The ‘lively and colourful’ Joyce was arrested last night. That’s Joyce as in Eric Joyce MP, not ‘Joyce’ as a nickname.
He was drinking in the Stranger’s Bar at the House of Commons – that’s the Bar that ‘Pant’s’ Bryant memorably described as:
“sometimes when you go into the Strangers Bar you feel as though you are in Rupert Street. It is virtually a gay bar now, and my husband sometimes worries about whether I should be allowed in there any more.”
Curiously, it appears that Mr Joyce was not ‘upset and emotional’ because the bar was full of ‘gays’ – but because it was ‘full of Tories’ – but then perhaps Ken Livingstone was right…..
Livingstone said the public “should be allowed to know everything, except the nature of private relationships – unless there is hypocrisy, like some Tory MP denouncing homosexuality while they are indulging in it.”
Asked why he referred particularly to Conservative MPs, he added: “Well, the Labour ones have all come out. As soon as Blair got in, if you came out as lesbian or gay you immediately got a job. It was wonderful.
“You just knew the Tory party was riddled with it like everywhere else is.”
Joyce is alleged to have punched Stuart Andrew MP – the ‘darling of Pink News’.
A spokesman from the Metropolitan Police said: “We were called at about 10.50pm to reports of a disturbance at a bar at the House of Commons.
“A man in his 50s was arrested and was taken to a central London police station.”
Girls, girls, it’s all so unseemly…
UPDATE: Eric Joyce has now been suspended from the Labour Party ‘pending the outcome of the investigation’ – what did he expect? It’s one thing punching voters (pace Prescott) but punching gays? Noooo!
UPDATE UPDATE: The ranks of Not Currently Labour in Parliament have now overtaken the Green, as Eric Joyce joins DenisMacShane on the back row.
SBML is the landlord of the Raccoon Arms. He lives North of Watford and has an eclictic range of interests from Science and Technology to Politics including Woodwork and Genealogy. His political viewpoint has evolved from being a student demonstrator to more liberal views and has now seen the light in Libertarianism.
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Full of Tories? Don’t be ridiculous. Even the Conservative Party has hardly any Tories in it. They don’t let their sort in.
This!!
Soundz about right more rotten watermelons, green on the outside and gungy brown on the inside ugh!
As ever, Ken Livingstone is wrong, Not all the Labour gays have yet come out……no names, no pack-drill……
Was this a bitch-slap, then? I had no idea…
Amm frae Glesgie, aye yeconye, hae huwan wi thu heed.
Headbutted someone? Had he left his handbag in the Commons Chamber, then?
There is a considerable amount of unacknowledged ‘banditry’ in all walks of life… a reflection on society as a whole. Think, however, how far we have come in 40 years or so, look back to when homosexuality or lesbianism was shunned, its adherents forced to act in secret.
For good or ill people of that persuasion can now ‘come out’ and it not (IN THEORY) destroy their career.
Having said that, it is also true that a great many of the ‘great and good’ still attempt to maintain a facade of ‘normality’, with alibi wives and families, or with secret boyfriends, masquerading as landlords. Very sad that it should still be necessary.
So long as they don’t make it compulsory… a laissez-faire attitude is the way forward.
See how they love one another…
Bercow is getting all prissy about it now. And in another incident MEP for West Midlands Nikki Sinclaire has been pulled in on a fraud investigation
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/9100203/MEP-Nikki-Sinclaire-arrested-in-expenses-probe.html
They are going down like flies!
“They are going down like flies!”
It was probably the flies going down in the first place that caused this…..allegedly.
Very astute comment, well done.
Strangers in the night, exchanging glances.
Wondering in the night, what were the chances.
They’d be sharing a Glasgie kiss, before the night was through…
@Saul: Excellent!
As more details emerge it ‘appears’ that the hon. gentleman has really ‘gone for it’ in a big way… body count currently allegedly at 4 MP’s, plus an alleged further incident, according to the news, at a ‘place of detention’ nearby…
IF true, there is surely no way back?
Reading up on Joyce, it appears that this chap has his snout in the expenses trough deeper than any other MP. He has, apparently, learned to breathe through his ears, to avoid the tireless necessity of having to remove his snout from said trough for long enough to breathe.
Clearly alcohol is responsible for this dramatic and disturbing rise in anti-social behavior by MP’s. The only reasonable course of action is to ban the sale and consumption of alcohol in bars in the Houses of Parliament.
I hear the Prime Minster is calling a conference on the subject, no alcohol on sale within three miles of Westminster, and then only in plastic cups. This sickening display of violence and homophobia must be stopped in its tracks, we have an international reputation to think of. The terraces of the House of Commons must be cleaned up and made safe for children, etc, etc, ad nauseum…..
Camerclown will use this an excuse to add the extra tax on alcohol
Just abolishing the taxpayer subsidy of alcoholic beverages within the Westminster estate would be a splendid start.
A decent person will not attack others regardless of how tanked up they are. All the booze does is amplify a scum’s unpleasant character.
Yes, I also experienced a momentary fantasy in which I wondered whether this was another stage in the endless softening-up process leading to increased prices for alcoholic drinks. But then I thought that, if so, Mr Joyce (assuming the allegations are proved) must have exerted an astonishing degree of self-sacrifice – and superseding party politics as well.
Nausea is feminine, Anna..although nowadays my pointing it out will be misconstrued one way or another by some group or another…bless you!
Would it help to say that this knowledge was beaten into me as a young lad?
As the sordid details emerge, the whole story is becoming worthy of Thackeray. When my late father first saw Mr. Joyce on the TV, (Joyce had been gobbing off about how elitist the Army was) he simply groaned; “Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong…”
I do hope the “right-on” brigade within the Met will assert themselves.
Then we could expect, a charge of hate crime against homosexuals, a demand for CCTV surveillance outside the pub, a severe reprimand for the publican-Bercow the dwarf, maybe even extending to charges of running a common bawdy-house. Though I rather doubt it.
I dunno;- Bercow consorts with a self-confessed slapper (allegedly) – orc am I not allowed to say that?
You just have!
Apparently Joyce ‘flipped’…………and there I was thinking that measures had been taken to stop MPs from flipping.
I reckon “our Ken” is a very clever man…
He said some things that on the face of it look a bit anti-gay, yet we know from his history that this is just not so…
With an election coming up, perhaps he is ingratiating himself with a huge swathe of the London population that are phobic on some level… No names… no pack drill…
“I am not homophobic, but if you are… You can still vote for me.”
Me… I’m Ken o phobic… The man is a disaster.