Laughter in The House
Created | Updated Jun 20, 2003
British politics can be dull. Let's face it, the only time that British politicians make the
headlines is usually for picking up young men in public toilets. But not so for John Spellar
the Defence Minister. On January 25th he was in most of the English, and a couple of the
International, daily newspapers.
So what did he do, this stalwart of the political system, this upstanding Member of Parliament?
He made a slip of the tongue, a small Freudian slip that still made sense within the sentence.
He was, at the time, being questioned about cuts in the budget for the defence medical
services. How could that possibly go wrong? Members of parliament are forever explaining away the cuts they deal with every day of their term. But to almost quote Mr. Spellar...
'We recognised that these cuts in defence medical services had
gone too far...'
The thing was, though, that Mr. Spellar added an unconscious 'n' in the word 'cuts'.
Who said that British Politicians were dull? This alone got a roar of laughter from both sides
of the House.
