Mr Neil Hamilton: Then—this is the important sentence— 'I'm not sure I would fancy popping in for a quick one at the local if I saw her pulling pints at the bar.' [Interruption.] I wish Members would listen. I am trying to make a—[Interruption.] I know that Members do not want to listen—
Mr Neil Hamilton: —to listen to things that you don't want to hear.
Mr Neil Hamilton: No, I can't, Deputy Presiding Officer—
Mr Neil Hamilton: —because I've been enduring interruptions that have interrupted the flow of what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to make a serious point about the meaning of this term, 'a quick one at the local'. Mr Bain—
Mr Neil Hamilton: Mr Bain claimed that that was a sexist remark. 'Popping in for a quick one at the local' to me—
Mr Neil Hamilton: 'Popping in for a quick one' means to almost anybody, I would have thought—
Mr Neil Hamilton: —popping in for a drink.
Mr Neil Hamilton: I did a quick search on the internet—
Mr Neil Hamilton: I couldn't find a single—[Interruption.]
Mr Neil Hamilton: The Cambridge English Dictionary says 'have a quick one' means 'to have a drink, usually an alcoholic drink, just before going somewhere'. There is no—
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I'm sorry that I'm being silenced in this serious matter—
Mr Neil Hamilton: —which affects the freedom of speech of Members of this place—
Mr Neil Hamilton: You'll have heard the attempts of Members here to silence this speech and to interrupt it.
Mr Neil Hamilton: Hardly a day passes in this place when UKIP Members are not belittled or offended by some of the remarks that other Members of this house—[Interruption.] I believe that in a free society members of a democratic assembly should be prepared to put up with criticism and, indeed, sometimes being belittled and offended. That is part and parcel of it, and Joyce Watson—
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, there was nothing new in the statement today, but I still welcome the opportunity to debate this issue, because it does point out the utter absurdity of the Labour Party's position on the deal that it wants with the EU, encapsulated in one sentence of the statement, which says that they want 'A compromise which at the bare minimum needs to involve a commitment to a permanent Customs...
Mr Neil Hamilton: I acknowledge the Minister's best intentions and her openmindedness and her willingness to consider doing things that are politically difficult for her in her party and her general willingness to engage with farmers and the farming community generally on this hugely difficult issue. But, despite all that and 18 months after the launch of the refreshed eradication programme, it's clear that...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Diolch, Llywydd. The Minister will know that in the years 2017-18, 100,000 ophthalmology patients' appointments were cancelled, often at very short notice, and that figure was a rise of 5.5 per cent on two years before. Those who have been waiting for twice as long as they should for a follow-up appointment were 35,000 in December 2018, up from 15,000 in April 2015. The latest figures that I...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, better late than never, I certainly acknowledge that, but there is still a very long way to go. The Minister will know that the Public Accounts Committee has been taking an interest in this area, and recently we took evidence form Aneurin Bevan health board, which noted the need for improvement on its current 62 per cent performance of risk 1 patients being seen by the target date or...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I hope I can cheer everybody up with my little speech because the motion starts with one of the most spectacularly silly statements you could imagine: that the world's scientific community says that there are just 12 years left to prevent 1.5 degrees of warming. I'm old enough to remember the invention of the environment as a political issue at the end of the 1960s, and indeed the very...
Mr Neil Hamilton: Well, I've only got four minutes, so I don't think I can, thank you. In the same conference, Paul Ehrlich, a renowned doomster on population, said that between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the great die-off, and 50 years later, he's still at it. In The Guardian on 22 March this year, he's now saying, 'A shattering collapse of...
