Wales on Sunday covered infamous Welsh political 'gaffes' today - but missed out the funniest one that I remember. And it also missed out the best bit of Lib Dem AM, Mick Bates giving the Presiding Officer 'the finger'. There wasn't much doubt in our minds but that Mick was expressing a negative view on one of the PO's judgements - but his official response was that he was explaining to Rhodri Glyn Thomas how to press his voting button !
But back to my old colleague AM, Peter Rogers, who featured in the gaffes list as a supporting actor in Rhodri Morgan's gaffe. Peter was reaching the sort of crescendo only he could when he overheard Rhodri saying "He is talking ball***s". Unfortunately the official record scribes overheard - even if Rhodri challenged the accuracy, claiming he'd said it was "talking ball***s time". Even more unfortunately Peter overheard and roared across the chamber "I am not talking ball***s First Minister."
But a week or so later Peter did even better. Again he was at full throttle, and laying into the environment movement in general, when he dismissed them as "The Green Willy Brigade". Took some of the ladies in the chamber a good while to recover. And then there was Dr Dai Lloyd telling the chamber that the drug, Viagra should not be dispensed 'willy-nilly'. Plenty more where they came from. I'm sure nothing like this happens now that the National Assembly has law making powers!
1 comment:
One of my favourite political gaffs relates to one mentioned in the WoS article, that of Rhodri Morgan arriving late to meet the Queen. A former AM commenting on the incident on his Welsh language blog left the y out of the Welsh word "hwyr" (late) rendering it as "hwr" (prostitute), so rather than condemning the FM for being late for Her Majesty inadvertently accused him of being the Queens Whore!
I wonder what became of that former AM?
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