Did politician drop the ball over name of Plymouth ship Bulwark?
POLITICIANS at Westminster were left wondering if they had heard correctly after Defence Minister Philip Dunne apparently 'mis-spoke' in referring to the Devonport-based warship HMS Bulwark.
The slip came as the frontbencher outlined the state of readiness of the amphibious assault vessel and its sister craft HMS Albion in response to a Commons question.
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HMS Bulwark, uploaded to thisisplymouth by Mike Greaves
One MP left in little doubt over the Minister's linguistic blunder was fellow Conservative party colleague and Royal Navy reservist Penny Mordant, who took to the social networking website Twitter to highlight the faux-pas.
Referring to the urgent question secured by Labour's Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls on the down-grading of the UK's credit rating which followed, the Portsmouth MP joked: "Balls was talking Bulwarks again!"
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However, the official parliamentary record Hansard spared the ministerial blushes by 'correcting' the slip of the tongue to HMS Bulwark. It is not the first time the word has caught politicians out at the despatch box. Hansard was changed back in 2008 to remove a phrase attributed to then Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth.
2 Comments
by CharlieDodd
Tuesday, February 26 2013, 3:36PM
“Perhaps a name-change is in order along fish species lines, how about HMS Pollocks?”
by Vinnie_Gar
Tuesday, February 26 2013, 7:51AM
“How fascinating...”