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Slipping in a line from the Blues Brothers ... it's Commons bingo
Joe Murphy, Political Editor27 Mar 2009
A LONDON MP today lifted the lid on a Commons game where politicians slip bizarre phrases into their speeches for bets.
Stephen Pound admitted the pastime - dubbed "Hansard Bingo" - was rife at Westminster where MPs competed to get the strangest words into the official record. He said his own feat was to get "sesquipedalian" - which means being prone to very long words - into an exchange on the floor. He also managed to work the name of former Fulham midfielder Jimmy Bullard into a speech after being challenged by Battersea Labour MP Martin Linton. Hansard, the official record of Commons speeches, records Mr Pound saying last May: "I have mentioned former local government planning officers, who seem to work as consultants nowadays. Many of them will be as busy as Jimmy Bullard."
Challenged about rumours of the game's existence on BBC TV, Mr Pound said: "How did you know about that?" After coming clean about his own involvement, he claimed that Regents Park & Kensington North MP Karen Buck had once slipped a line of dialogue from cult film The Blues Brothers into a committee session. The line was: "It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses - hit it!" Ms Buck denied playing, but admitted she once lost a charity bet with a Tory that he could not insert into a speech lyrics of the Max Bygraves song Gilly Gilly By The Sea.
Reader views (4)
Lawyers have been this for years in the Magistrate's court
- Andy, London, 30/03/2009 10:51
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Good to know our overpaid bone-idle ineffective members have found a useful way of occupying themselves ...........
- Marianne, SW France, 28/03/2009 13:26
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Is it any worse than the sicophantic drivel that we often hear at Prime Minister's question time?
Just proves the point that too many MP's are in it just for the cash, -or it's a nice cushy job.
- Huggy, Cumbernauld Scotland, 27/03/2009 22:39
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Happens all the time, a colleague managed to get the words "if my grandmother had wheels she'd be a skateboard' legitimately into a record of a meeting
- Andrew Lawrence, London UK, 27/03/2009 18:00
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