There are times I want to run round the corner from my office and in to the Palace of Westminster and give certain MPs a damn good bitch slap. Today is one of those days. Let us start with Liberal Democrat MP and former party leader candidate Simon Hughes who was speaking in a debate about knife crime in London. He said:
“The report then makes a controversial point, but I believe that it is true – evidence supported our view that violent DVDs and video games exert a negative influence on those who watch and play them.”
What evidence? Not one single study has ever linked violent video games and films to crime. Simon Hughes show us this ‘evidence’ or I declare your pants are well and truly on fire.
Yesterday the MPs debated the Digital Economy Bill which I’m sure you are all familiar with, it deals with the Broadband Tax and the three strikes rule amongst others. There has been huge public debate about this bill, one civil rights group received over 20,000 messages of support to have the Bill removed completely. Guess how many of our hard working MPs turned up for the debate?
15.
That’s 5% of the entire house. The number of attendees did rise to a whopping 40 at one point which is 12.5% of our representatives. I expect they were all busy out campaigning for your votes in the coming general election. If you do get stopped by your local MP in the next month why not ask him/her if he attended the Digital Economy Bill debate?
One MP who did make it to the discussion was the Sith Lord himself, Labour MP Keith Vaz.
“With reference to our children, the industry must act responsibly-with respect to video games, for example. Such responsibility must accompany the success of the digital revolution.”
No Keith, parents must act responsibly. The games industry knows this, TSA knows this, why can you not grasp the concept?
In non political news, video games have now been blamed for bad teeth – expect the Daily Mail to run the headline “GRAN TURISMO 5 GIVES YOU CANCER” any day now.
A study by the University of Iowa has linked playing games regularly to “poor oral health” because children sit in front of a screen and drink full fat Coke and eat Haribo. The study went on to discover that children “with parents who structure their video game playing time are less likely to suffer the ravages of tooth decay, as they are more likely to eat regular meals as well.”
British MPs can you read the paragraph above? Can you see what it really means? It means that parents who attend to their children have good oral hygiene; it does NOT mean that computer games make your teeth fall out.