A Few Preliminary Words
I have blogged in the past about a few MPs in the present House of Commons who stand out even in that —at best— mediocre ensemble for their stupidity, deadheadedness and general uselessness. My most recent targets have been Kate Osamor MP and Fiona Onasanya MP. I move now to examine Scott Mann, Conservative Party MP for North Cornwall.
Scott Mann has made so little impact in Parliament since he was elected in 2015 that I was entirely unaware of his existence until today, despite the fact that, in the years 2002-2004, I myself lived in the North Cornwall constituency and had a lease of one of the largest country houses there [seen below in a 1940s photograph]
The North Cornwall Constituency
The constituency is largely rural, though it contains some fairly small towns (Launceston, Bude, Wadebridge, Padstow); it has a significant, mostly coastal, tourist industry. It was held by the Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2015. The national collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote in 2015, which continued in 2017, was reflected in North Cornwall. The Conservative, Mann, increased his vote share from 45% in 2015 to 50.7% in 2017. It can now be considered a safe Conservative seat.
Scott Mann
I am not someone who is biased against those who drop out of school or education; after all, I myself did! (and then had to do it all myself later). There are several possible reasons (apart from sheer lack of ability) why someone gets a university degree late or (as in Mann’s case) not at all (and in any case the “degree” label is so devalued these days anyway), but Mann’s background, like those of so many MPs now, does not inspire confidence.
Mann was educated locally before becoming a postman, working out of the sorting office in Wadebridge (Cornwall), the town in which he had been both born and brought up.
In 2007, Mann was elected as a county councillor. In 2016, he resigned after having been criticized for poor attendance. He remained a postman until he became an MP.
Mann employs his girlfriend as “part-time secretary” via Parliamentary expenses (she gets about £30,000 a year for a part-time job). Apparently, they do not live together. He also claims, or has done, for other personal items, such as Amazon Prime [see Notes, below], and for his London accommodation. Well, after all, he lived for years on a modest Royal Mail pay-packet, and the opportunities to make hay, as a county councillor, are far more limited than those open to an MP.
Now Mann has come to public attention as the idiot who says that all knives should be fitted with GPS (!) and that anyone carrying one should be severely punished unless hunting, fishing or shooting! P.G. Wodehouse meets Common Purpose? I have some sympathy with the tweeters who asked “how are you even an MP?”
“Scott Mann admitted his idea was “s—“, but added: “ultimately we do have a problem, and no one’s coming up with any solutions, we need to sort it out.”” [Daily Telegraph]
I fear that the answer to the above question (as to how this idiot ever became an MP) is the same as applies to all other “deadhead” MPs (and they are many) in the Westminster monkeyhouse: they get through a selection procedure which is often a joke, or rigged, then get “elected” in circumstances where only one candidate (sometimes two, very occasionally three) has a realistic chance, because of FPTP voting, dominated by 2 or 3 System parties.
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Mann_(politician)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Cornwall_(UK_Parliament_constituency)
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/150608/mann_scott.htm
https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/25383/scott_mann/north_cornwall
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-47572133
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/03/14/mp-mocked-suggesting-knives-should-fitted-gps-trackers/
The tweet that exposed Scott Mann MP as a deadhead…
The twitterati respond…
Update, 4 December 2019
Unusually, especially for a Cornishman (I would suppose anyway), Mann cannot swim. He nearly drowned in 2016 and had to be saved by fellow-MP Johnny Mercer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mercer_(politician)#Personal_life
Update, 26 February 2020
The General Election 2019 confirmed Mann as MP for North Cornwall. In fact, Mann received the votes of no less than 59.4% of those who bothered to vote, the largest winning percentage in the history of the constituency if one leaves out the unopposed victories of Liberals in 1918 and 1923.
In 2019, Mann managed to more than double his 2017 majority to 14,752; he also doubled his majority in percentage terms. Interestingly, the LibDem candidate’s percentage share (30.8%) fell not only compared to 2017 (36.6%) but even as compared to 2015 (31.2%). Another sign that the LibDems are on the way out even in former strongholds.
Update, 2 March 2020
In February 2020, Mann was appointed PPS to Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education (formerly —and risibly— Secretary of State for Defence), who himself has featured in these pages as a “Deadhead MP”: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2019/05/02/deadhead-mps-an-occasional-series-the-gavin-williamson-story/
Ian Robert Millard 
Likewise, I had never heard of him until your article! Even worse than Cameron’s “hug a hoodie” or Blair’s “marching drunks to pay fines – via a cashpoint” lol!
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There are so many MPs now who are not even mediocre, but rock-bottom in IQ, culture, background, everything!
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If this cretin isn’t a good reason to get rid of the archaic and patently grotesquely unfair FPTP electoral system then I frankly wonder what one would be! Mind you, perhaps I should not say this as I advocate Britain adopt my (by far) favourite system of Mixed-Member Proportional Representation as the Germans use: https//en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_system_of_Germany https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_representation
https://deutschlandwahlkarte2017.morgenpost.de
In that system, every elector would have two votes ie one for a constituency MP using the FPTP system as we have BUT they would also have another which they would cast for their favourite party on a regional list and one of the beauties of this version of PR is that you can ‘ticket split’ thereby using your two votes in different ways so you could use your candidate vote to either endorse your local MP if he or she was a hardworking and conscientious/intelligent MP/candidate or, as in this case, vote against him/her if that person was stupid/utterly useless WHILST having your second vote to show support for that candidate’s party. In this way, Germany’s constituency FPTP MPs have more reason than our MPs do, even in the ‘safe’ seats, to be conscientious representatives for their seats and make intelligent contributions to the national debate as they are mor likely to be elected by true personal votes rather than just ensuring they get enough support from people only supporting them for wearing the right colour of rosette.
https//www.makevotesmatter.org.uk
https://twitter.com//MakeVotesMatter
Yes, there are some complete deadbeats in parliament and the situation is getting worse. Even as recently as the 1980’s there were relatively few complete morons and you still had a reasonable number of intelligent members like John Redwood, Bill Cash etc. The Tory benches of today are filled with Third raters like Scott Mann, dodgy ‘Arthur Daley’ types etc not like in decades past when the Tory seats in Parliament would have had military officers, previous owners of major businesses etc on them!
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That is true, as I have blogged and also tweeted (before I was barred from Twitter in our “free” country) in the past. The Conservative Party MPs in the past may not have been exactly great minds, but most were at least solid: landowners, ex-officers, business and/or legal types, ex-diplomats. Now you have (where to start?) many who are just idiots and/or unsuitable from every point of view. Look at Justin Tomlinson MP: only previous employment (bar a fake business set up to pad out his CV) managing a nightclub called “Eros” in Swindon! Or useless Karl McCartney, though he was chucked out after 7 years at the 2017 General Election. One “Conservative Friend of Israel” who will be unable to sleep on the green benches in future! There are so many now (in both System parties; I ignore the LibDems— they are finished, imo)
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What is your “opinion” on Damien Collins who seems obsessed with regulating social media etc?
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Another one of whom I know little. Just read a little about him: PR/advertizing bod:
“In September 2012, he came under criticism for suggesting that jobless youths should work for less than minimum wage and for suggesting that they should busk to raise money for fares to find work” [Wikipedia]. Sounds like another idiot, albeit possibly more educated than some…
An expenses blodger too:
“In 2010, it was reported that Collins claimed £4,440.90 over three months in rent for a house in London, despite declaring that he already owned a home in the capital. In his defence, he said the property belonged to his wife and was “too small to provide accommodation for my young family, and even if that was not the case, as a new Member of Parliament I wouldn’t be able to claim any accommodation allowance against the mortgage on the property.” [Wikipedia]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damian_Collins
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With regard to the general point about idiots in the House of Commons, I have to mention my new Tory MP in Brentwood and Ongar, Mr Alex Burghart, who I saw on tv in parliament making some stupid remarks about ‘honouring’ the result of the EU referendum by voting for Mayhem’s so-called EU withdrawal bill in January which would clearly make us into an effective colony of Brussels. He is so painfully dim I almost feel sorry for him but as my seat is the tenth safest Tory seat in the country (just one place below Teresa May’s Maidenhead) and he is sitting on a vast majority of 24,002 he has got virtually no chance of ever losing it!
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his wife sounds more interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermione_Eyre
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/14/mary-rose-crew-might-have-included-sailors-african-heritage. Talk about a “damp” squib of an article lol! It seems the propaganda never ceases!
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The Mary Rose had a normal complement of over 400, which might have risen to over 450: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Rose#Crew
This “report” says that, of this complement of 400-500, that TWO *might* have been from Morocco, or Turkey or Southern Europe. The Guardian then says that that (below half of 1%) means that “Tudor society was a melting pot of ethnic diversity”!
The two might have been (possibly only *partly*) from, eg, Southern France or Spain. Also, the fact that there *might* have been one or two foreign crew members on a ship bears no relationship to the make-up of the general society of 16thC England.
In other words, this is just more faked-up “multikulti” propaganda, like the “Cheddar Man” noise of a few years ago: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2161867-ancient-dark-skinned-briton-cheddar-man-find-may-not-be-true/
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Re. Damien Collins and Social Media – I notice the powers-that-be worldwide are jumping at the chance to “clampdown” on Internet freedom after the alleged massacre in NZ! https://news.sky.com/story/nz-terror-suspect-must-have-been-influenced-by-british-far-right-11667808
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Well, of course, this sort of thing is a propaganda gift to the System, i.e. to “them”, at root. There is gathering yet another ZOG storm about how the “far right”, ie social nationalists, somehow “caused” the New Zealand attack.
We can expect even greater repression now, in support of squashing down any resistance to “the Great Replacement” of white people in the Europe which is their natural homeland.
I saw one of the “me too” followers of the Zionist cabal on Twitter, a seemingly mentally-disturbed NHS psychiatrist who has mentioned me in the past, wringing his hands about the innocent victims etc, yet in another tweet saying that Hiroshima was justified. Why? Because it saved thousands of American *soldiers’* lives (at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives of Jap *civilians*)? In other words, that Hiroshima was “justified” because the *innocent* (assuming that anyone is “innocent”) lives lost were collateral damage in a war which, perceivedly, “had to be” won. The same logic as that of the New Zealand shooter…
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Re. Social media and free speech etc – another hysterical article concerning the “threat” of the Far Right as they call it! https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/16/rise-far-right-online-forums-anti-muslim-hate-wave?CMP=share_btn_tw
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Britain is —-quite fast now— becoming a police state, by which I mean a kind of “police/MI5/’welfare’ state” hybrid. The old “it’s a free country” and “free speech” society that we of the “older generation” remember has almost disappeared. A “multicultural” society *has* to be a police state, because only force can keep its disparate elements together (shackled together). You can see, eg in that Guardian report, that there is no longer even a figleaf of “prevention of crime” or “terrorism” but an outright wish to snoop on and if possible to repress people engaged in completely *lawful* activity which the ZOG or System regards as “extreme”.
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Disclosure: I was at school with Scott from the age of 4 to 16. I am potentially more charitable to him than he deserves because his mother was such an amazingly giving person who enriched the lives of a generation of children in the town through her community involvement.
The points you raise about his IQ are very valid and call into question not only the means of selecting those who represent us but also how the best and brightest could be incentivised to serve instead of him.
What really galls me about Scott is the cruelty he exhibits in voting along with his masters that doesn’t take into account the unusual needs of the electorate of Cornwall. It shouldn’t have escaped his awareness as a postman that some areas are more than 70% holiday homes. It may be beyond him to understand the effects of this community segregation on jobs and local services.
I think he would be *brave enough to stand up to central office – if he understood the problems in the region he represents.
When I spoke to him about Brexit I explained the situation that my Swedish wife would never again be able to live in the same country as my father any longer. His suggestion was that we would have no problem because we could afford the paperwork. I did not ask what his family think of his “I’m alright, Jack” Tory attitude.
His comprehension is as low now as it was in junior school.
His compassion seems to have been lost in the post.
*brave enough or stupid enough. He did jump in the sea despite not being able to swim..
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Guy:
Thank you for your contribution.
As you imply, the problem goes beyond Scott Mann (and as my blog post says, I was unaware of his existence until his “put GPS devices into all knives” silliness). The core problem lies in the main or System party organizations, the way they select candidates, the way in which better candidates are either not selected or are not even on the list as potential MPs. The Conservative Party tried to correct that by introducing “primaries” in some seats. Not entirely satisfactory either.
The problem of MPs who are even below mediocre is one which has become very obvious (and worsening) in recent years.
As you also say, there are structural issues in Cornwall particularly. Low pay generally, but (by reason of holiday homes and retirees) house prices which, though not as high as further east, are still quite expensive. When I lived there, I did not own the house in which I lived (the value of which, inc. land, would have been at least £2.5M even in 2002-2005).
Those sort of issues have long been prevalent in Cornwall. You may be too young to recall Selective Employment Tax, which was an attempt to support certain industries, and which affected Cornwall a great deal in the early 1970s.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Employment_Tax
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