MP claims Cameron is ‘hooligan’ in the House

Jan 18 2008 by Barry Gibson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD’S MP has labelled the Conservative leader a “hooligan”.

Barry Sheerman is angry about David Cameron’s language during Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday.

The Tory repeatedly referred to Gordon Brown as “you”, rather than “the Prime Minister.”

Mr Sheerman said: “It was appalling behaviour by the Leader of the Opposition. He has been around in Parliament long enough to understand the rules.”

The Labour MP revealed to the Examiner that he wrote to the Speaker Michael Martin yesterday to complain.

He said: “I told him I was disappointed that he had not reprimanded Mr Cameron. If it happens again I expect the Speaker to stop it.”

Mr Sheerman, who has been an MP since 1979, said: “If someone is going to turn this place into a sort of brawling house, I am going to do anything I can as a senior member of Parliament to stop him. David Cameron has got the behaviour of a hooligan in the chamber.”

Mr Sheerman explained that there is a long-standing convention that MPs do not refer to each other directly.

He said: “Comments should be made through the Speaker. The rules of the House have been there for hundreds of years to stop stupid personal rows.

“David Cameron should have referred to Gordon Brown as ‘the Prime Minister’ or ‘the right honourable gentleman’.”

Mr Sheerman does not believe the Conservative leader’s words were accidental.

He said: “He used the word ‘you’ six times, it wasn’t a slip of the tongue.

“He deliberately broke the conventions of the House. He probably practised it in the mirror beforehand.

“You could see him breaking the rules like a naughty Eton schoolboy. He has that inbred spirit – ‘I can get away with this because my parents are wealthy and I’m related to the Queen’.

“I hate it. I was disgusted.”

Mr Sheerman added that his criticism of Mr Cameron was not party political.

“I’m not criticising a Tory for being a Tory,’’ he said. “I had a good relationship with other Conservative leaders like Margaret Thatcher, William Hague and Michael Howard because they behaved as Parliamentarians. But David Cameron is an appalling Leader of the Opposition in the way he handles himself.”

He noted that Mr Cameron had promised to end confrontational politics when he was elected Conservative leader in 2005.

Mr Sheerman said: “As someone who wanted to get away from ‘Punch and Judy’, he is dragging the House of Commons down into a pit that I don’t want to see it in.”

Shadow housing minister Grant Schapps said: “Most normal people wouldn’t think to use the word ‘you’ was hooliganistic. That is a slightly stretched exaggeration.

“I notice that the Speaker let it go – and if he did then it can’t have been that big a deal.”