From: "Dave Coull" <coull2-AT-btinternet.com>
Subject: RE: Parliament votes...
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 00:23:07 -0000




Carp wrote


> Well, that Parliament vote sure showed Blair 
> how out of step he was...


Well Blair was supported by the Conservative Party
of course, so there was never any possibility of him
_losing_ the vote in parliament. But nevertheless,
217 MPs voted against the government, and 139 of them
were Labour Party MPs. This was the largest vote against 
a prime minister by members of his own party since....
well, since forever. 

MPs, of course, can be bought. They can be offered 
government office, for one thing. And about 150
MPs are actually members of the government, and 
so bound by "collective responsibility". However
the Labour Party outside of parliament is even more
critical of this war than the MPs. The Scottish Labour 
Party conference meets in Dundee this weekend. Tony 
Blair is due to speak to the Scottish Labour Party 
in Dundee on Friday. The Labour Party in Scotland
are shitting themselves, because there is an election
for the Scottish Parliament in six weeks' time,
and it is looking bad for them. Opinion here is 
 _very_  critical of the war. It remains to be seen 
if Blair will actually turn up for this conference, 
or if he will cancel his visit on "security grounds".  


Dave