Zoom-o-cracy: Wales MP misses vote, allowing COVID-passport rule change, blames the IT dept

Citizens in Wales are set to be required to comply with COVID-19 passport rules to attend mass events, partly because of an apparent technical glitch in the UK nation's Parliament or Senedd Cymru, in Welsh. A member by the name of Gareth Davies issued a furious statement [JPG] on Twitter, appearing to blame the institution's …

[Paul Crawford]

Odd. I have had all sorts of problems trying to get in with WebEx before, and slightly less with Teams (once you realise that "web support" to MS only means Chrome and their Chrome-clone Edge), but never with Zoom.

For all of the piss-poor security and questionable Chinese background, Zoom seems just to work and not suck donkey balls at every opportunity. I guess that is why it became the pandemic's remote meeting method of choice.

Perhaps the honourable member was the one sucking donkey balls?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welsh, so probably sheep balls. And as the article mentioned, he could have just phoned his vote in. The guy sounds like an idiot.

[Roger Kynaston]

I agree

Perhaps he was hankering after an El Reg moment though.

[Dan 55]

It is literally impossible for a 33-year-old to fuck up a Zoom call and a phone call. Even if they're in the Tory party. Isn't it?

[Androgynous Cupboard]

Er, you might have to readjust your expectations of our non-technical brethren. Remember someone recently gave a deposition to a judge while appearing as a kitten on zoom.

[Ilsa Loving]

Well, he's part of the conservative party so calling him an idiot is redundant.

[Nonymous Crowd Nerd]

Just possibly not an idiot?

He might have been in need of an excuse not to vote along party lines.

Wouldn't the equivalent of the speaker not voted for the administration's proposal in the case of a tie anyway?

[Adrian 4]

I find Zoom just as crap as all the rest, likely to take a sudden dislike to my camera or drop the sound.

They're all immature applications built from a mess of support systems held together, as is the way with modern apps, with sticking plaster and bodgy scripting languages. The more they try to integrate with other systems (as Teams does), the worse they are.

I wouldn't trust one of them on anything important without plenty of time to waste and a fallback or two.

They're good enough for casual natter and little more.

A plague on all their houses. I'll be dropping every one of them as soon as I possibly can.

[skeptical i]

re: "Zoom seems just to work"

Hrm, not exactly my experience (not that Teams and Webex are always a carefree walk in the park either) but they DO have plenty of phone numbers one can use to phone in.

In my unsolicited opinion. all teleconference services have quirks and issues, none of them will work 100% for all attendees all of the time, and from there it's a balance of priorities (user privacy versus accommodating hordes of participants, cost versus features, and so on) ... like much in life. (I personally prefer to avoid Zoom, but others' mileage may vary.)

[Anonymous Coward]

If he was at the Conservative Conference...

Was he trying to use the conference centre's wifi? I'd expect a political conference to be awash with journalists, bloggers and party activists constantly hammering the bandwidth. Perhaps a tactical retreat back to his hotel or even a coffee shop would have solved his problem?

[Steve K]

Re: If he was at the Conservative Conference...

Or 4G?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: If he was at the Conservative Conference...

Why was he the only Conservative member from Wales at the conference?

And, if not, why didn't any of his Welsh compatriots have a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Remote voting

Surely remote voting is there to deal with medical or pandemics absents. Not to enable them to bugger off on a party political jolly?

Anyway, couldn't they just use the alternative phone dial-in number?

[Anonymous Coward]

Controversial why?

It's bizarre that the vote is even that close.

Was he really going to vote to let potentially infectious people, infect large crowds with their plague? Gareth [plague] Davies: "Yeh people carrying a deadly infectious disease, should be *allowed* to secretly visit large crowds to spread it! That's a *good* thing. I read so on Facebook/Murdoch/Daily Telegraph".

He personally would be liable for any deaths, if his vote was the decider vote that killed them. I get that he doesn't care about that, because he's a selfish assshat, that not fit to lead, but perhaps I can make another argument here to convince his fellow tories they should dump him....

People will go to concerts and parties, safe in the knowledge that everyone there has been vaxination or does not have the disease. That's good for the economy. If 'plague spreader Davies' Tory MS for Vale of Clwyd, had his way, they could not be that sure and would not take that risk. It would have a negative effect on the economy.

There, I said it, the N word for Tories, his choice would have had a NEGATIVE effect on the economy.

So sack him because he would have had a negative effect on the economy, and not because he wanted to intentionally kill a lot of his fellow Welsh with a moronic decision showing lack of reason, competence or empathy, because someone told him it's his political identity.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Controversial why?

You only need to show a vaccine to get into events with more than 500 people?

Is this a plan to depopulate Wales? What are they planning to use it for afterwards?

Here we have 90% vaccinated and you need to show a passport to sit outside at a bar (max 4 people)

Thank fsck I'm now an immigrant expat

[Ilsa Loving]

Re: Controversial why?

>Was he really going to vote to let potentially infectious people, infect large crowds with their plague?

He's a conservative. Of course he's against sensible laws that protect people.

[BOFH in Training]

Re: Controversial why?

Maybe he wanted it to pass, but political realities being what it is, he could not afford to vote against it.

So all this drama maybe?

Am not from the UK, so I have no idea what he actually stands for. Maybe am just giving him too much leeway in this matter and he really is an asshat.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Controversial why?

I would agree, were it not for the fact that the virus doesn't seem to be particularly deadly. In two years it's just about managed to kill off some 0.1% of the populace; cf an actual plague (e.g the Black Death) which removed some 30% of the population, leaving the empty villages which can be found today.

These histrionics are arguably quite counterproductive; being British I have no issue with the vaccine but do with a two-tier society. If we are to restrict access to normal life to those unvaccinated, for fear of putting pressure on the NHS, why not restrict people with the potential for passing on nasty genetic disorders from breeding? After all a course of treatment for some inherited conditions can cost into the hundreds of thousands.

However I do agree with others that the right honourable MS is an idiot for being incapable of communicating his vote via zoom, phone, email, carrier sheep, or any other means that might be on offer - one suspects the issue was more one of having beers and losing track of time...

[Dan 55]

Re: Controversial why?

If we are to restrict access to normal life to those unvaccinated, for fear of putting pressure on the NHS, why not restrict people with the potential for passing on nasty genetic disorders from breeding?

It's a pretty big leap from vaccine pass reducing the spread of a deadly virus to eugenics.

In the end those countries which use a vaccine pass will end up being freer (i.e. return to life more like it was before the pandemic) earlier.

[yoganmahew]

Re: Controversial why?

And yet you have no issue with a two tier health system, or a two tier education system, or a two tier economy? The vaccine passport is the cross you choose to one tier on?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Controversial why?

Covid is plenty deadly. We're just lucky we have a vaccine and the ability and knowledge to be largely sanitary - compared to the black death days.

You're a conspiracy nut. Please re examine your work. Like many people who don't understand COVID you're not looking at the full picture.

And if you get something this basic wrong it calls into question everything else you stand for.

[Cederic]

Re: Controversial why?

You're assuming that 'COVID Passes' have a meaningful health benefit, and one that outweighs the downsides of having them.

He is not.That doesn't make either of you wrong, and how close the vote was should indicate that this is a far from settled topic.

My personal view is that 'COVID passes' have a negative effect on population health: Given that vaccinated people can (and do) catch COVID, and pass it on, being granted a pass purely because of vaccination means that infected people will nonetheless be present. However, by having a pass system in place, other people will have a false sense of security and take fewer precautions, resulting in a greater likelihood of catching it themselves.

Are you right? Is he right? Am I right? All I know is that I'm not visiting Wales while this nonsense is in place.

[Dan 55]

Re: Controversial why?

The idea is that people with vaccine passes have a 90% less chance of suffering hospitalization, whereas people without them won't be able to visit places and have less chance of caching Covid until they have received the full number of doses meaning the health service is less overwhelmed.

Also note that in England people don't wear masks or practice social distancing or have hardly any special protocols for schools either, because those are also apparently an attack on civil liberties.

But the data shows how the UK compares to its Western European neighbours (see map a couple of pages down). Each measure that the UK refuses to take is a measure that chips away at the number of Covid cases.

I think Wales will survive without you.

[Cederic]

Re: Controversial why?

Some of us would rather die free than live under authoritarian rule.

Wales is heading the wrong way.

[Nunyabiznes]

Can't fix

All the technology in the world can't fix <stupid> arrogant asses who won't test remote access before important things come up.

Hands up for anyone who thinks he contacted IT before he decided to not be present at an important vote to test alternative connection capability.

Anyone? Bueller?

[Halfmad]

Re: Can't fix

The same type that will grill you over business continuity while having no plans of their own.

[Kevin Johnston]

Re: Can't fix

Ah, that wonderful 'But in your DR scenario I am dead so how do you propose to get my tasks done?' moment

[WanderingHaggis]

Re: Can't fix

At a guess -- he didn't attempt to connect to the meeting until the vote -- if he can't be bothered to take part and understand the issue then only connect when it is time to vote then it is an own goal and deserves no sympathy. If you connect ahead of time and thus checking everything is good as well as participating in what you think is an important debate you then have time to go to plan B or check who you should phone.

There is a good French proverb the absent are always at fault (wrong) - Les absents ont toujours tort.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cynic in me suggested he knew the result in advance (most votes are reasonably well known how they'll turn out) didn't want it to fail but didn't want to be seen to be not wanting it to fail. So invents IT problems, claims he would have voted against, looks good even though it passes.

I've been around for too long.

[Jet Set Willy]

I have logs. In fact I created the logging system. Your move.

[Martin an gof]

invents IT problems, claims he would have voted against, looks good

Given that the vote was split exactly along party lines then it would have been exactly evenly split and the chair (who doesn't normally vote) would have had casting vote and would probably - I gather - have voted against, not due to the fact that she is a member for Plaid, but because the chair usually votes to "maintain the stauts quo" according to one source I found.

The fact that this bloke was the only one who failed to attend (apart from those who had made prior arrangements*) says more about him than about the hybrid voting system.

M.

*for those not in the UK, it is customary in these parts - this also happens in the Commons - for members who cannot be present to "buddy up" with someone on the opposite side of the argument who agrees to withhold their vote. The fact that the vote was 28/27 implies that only one such arrangement was already in place (there are 60 members in total and the presiding officer and her deputy don't vote anyway). Of course, there is always the opportunity to game the system, but the fuss this causes means that doing so is vanishingly rare.

[Bitsminer]

It could have been worse, way worse

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14657129/mp-caught-naked-zoom-parliament-canada/

(No, don't bother to click the link.)

[yetanotheraoc]

Re: It could have been worse, way worse

We'll take that as a yes.

[Doctor Syntax]

Looking to the future

Who'll be standing in the by-election after he visits the BOFH to complain in person? Could we see PFY MP?

[Anonymous Coward]

A dick

I'll say it how it is. Oh you shouldn't call them names, discuss the issue maturely. No, fuck it, he's a dick. Having had to fucking deal with Councillors for years I can say he's a dick. They break councillor codes of conduct and get away with it and blame IT for all their fuck ups. Like the one that was abusing his position to try and get me to sit in on a strangers fucking funeral to press buttons on a TV presentation when I said it wasn't required. Why? So he could get the good PR, he gave no fucks about anyone at that funeral. An official complaint was put in as he had clearly broken the councillor code of conduct but fuck all was done. Then abused his position again to get IT to repair his failed HDD (it was clicking so needed a specialist). Told the IT manager that and instead restored the drive he gave me to copy the councillors data too, to see what shit he had on it. All because he'd never bothered to secure wipe it before handing it over. More annoying if you don't have a head of IT, director and a Chief Exec that will stand up to them and instead panders to them and believes their moaning bullshit about "IT issues"

Like the old councillor that walked into our office because she wasn't fucking paying attention and "fell into" the office. There is a big step into the office and a big fucking sign that says the door isn't in use, use the other one. But she was too busy chatting to notice. Fucked her leg up then put in a complaint despite admitting to us she was actually heading outside, was chatting and had gone through the wrong door. But no, it was ITs fault.

So I can't stand them.

Can't stand them or MPs.

[Dr Scrum Master]

But it's conference season

I still don't understand why the Welsh Parish Council was holding proceedings during the party conference season. Westminster shuts down for the conference season, so why not the devolved assemblies?

[WanderingHaggis]

Re: But it's conference season

Because there were important decisions to be made that couldn't wait.

[Howard Sway]

It was the IT department's fault...

I suspect that as he was attending the party conference, his inability to participate might be due to the 15 pints of IT department that he drank the night before.

[Swarthy]

Re: It was the IT department's fault...

Rendered tired and emotional by IT "complexities"