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Senior MP accuses 'hooligan' Cameron
A senior MP has accused David Cameron of behaving like a "hooligan" and turning the Commons into a "brawling house".
Labour's Barry Sheerman was speaking after the Conservative leader repeatedly referred to Gordon Brown as "you" during prime minister's question time in defiance of parliamentary convention.
Under Commons rules, MPs are only allowed to directly address Speaker Michael Martin and are forbidden to refer to each other as 'you'.
In an ePolitix.com podcast, the chairman of the education select committee said: "Can I just say, there was appalling behaviour by the leader of the Opposition today.
"He has been around in Parliament long enough to understand the rules of Parliament.
"He used the word 'you' shouting across the despatch box six times. He wasn't reprimanded by the Speaker, which I think was unfortunate.
"If someone is going to turn this place into a sort of brawling house, I am going to do anything I can as a senior member of Parliament to stop him."
Asked whether he would be seeking action on Cameron's interventions, Sheerman said: "He's got the behaviour of a hooligan in the chamber.
"As someone who wanted to get away from 'Punch and Judy', he is dragging the House of Commons down into a pit that I don't want to see it in."
Shadow housing minister Grant Schapps defended his leader, saying that it was no "big deal."
"Most normal people wouldn't think to use the word 'you' was hooliganistic. That is a slightly stretched exaggeration," he told ePolitix.com
He said some parliamentary protocols prevent a "normal conversation".
"I notice that the Speaker let it go, and if he did then it can't have been that big a deal," Schapps told this website.
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