It’s easy to make cheap cracks about how stupid MPs are. The problem is that many of them seem determined to do nothing at all to counter this impression. Indeed, they often seem keen to reinforce it.
David Tredinnick (Con, Bosworth) is a particularly good example. He is a proponent of “complementary and alternative” medicine. This, of course, marks him out immediately as someone whose pronouncements on pretty much anything should be viewed with deep suspicion, but he likes to emphasise his idiocy by proposing Early Day Motions in support of homeopathy.
And it hasn’t taken him long to stamp his brand of stupidity over the new parliamentary session. On Monday of this week he proposed four EDMs about homeopathy.
- BMA Annual Representative Meeting Motions On Homeopathy
- Effect Of Homeopathic Remedies On Breast Cancer Cells
- Homeopathic Medicines In The Treatment Of Moderate To Severe Depression
- Homeopathy And Chronic Primary Insomnia
Each of these proposals is, of course, complete nonsense. They could only be written by someone with no understanding of science. If your MP is one of the (currently quite small) number of MPs who have signed these motions then I feel really sorry for you as your MP is obviously not quite as bright as you would no doubt want them to be.
There is, however, a brighter side to this. The new Lib Dem MP for Cambridge is Julian Huppert and he is obviously determined to continue the excellent work done in parliament by Evan Harris and he has proposed amendments to these motions which basically rip out the guts from the original motions and replace them with common sense (completely reversing the meaning of the motions in the process).They are 284A1, 285A1, 286A1 and 287A1.
I’ve written to my MP asking her to sign the amendments. I recommend that you do the same. Tell them that signing Tredinnick’s original motions will lead to people they don’t have the intelligence to do the job they were elected to do.