Welsh Tories work hardest in Westminster
Saturday, February 17, 2007

Theyworkforyou.com has had to tone down a bit in recent times because people were taking their rankings of politicians a little too seriously. And who could blame them when an MP could simply be labelled '404th for attendance' or '175th for lifting the toilet seat'?

Now, they only bracket politicians' performance in relation to the average for any given statistic. They're also careful to point out that "numbers do not measure quality... representatives may do other things not currently covered by this site."

Maybe so, but the numbers on the site are surely a measure of something. The fact that an MP, such as Blaenau Gwent's Dai Davies, has only spoken in one debate cannot have his constituents jumping for joy. And there's also the question of consistency: why is it that some MPs perform well across the board while others score poorly for everything?

With that in mind, I've translated some of the website's statistics into a score for each Westminster MP representing a Welsh constituency. Average gives a neutral score, with points added or subtracted for positive or negative tendencies.

And the winners are... the Tories! The two highest scoring MPs are both blue: David Jones (Clwyd West) and Stephen Crabb (Preseli) each with five points. The Tories also had the highest average score of 3.7.

Labour fared worst, with an average of -0.4. Although there were four MPs on four points, they were let down by a clutch in the low minuses. John Smith (Vale of Glamorgan) came bottom of the pile, having voted in barely half of parliamentary votes in the last year.

It may, of course, be the case that these politcians are unusually active in their constituency. Still, in terms of attendance to votes in particular, constituents have the right to expect that their member of parliament will be bothered to turn up to vote on their behalf, especially now that we know how generously we provide travel expenses for them to do so.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:10 pm,

4 Comments:

At 4:41 pm, Blogger Ian James Johnson said...

Some very interesting statistics there, especially about John Smith.

Is there an Assembly version of the website anywhere? That would make interesting reading.

 
At 6:53 pm, Blogger Blamerbell said...

No, but someone should invent one.

I think it looks apalling on occasions such as Tuesday, where Carwyn Jones was answering questions with scores of empty chairs behind him. They only have to turn up twice a week for a couple of hours!

 
At 8:46 am, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Which just goes to show what a waste of space the Assembly is!

 
At 11:20 pm, Blogger Welsh Spin said...

I feel a freedom of information request coming on ...

To WAG: "to list the number of Assembly Questions answered to each Assembly Member over the last 12 months for which figures are available?"

To APS: "to list the number of Assembly Questions tabled by each Assembly Member over the last 12 months for which figures are available?"

Go on BB, bung it in!

 

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