The Reader: Pregnant Tulip’s vote and a lack of Commons sense

Brexiteers often bang on about the wonders of British democracy. Yet on the eve of one of the most important votes in our lifetime in the Commons, Tulip Siddiq had to delay a Caesarean.

Her decision was hardly surprising given the behaviour of Brandon Lewis, who broke a pair with Jo Swinson last year in another Brexit vote. It’s high time that MPs are enabled to vote electronically if they are not able to be in the Commons in person. If yet-to-be-found technology can solve the Irish backstop problem, why can’t existing technology help pregnant or ill MPs carry out their democratic duties?
Chris Key

It’s absolutely disgraceful that Tulip Siddiq had to be in Parliament at all. In this day and age, there really could and should be an alternative way for a pregnant woman to be included in the democratic process — or it could well be construed as sexism.
Annie Kelly

I think that Tulip Siddiq is an attention seeker. Surely the health of her child comes first? We already knew what the result of the vote would be.
Guy Shelmerdine

When no party seems able to adopt a consistent approach within their own ranks, the guarantee of the pairing system — that “MPs paired with an opposition party member also cannot vote so the overall result is not affected” — seems unlikely.
Joanne Walker-Davidson

EDITOR'S REPLY

Dear Chris

I agree that it must be possible in the 21st-century for a heavily pregnant woman to vote in the Commons without having to be there in person. However, proxy voting would be more straightforward than the electronic system you suggest.

If she had been given an unprecedented proxy vote, Ms Siddiq told me she was going to nominate her constituency neighbour, shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer, to go through the lobby on her behalf. I wonder what the delay is to a proxy system as MPs recommended it more than a year ago.

It seems such a sensible thing to do to make sure the Commons avoids a sexist reputation, as Annie suggests. Why should a woman be disenfranchised, when such a simple alternative structure could be set up? I was shocked at the bad will directed towards Ms Siddiq for delaying a Caesarean.

She wanted to fulfil her duty as an MP and a mother — a choice a male politician would never face.

Kate Proctor, Political Reporter

I won’t be toasting Ei’s ‘success’ story

Further to your City Editor Jim Armitage’s interesting piece [“Toast Enterprise’s boss for proving the true value of pubs,” January 11], I know the other side of Ei Publican Partnerships’ business activities.

Toast Ei for what I think is the strategy of industrial asset-stripping of British traditions, heritage and cultural assets by flogging off unique, cherished buildings. It uses the money to pay down interest on gargantuan capital debts that will never be paid.

Step back and look at the market objectively: the tied pubcos, with Ei Publican Partnerships at the fore, are zombie corporations.

It’s destroying the weft and weave of British society.

Ei’s “success” is an ever-diminishing estate of pubs, with an ever-diminishing revenue stream, with the rather perverse reality of director bonuses being pegged to the successful sale of assets divested every year.
Mark Dodds
Pubs for People People for Pubs

Don’t say Happy New Year? Do!

I disagree with William Moore’s suggestion of a cut-off date for “Happy New Year!” [“Happy New Year? Still? Don’t be an ass”, January 16]. The wish is for the whole year, not for an occasion, like “Happy Christmas!”

The only rule is that you should never, ever, wish anyone Happy New Year until the New Year has arrived.

Thereafter it is entirely reasonable when first seeing or contacting someone in the new year to wish them “Happy New Year!” A cut-off would preclude such a wish in respect of a year more than 95 per cent of which was still to come.
James Robertson

A principle reason to rethink Brexit

The British people voted in principle to leave the EU. However nobody invests in anything in principle.

One needs to know the costs and benefits. I do not even back a horse without knowing how much my win or loss will be.

As the quotation (often mis-attributed to the American journalist H L Mencken) goes, when anyone says “it’s the principle not the money” — it’s always the money.

So the idea that we must leave the EU at any cost is ludicrous.
Edward Dymock