Looking for work in Bolton? You should try Nissan in Sunderland, suggests Tory minister Chloe Smith

You can see her thought process, to be fair. Bolton is in the North. Sunderland is in The North. They must be fairly close to each other, surely?

(I particularly like the bit where they figure out that if you commuted the same distance from her constituency, you'd probably end up in another country).

Jon

Sometimes, just sometimes, I wonder what planet government MPs live on.

The Tories in particular are terrible for their knowledge of the regions - be it the North (including Scotland), Wales or even the South West.

What is the problem? You can just claim back the first class train travel on expenses, surely?

Berk.

I believe that sums him up nicely.

Him? Has Chloe Smith had a sex change? We should be told!

Typo

I've had shorter daily commutes, although it gets to you after 6 months or so. The longest duration commute was Southampton to Cardiff (18 months).

At one point I was commuting from Birmingham to Reading, 2 hours each way (if I was lucky)

I had to leave at 8 to get in for 10, it was pretty brutal to say the least but I got to know the M40 very well

In her defense... she may have misread Bolton as Boldon, Boldon is a stones throw from Sunderland (closer to the Nissan factory in fact than Sunderland itself down the A19)

I'm sorry. I don't think anyone should be allowed to defend a Tory minister in public.

Eh? 140 miles is less than 130 miles? Am I reading that correctly?

I thought that.

Still, stupid cow.

I think this is sadly rather unlikely. It was a question in the house not a written question, so she would have misheard it rather than misread it. She would have heard it twice from two different people - David Crausby is an MP for Bolton, and would have been announced as such by the speaker called to propose the question. Then Crausby himself mentioned the place name in his question. So it's unlikely she'd have misheard both.

Secondly, your explanation requires Chloe Smith to know that Bolden exists. As oppose to Bolton. I don't know which is bigger in fact but I think I could make a fair argument that Bolton probably has a higher profile than Bolden, although neither is particularly famous.

No, I think it's pretty simple - she heard the news that Nissan were taking on workers in Sunderland and didn't have much of a clue where either Bolton or Sunderland actually are, so she took a gamble that she could use some good news to head off a tricky question (the actual question is about how the ConDems have changed the rules so a lot of part time workers no longer qualify for certain benefits, and the constituent who had asked Crausby to table the question stands to lose fair chunk of money over it) and it rather backfired.

It's ignorance rather than malice. However this government seems to be very well stocked with ignorance, and it's not helping their public image at all.

Jon

I didn't say it was likely, I said it was an option