MPs just acted out their own version of Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’

A pig Lindsay Hoyle and Jacob Rees Mogg


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It appears MPs are acting out their own version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Because, as the saying goes, while ‘all animals are equal’, MPs are ‘more equal than others’. As they look set to get certain privileges that the rest of us don’t.

Sorry, what?

As BBC News reported, the speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle was talking about coronavirus (Covid-19) testing for MPs. Testing was, as BBC News put it, so “more of them could safely enter the Commons chamber”. Obviously home working, Zoom, and remote voting (being done across Europe) have bypassed the “Mother of Parliaments“. Hoyle said:

To be quite honest with you, I’d like to do it daily, not weekly. The problem is weekly testing doesn’t tell you anything.

The the commons authorities are reportedly “looking at it”. Meanwhile, MP for Victorian Throwbacks and Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn’t think MPs should have to wear face masks; something Hoyle agrees with. One rule for them, hey?

But the story caused quite a storm on social media.

Not happy

Labour MP Justin Madders compared the proposed testing to the situation for health workers:

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Iwan made a similar point about teachers:

And Jamie Fryer thought the story summed up the state of UK society more broadly:

But it was Jade who put it in a nutshell with the use of a famous Orwell quote:

MPs: the pigs with their snouts in the Westminster trough

It seems obscene that MPs could get daily testing, when they could do much of their work from home. More obscene because in recent days there have been a flurry of news reports about testing for the ‘plebs’ running out. This includes key workers such as NHS staff. That’s the same NHS staff who have had to fight the government over a pay rise – while MPs have got one themselves this year.

Politician’s pay went up by 3.1% this year. This compares to the same increase for teachers, 2.8% for doctors and dentists, 2.5% for the police, and 2% for the armed forces. But as The Canary reported, the government didn’t give nurses a pay rise this year – except one already outlined in 2018; 6.5% over three years. So technically, nurse’s wages went up by 2.16% – while MPs’ pocketed 3.1% more (nearly £2,500 extra a year).

All animals are equal, hey? Except, of course, the pigs with their snouts in the Westminster trough.

Featured image via PickPik. Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia and Chris McAndrew – Wikimedia 

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  • Show Comments

    1. Nothing to see here so kindly move along, haven’t you got some reality TV to watch or a burger to eat
      ?? ?

      Having once been invited to spend a day inside the House of Commons and seeing first hand how these representatives of the people and democracy are treated, Ive always been astounded by just how much they leech out of taxpayers and how they are much much more equal than the rest of us scum.

      If you need examples look at MP’s expenses and how they haven’t stopped thieving even after the scandal last time, they just got better at lying and thieving. Look at their pay package including their pensions, no need for pension reforms here its just you selfish scum that seem to think that working in shit jobs with shit pay makes you deserve a pittance of a pension once we are finished with you.

      In our house Mp’s are called LCD’s………………. LIARS, CHEATS & THIEVES

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    3. Hoyle represents Labour in all its despicable hypocrisy. Representative democracy is a miserable substitute for the common folk having real control over their own lives. What is the basis of human society? Conversation. Honestly. Where conversation prevails people meet on grounds of equality. In conversation you can call a hypocrite a hypocrite; but in our form of society conversation has been replaced by the sermon, the speech, the lecture, the press conference…; forms which exclude the possibility of response from the common people. 40 million of us vote, 650 go the Commons, a few dozen form the government and a handful the inner cabinet. We need to dismantle this circus and take real control over our own lives: where we work, where we live. Capitalism has done everything it can to undermine democracy since the granting of universal suffrage. The system is now a hollow farce. This is not government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is rule of the people by the rich for the rich. As the anarchists correctly say: don’t vote, it only encourages them. They have stolen our potency. Let’s take it back.

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      1. Oh and how are things going at the Integrity initiative today ? Still leeching tax payers cash to sprout right wing crap ? How’s the charity status working out for you all?

        Perhaps you should be telling your lies to the sheeple instead of people with their own minds who don’t need Murdoch or the MSM to tell them who to vote for ?

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