Will our MP please shut up?

John Mann’s insatiable appetite for publicity and his need to comment on almost any news story (especially if he can use it attack the Lib Dems, however tangentially) have gone beyond making him a laughing stock and has become an embarrassment, both to himself & to Bassetlaw.

In The Daily Telegraph from Monday 20th October, there is a story “New brides who take husbands' surname discriminated against by 'sexist' Nick Clegg reforms“ which seems to be mostly made up of Mann’s attempts to find issues with the new individual electoral registration system being introduced this year.

Disregarding that it will help end the misuse of voter registration under the old system where the titular head of the house was responsible for registering all who lived there to vote (for some examples read this article from the Telegraph 2 years ago When did Britain become the kind of country that tolerates voting fraud?), John Mann has picked on one aspect of the change, the issue of how will women who change their name on marriage be able to stay on the electoral role. He ignores the fact that the same problem will face men who change their surname on marriage (as is happening more often in both “straight & gay marriages), that Transgender people or anyone else for that matter who changes their name for any reason will face that issue. It is because his daughter face this problem that he has declared (incorrectly) “After nearly ninety years of emancipation the right for a married woman to vote is being undermined” and ignored the fact that all those who change their name on marriage will stay on the register under their maiden name until they decide to get it changed.

One would think that the MP with the largest claim for staff & office expenses from all the MPs in the area would be able to organise better research in to the facts before shooting his mouth off but as with his utterances on Fracking (see Correspondence with John Mann on Fracking – Part 2) John Mann seems to spout first and bluster second.

I have heard that John Mann is referred to in some circles by a very uncharitable nicknmamr because of his willingness to appear on TV or in the press with a comment on almost any story, perhaps it is now time for him to be silent for a while and learn to get his facts straight before mouthing off again.