This guy sounds a charmer. Mr Chope

Ah yes, the one who blocked the "upskirting" bill.

He says he's doing it 'on principle' because he doesn't think laws should be made without a debate in Parliament. Which is odd, because they can be debated and passed through the same stages as any other bill. Though it is rare.

Yet he is not averse to presenting his own Private Members bills and supporting others

twitter.com/dlsgibson/status/1093888454340108288

Just appalling - if there is a cause everyone, irrespective of party, could get behind- it is this one

I do not think that his age is relevant to the argument. It is a classic example of Ageism - he is over 70, what do you expect from an old man like that, too old to be an MP.

He has a long record as a fully paid up member of the awkward squad, nonentities have to do things like this to get anyone to pay any attention to them.

His latest 'success' is in blocking a bill being put forward by Zac Goldsmith that would have added opposition to Female genital Mutilation to the Children Act.
Absolutely shocking behaviour.
This man needs the whip withdrawn, or whatever Theresa May is able to do to put a stop to his dreadful behaviour. He is the MP for Christchurch

Totally disgusting behaviour. Age is irrelevant he is an abomination. Girls are being cut indiscriminately and it needs to be stopped.

I might add that I am opposed to male circumcision performed on babies also.

I doubt the party will do anything about this sorry excuse for a human being who wouldn’t know a principle if it bit him on his nose. Although I can think of a better place I’d like him to be bitten.

well said M0nica

Eurgh
Chris Chope was I think our MP when we lived in Richmond. Couldn’t stand him then and he has done nothing to make me change my mind!

Oops, just checked, it was Anthony Royce a comparable sleazebag.

As just one voice of dissent means the end of debate, perhaps it gives him a weird sense of power that he can stifle further discussion on these crucial issues. I don't think age means a person has lost their powers of reasoning (I would say that at 76!) but he seems to be out of touch with reality. He's making a fool of himself and hopefully will be deselected.

Saw a photo of him in a newspaper - he had a horrible smirk on his face. He isn't doing this for any "principle". We can only hope his local party call for him to be deselected.

The blocking of the upskirting bill was only temporary. Whatever it was he blocked is now enshrined in law.

I think it will be similar with the FGM case.

Blocking means that bills are stopped, by people like Chope, from passing swiftly through parliament without having allotted debating time. A bill that's blocked can then get some debating time and be passed after a vote on that, so I don't think the strengthening of the FGM law that he blocked yesterday will be very long lived.

Besides which, FGM is already illegal. The problem is how few prosecutions there have been.

It’s simply not true what you posted Baggs - PMB do have adequate debating time and CC is perfectly happy to be involved in PMB and not object when it suits him and other self entitled hypocrites. If he really cared about the issue, he’d be leading a proper campaign rather than posturing from the back benches. He’s a real second sorry third rater who we’ve only heard of because of this -a complete waste of space.

So Baggs you ate saying this man is governed by higher principles and not just being an awkward so-and-so?

To be clear, I do think that PMB process needs reforming but limited debating time at the second stage is the least of their problems. There is debate at the report stage anyway and the Govt can grant extra time anytime they want - and at the moment there’s a lot of ‘dead’ debating time. Committee scrutiny is what really matters most of all anyway - most HofC debates are conducted with a very small number of MPs present and the real work of Parliament is carried out in Committees of all kinds. Off topic I remember the introduction of Select Committees which I still believe was one of the best democratic parliamentary reforms ever to come about and transformed the relationship between Parliament and Government. But the main point is that CC does not give a flying fig about anything except himself.

Anja where was your tongue when you were posting?

Where it usually is on this forum maryeliza

So Baggs you ate saying this man is governed by higher principles and not just being an awkward so-and-so?

No, that's not what I'm saying. That's what you've decided I'm saying, à la Cathy Newman (reference her 'interview' of Jordan Peterson in which she kept saying: "So you're saying..." when he wasn't saying what she said he was saying at all).

No, I think Chope is just using a common parliamentary device, that probably won't be damaging in the long run, for reasons that I don't understand. Someone up thread suggested it's a power trip or some such for him. I don't actually care why he's doing it. What I care about is that he can't stop good laws from being made by using this blocking device. AND THAT'S WHAT I SAID, I think you'll find. I did not mention the blocker's motivation at all.

Baggs, I fear the reason he's using a parliamentary device is simply because he can. He's a self interested, self entitled right winger whose objections seem largely focussed on things most of us would support like - opposition to up skirting, gay rights and now the inclusion of FGM in a section of the Children Act.
Yes we know its already illegal but there will be good reason to specifically include it in the Act that is used to protect children. He claims he shouts Object, to ensure bills are given a proper reading. I don't believe his motivation is anything other than self promotion.

He is only able to do what he does (inconsistently!!) because Parliamentary rules allow it! The rules are the real issue; his irritating use of them is not the key point!

If he is objecting "on principle" why does he not object to every Bill?

I'm not sure the rules are the real issue. There might be occasions—I'm sure there have been historically or why would this rule be there at all?—when a way of blocking new legislation from being passed on a Friday is actually useful.

Baggs, I fear the reason he's using a parliamentary device is simply because he can

Yep. That sounds likely but that's still not what I care about, which is why I didn't mention it. So long as the stuff about FGM still can be added to the Children Act, which I think it can, I don't feel the need to analyse some awkward blighter's motives. And I don't feel the need to ratchet up a Twitter-style mob to have him hung, drawn and quartered (yes, that's an exaggeration, obviously) but many of the commenters on this thread do seem to be more interested in tearing the man apart than with accepting, with some degree of irritation, that a removable blockage has been put in the road of the proposed legislation.

He is not the only one wasting parliamentary time, although probably the worst. My MP this week asked a question totally relating to our local council and which no one else in the H of C would have been even slightly interested.