Commons Second Reading vote on same-sex marriage in Britain.
In 2017 he was able to introduce a Private Members Bills; the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill, which introduced a new offence of assaulting an emergency worker. It received royal assent on 13 November 2018 as the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Act 2018.