Bishop Hill Foe Yeo must go
Nov 30, 2013 Climate: Parliament 
There were no doubt scenes of wild revelry in South Suffolk last night with the news that the local Conservative Association has decided that they do not want Tim Yeo to be their MP any longer.
A statement from the association, issued last night, said: “The executive council of the South Suffolk Conservative Association met on the evening of Friday, November 29 and voted not to re-adopt Tim Yeo for the 2015 general election.
“Mr Yeo is now considering his position and will advise the executive council of his intended course of action.”
Of course he remains an MP and, despite having been recorded telling a lobbyist that he had coached a parliamentary witness, he remains the chairman of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, after constructing some doubt for the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner to give him the benefit of.
And of course, with a past as (ahem) colourful as his, Yeo is probably in prime position to be elevated to the House of Lords. We wait expectantly.
Bishop Hill
David Rose notes that Yeo has made something like £400,000 from his green directorships since 2009. Amazing that people would pay so much money to the mere chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee.
Reader Comments (53)
Shiver my timbers, shiver my soul, Yeo oh heave ho...
PM
The people cheering wildly in that scene look remarkably like those members of the Royal Society in the other picture here - but that can't be, can it?
Excellent news.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving person.
These people give decent honest criminals a bad name.
Looking forward to what Jimmy Delingpole will have to say about this
Yeo has no doubt got a few big troughs lined up for when he goes. Probably a knight-hood and lots of consultancy work, if not an EU sinecure. After all, with his qualifications in the field of power engineering, he will be in demand by thousands of renewable energy companies, who need somebody with engineering training and experience. If Huhne with his engineering expertise can do it, so can Yeo. Two peas from the same pod, Yeo and Huhne, soon to be joined by Mr Potato with his engineering expertise.
Will it be Lord Yeo of Trough or could South Suffolk's loss be the EU's gain?
Cutting green crap has a wider definition than I first thought. Let us hope that other constituencies with a desire to win in 2015 are taking note.
Good point ssat. I too hadn't thought of cutting green crap as being applicable to people as well.
Yeo actually asked a question last week about his constituency in PMQs - this was obviously a last ditched attempt by this lamentable excuse for a public servant to save his bacon.
Shame John Gummer can't be deselected nor that a by-election can't be forced in South Suffolk. A vote every 5 years does not make for good democracy. There should be a provision whereby MPs can be recalled.
He could become Lord Dobbin. He always was an ass. Then sit next to Lord Deben, the horses head.
First the Atlantic Array, now Yeo. Happy days!
There's a bizarre new theory just published hypothesing that human beings are a hybrid from a mating of a pig and a chimpanzee:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2515969/Humans-evolved-female-chimpanzee-mated-pig-Extraordinary-claim-American-geneticist.html
So it's possible that Yeo is just showing some atavistic traits. Makes me want to paraphrase Wilberforce's famous quote to Huxley but susbstituting pig for ape. Or from Animal Farm:
"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to MP, and from MP to pig, and from pig to MP again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Let's hope Gummer is the next to fall.
@stanj
The guy probably saw that episode of Black Mirror.
Good point by David Rose, yes, "Why would anyone pay the mere chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee some £400k over the past 4 years"?
Chaveratti,
John 'The Excrescence'* Gummer/Lord Deben is a life peer - he gets the job, we get the sentence.
*Thanks to Steve Bell, Guardian cartoonist
Matthu: "The people cheering wildly in that scene look remarkably like those members of the Royal Society in the other picture here - but that can't be, can it?"
Can't say, I'm afraid, it's secret.
@ stanj 10.48 am
This is Dr Eugene McCarthy's theory. Btw on his website
http://www.macroevolution.net/human-origins.html#.UpnPUCdZ2la
there is a very good quote from Feynman.
Do the people of South Suffolk not know that there are other ways of disposing of an incumbent MP other than waiting for their own Party to disown them?
Perhaps not, as this ignorance does seem prevalent around the country. Let us get the message out in words of one syllable: if you do not like your MP, and do not want them to be your voice in Parliament – DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM!
Simples.
johnbuk
That last sentence "Amazing that people would pay so much money to the mere chairman of the Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee" was written by the Bishop, I think, not by David Rose.
Good for the Constituency, they have more spine than Cameron, not a terribly difficult feat I know but credit where some is due. Bur how do we get shut of the rest of the troughers, there are a lot left. And Deben will be the most difficult. Our Honours System is indeed not fit for purpose.
The problem is that powerful organs of government, to wit the European Commission and House of Lords, are stuffed by patronage with politicians that have proved unpopular with electors - and usually conforming to the same mindset as Yeo and often with a tendency to venality.
Good riddance to a corrupt, venal philander.
One can only hope that he doesn't get a gong and keep his face firmly in the trough.
I suspect plain old Mr. Yeo would have as much chance as I of keeping his "green" directorships.
That's a fascinating site Arthur Peacock. I'm still reading it. One of the links leads to a spooky photograph. Whether it is still on-topic, I'll leave for the Bish to decide.
Be interesting to know the actual reasons for de-selecting him..!
But you're right, guys - he must be lining up directorships and EU sinecures even as we speak...
Arthur Peacock, I too am enjoying the link. From it here's a fine, almost Feynmanesque, quote :- "Anyone who speaks with certainty on this point speaks from prejudice, not knowledge."
Re the picture - I particularly would not like to meet on a dark night, the gentleman seated two to the right of the chap in the brown jacket waving his arms...
As a UKIP member and a South Suffolk constituent I look forward to seeing if the Conservatives are putting up a clone of Tim - all for renewables everywhere except in South Suffolk, and blatantly seeking renewables consultancy fees from anyone - or playing safe with a parachuted-in candidate, probably one of Dave's toadying favourites.
Either way, the issues of energy costs, windfarms, subsidies, pylons in sensitive rural areas, conflicts of political interest, lobbying, the need for sound climate science, and the repeal Climate Change Act, will all feature amongst the clutch of topics brought up in 2015.
MPs and government ministers should be prohibited from earning or accepting money from any source whilst an MP or minister. If they want to accept offers of money, board positions, consultancies etc etc then they must resign from being a minister or MP.
That way we would quickly be rid of the less committed people who are really only it for themselves and not fully committed to helping drive the UK forward and improve the lot of the people.
Here’s what makes Arthur Peacock’s chimp-pig crossbreed web page relevant: an invitation on the very first page to “read about some objections to the theory here”.
Now when did you ever read a sentence like that in a climate science article?
.... Mr Yeo is now considering his position
i.e. mulling over how best to maximise his financial gain in the absence of personal integrity.
Mr Peacock,
Some people are not going to be happy about this theory, especially if it turns out to be remotely plausible, the rest of us will just laugh about it.
Sons of pigs and monkeys?
Has anyone told the Islamists?
But what about platypus?
What if he runs as an independent? People are too stupid to be left to their own means! :)
Mailman
@Radical Rodent
Do the people of South Suffolk not know that there are other ways of disposing of an incumbent MP other than waiting for their own Party to disown them?
Perhaps not, as this ignorance does seem prevalent around the country. Let us get the message out in words of one syllable: if you do not like your MP, and do not want them to be your voice in Parliament – DO NOT VOTE FOR THEM!
Lamp posts are quicker....
There is a God.
Dodgy Geezer (Nov 30, 2013 at 4:12 PM):
More permanent, too, and a lot cheaper.
He will be in the Lords after the next election, no risk for him...
@ Phillip Bratby Nov 30, 2013 at 10:04 AM |
Yeo an engineer? I thought he read history or something like that.
In any case, I do not think renewable energy companies can use engineers, they need people of the cloth to strengthen the green belief. A proper engineer would dismantle the renewable energy companies if he/she had the chance.
Albert Stienstra: I should have added the sarc tag.
Spot William Hague!
pay attention all you other MPs who voted for the Climate Change Act !
So Cameron was pointing his finger at a photo montage of the current Tory MP's when he said "let's get rid of..all the "
- My MP was on the radio yesterday speaking very sensibly & he quickly replied when I sent him a question, instead of playing the greendream greed-dream game
- AUDIO direct link to start of segment
Martin:
MPs and government ministers should be prohibited from earning or accepting money from any source whilst an MP or minister.
And for thirty years after!
We have, I think the most despicable House of Commons since the Long Parliament of Cromwell's time
The pig and the chimpanzee had a 'secret session'.
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Well, gw, the military isn't locking out skeptics yet, probably because there are so few of them. Give it time.
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"No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to MP, and from MP to pig, and from pig to MP again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
Nov 30, 2013 at 10:48 AM | Unregistered Commenterstanj
[applause]
While I'm here, hello Steve. Might have known we both read the Bish.
JF
stan et al: Never has "snouts in the trough" meant more.