Largs & Millport Weekly News | Opinion | "House of Commons like a pub"

Tuesday, 7th October, 2008

Published: Wednesday, 18th June, 2008 12:00

"House of Commons like a pub" - Cochrane's Column

HELLO, faithful reader, I am back refreshed from grandparental duties in both Scotland and England but I did not neglect my journalistic job.

Despite being on holiday I was delighted to be a guest speaker at the 50th anniversary dinner of Largs Rotary Club in the Willowbank Hotel alongside local Labour MP Katy Clark.

In praising the work of Rotarians who have all but eliminated the disease of polio in the world Katy compared the Rotary club to her own ‘club’ in Westminster.

In an honest speech she could not hide her feminist tendencies by saying she was a member of one of the “most elitist clubs” - the House of Commons.

She said:”I am a member of a place which is rather bizarre. One of the strangest things is you feel as if you are in a pub all the time with male members breathing fumes all over you.”

Katy also revealed that when she put her name forward a few years ago to be Labour candidate for North Ayrshire the selection panel announced that they wanted “the best man for the job.”

For the rest of Cochrane's Column, see this week's Largs and Millport Weekly.