#UCFF's quick Tweet-style guide to MPs, being employees, and conduct when drunk, etc., etc.

#UCFF's quick Tweet-style guide to MPs asemployees, conduct when drunk, etc., etc.

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 November

#UCFF's quick Tweet-style guide to MPs, being employees, and conduct when drunk, etc., etc.

Michael Fabricant says MPs shouldn't be accused of things that happened "when everyone was sloshed". Ah the Kevin Spacey defence. #Newsnight

— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) October 30, 2017

MPs on high salaries / severance payments must accept general employment-law principles :https://t.co/bHWZsOWZuEhttps://t.co/KpBQGxm36y

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 2, 2017

Unlike genuine employees (or those in bogus self-employment), MPs fiddle their expenses, but do not get summary dismissal (gross misconduct)

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 1, 2017

It really isn't difficult - MPs pass law (as legislators), and some are part of the executive (Cabinet), but... :https://t.co/30k1Y8TuA4

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) November 1, 2017

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Am I celebrating Royal Assent for the Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013 ?

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 March (updated with Tweets, 2017)

Well, no...

Crediting @TimetoChange, an Act in 2013 won significant victory for the rights of those subject to #mh diagnoses :https://t.co/iR5pFbNqGo

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 6, 2017

Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013 may not be the shortest Act of Parliament, but...

It comprises 4 sectionshttps://t.co/ff80eqlbVs

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 6, 2017

By comparison Mental Health Act 2007 amended Mental Health Act 1983 :https://t.co/yxiVPjWeUg

2007 Act : 59 sections, 11 Schedules

QED ? https://t.co/LPgU2pM1di

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) January 6, 2017

Despite the mental-health charities waving flags, I do not think that it has changed very much - or in the right way - for most people, and this is why :

1. How many people will ever be a company director, and is just removing bars relating to mental health, without regard to safeguarding shareholders and those with whom the company may do business or interact, the right approach ? Limitations on being fit to act as a director that do not stereotype mental ill-health, but reflect the fact that it and many other criteria might make staying a director inappropriate, should have been considered.

2. Some can now serve on a jury, itself not an everyday calling (many enough are never asked), but - across the board - not someone on a Community Treatment Order. That is still wildly discriminatory.

3. Of the groundbreaking areas, being an MP is the thing anyone is least likely to do. Rather than just doing away with the previous law, the law should have been revised, so that an MP is as capable of carrying out parliamentary and constituency duties over time as a company director.


Three roles that affect almost no one in ordinary life, and this is a triumph ? No, it is just repealing legislation, rather than considering what should have been passed in its place ! It paves the way for no new and better legislation to deal with the real issue of discrimination in mental health in the slightest.


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