House Of Commons Debate On International Men's Day

Mike Buchanan: Because International Men's Day (19 November) fell on a Saturday this year [2016], this debate - the first such debate to be held in the main chamber of the House of Commons, rather than the nearby Westminster Hall, the venue in 2015 - was held on Thursday, 17 November. I enjoyed watching the debate from the public gallery, with a number of supporters. - The debate was introduced by Philip Davies (C, Shipley), one of only two MPs to speak out publicly on men's and boys' issues. The other is Karl McCartney (C, Lincoln) who didn't attend this debate.

Philip Davies did very well in a hostile climate, with feminist Labour and SNP MPs - some of them men - doing all they could to derail the debate.

The female Deputy Speaker was in place for this debate and the preceding one. The IMD debate was scheduled for 14:30 - 17:00, two and a half hours. She permitted feminists to filibuster for over an hour at the end of the preceding debate, reducing the time available for the IMD debate from 150 to only 83 minutes, by not extending the debate beyond 17:00.

Attendance on the government benches (in particular) was woeful. By their absence, the overwhelming majority of MPs - of all parties, male and female - showed utter contempt for 48% of their voters.

A commentary on key contributions to the debate (with timings) is here:

https://j4mb.files.wordpress.com/2016...

A particularly woeful contribution was made by Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (SNP, Ochil and South Perthshire), 51:33 - 1:00:37. Another was by Paula Sherriff (L, Dewsbury), the Shadow MInister for Women and Equalities 1:00:38 - 1:11:03 who in the space of just 164 seconds 1:08:29 - 1:11:03 made herself a strong contender for our Whiny / Gormless / Lying / Toxic Feminist of the Month awards.