From the BBC:
The prime minister told MPs Mr Adams had accepted a role as "Baron of the Manor of Northstead"... To laughter from MPs, he added: "I'm not sure that Gerry Adams will be delighted to be Baron of the Manor of Northstead. But nonetheless I'm pleased that tradition has been maintained."
However, a spokesperson for Sinn Fein said that Mr Adams' only communication with the House of Commons had been a letter of resignation to the speaker.
The most likely explanation is that they are both lying, of course, which still leaves us none the wiser...
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UPDATE 27 Jan: From the BBC:
House of Commons Speaker John Bercow has ruled that Gerry Adams has been disqualified from Parliament. Earlier, Downing Street had apologised to Mr Adams after the prime minister said he had accepted a Crown title...
Later on Wednesday, Mr Adams said that when he was told of Mr Cameron's remarks it was the first he had "heard of this development". In a statement he said the claim that he had accepted a crown title was "untrue" and that he had "simply resigned". "I am an Irish republican," he said, "I have had no truck whatsoever with these antiquated and quite bizarre aspects of the British parliamentary system."
A grim document
10 hours ago
5 comments:
Possibly the truth lies somewhere in between, in that Adams has been enrolled as Baron of the Manor of Northstead without his consent or knowledge by the parliamentary authorities and is a fait de complete as no other avenue exists to facilitate his resignation. May be wrong of course.
I thought that the Crown job in question was Steward of the Manor of Northstead...
"...no other avenue exists to facilitate his resignation."
But since he never took the oath of allegiance, he never actually became an MP. Which is why he has only ever been paid "expenses" and not the MPs salary. (Doubtless they were made equivalent though)
JohnW
Anti, that would be a typical foul British compromise.
P, well spotted. But I can't track it down in Hansard, so we don't know whose mistake it was.
Anon, that's another good sort of way of fudging our way out of it.
JH, that is the most reasonable assumption.
P, I saw it on BBC Parliament Channel just now, Dave definitely said "a Baron" and not "Steward". What a pompous f-ing twat that man is.
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