It's not the first time a governmental official has spoken out about games when they clearly don't know what they're talking about. Drugs is the only other issue I know of that is spoken about in such an ill-educated way.

He doesn't even know the name of the consoles he complains about. Quite incredible.

Makes you wonder if politicians flounder into every parliamentary argument so ill-prepared and without the actual facts at hand.

What am I saying?! That is exactly what they do - and the games industry should expect no less from our so-called Government.

This guy........

he's probably seen the episode of nathan barley when they have the labour party conference game on the Z-system

You can read the hon member's actual remarks here:
http://www.theywor...360.0

Perhaps he is referring to Halo3? I have on many occasions had angry teenage american males tell me that they are going to 'rape' my team.

Hi Brian,

Yes, we linked to the 'theyworkforyou' transcript at the bottom of the SPOnG story cited by MCV.
Cheers
Tim Smith

@9

I do have a name, Brett Socks.

It's good to know that the countries leaders are on the ball and not the aging dinosaurs many of us suspected them to be. Presumably it was video games that created all the deviant politicians in the world.

Oh man, this guy makes my blood boil everytime he opens his stupid mouth. How on earth can he go into a discussion about anything, without the merest knowledge of the name of the product he is complaining about? What a moron.

has this come from the same 'think-tank' that said Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes?

Bunch of ******s...

None of those games in question are released and sold in the UK, so the BBFC are completely correct and the MPs are completely wrong, misinformed, clueless, ill-prepared and stupid.

Its good to see our MP's are thinking about the impressionable minds of our teenagers, instead of getting themselves involved in sleaze and having themselves put into dubious situations involving corruption and providing diodgey foreign business men with passports . . . . Oh no wait, hang on, . . . .

Typical Clueless bandwagon jumping...

Last time i was with a woman she was flesh and blood and not some computer generated image...Like Santa Claus computer games are NOT real..just for entertainment.

Has anyone that has ever played games ever came accross a game where you had to rape someone......The closeest was GTA where you could **** the prossies in your car...but hay your paying for that so not rape....

I really wish politicians would refer to things like the Byron Report before speaking out. The whole point of it being done was to eradicate mis-education in the gaming industry and if they're not going to look through that first before shouting about things they don't know, then what's the point in it?!?!

Grr Arrrgh.

Here we go again . The man that would do anything to boost his political career by using something he knows nothing about and twisting it to get some publicity.

The last time Mr Vaz said something about gaming and censorship he got shot down in flames in parliament. Looks like it has just happened again.

Perhaps Jack Thompson and himself need to get together in a corner of outer Mongolia and just whither away.

Someone mentioned the right Honurable but I see nothing Honourable about this man.

The Byron Review's not actually out yet... at least I hope it's not. Also, the point of it is to review how the government can best control video games and Internet content... the two things being, well, roughly the same if you're in government.
Cheers
Tim

"People who are watching a film at the cinema cannot participate in what is happening on the screen."
"when people play these things[Games Consoles], they can interact. They can shoot people; they can kill people."

Surely he does know that once a citizen turns 16 they can join the army and actually kill people for real?
Bare-faced Hypocrisy.

I'd like to complain that Parliament features Keith Vaz.

There's credence to the argument that the fact that games offer that choice of action makes them less harmful than film. In film you're subjected to the will of the director - his intention will always become your experience. In gaming you get a hand in the events - and even you do choose to kill, there was still an element of responsibility in that experience. And that's a good thing.

His name when at Cambridge University was actually Nigel Vaz. maybe it did not scan well?
The results of a Parliamentary inquiry into his alleged implication with the notorious Hinduja brothers and their quest to get British passports were published in 2002 and it was concluded that Vaz had "committed serious breaches of the Code of Conduct and a contempt of the House" and it was recommended that he be suspended from the House of Commons for one month which gave him plenty of time to concentrate on his profitable sidelines. Now that looks more like interactive rape to me. Surprised the Hinduja Bros have not bought a Premier League football club - they would be in fine company with Pol Pot at Man City, the Russian gangsters at Pompey and Chelsea, the Icelandic Biscuit Fraudster over at the Hammers and Private Eye's favourite Mohammed Fayed. Perhaps they should buy Reading.

Does this remind anyone of the video nasty campaign back in the 80's. A woman (Mary Something...) arguing that films like Evil Dead were just, well evil was asked to give an example of a scene from one live on tv and had to admit that she'd never actually seen one!

Her name was 'Whitehouse'. She was a professional nuisance - but it was great when she spoke out about the single Anarchy in the UK - in those days 'all over the media' meant on the news which was either 1pm, 6pm or 9 /10pm on only 2 channels. But it did make us Punks feel suitably distanced from the smug, self satisfied , so called society spokesmen (even though she was a woman, obviously). We wanted to be outsiders, indeed nothing has ever changed. God Save the Queen......

I knew someone who worked for Vaz once, he's as corrupt as you like.
He was using charity events with celebs to do his electioneering on the cheap, or something to that effect. He's a right piece of work from what I hear. The fact he's lying in the commons doesn't surprise me. What a bloody idiot, I hate this man.

I think it's time we had a long term study into the effects an imperialist, authoritarian surveillance state, committed to the idea that the private interests of the super rich will solve all society's problems, has on its citizens. Seriously, it may sound a bit trite and cranky, but think how much more dystopian we've become since Thatcher and Reagan, and successive governments have carried right on with the same agenda. None more so than New Labour, who survey the society their policies and example have wrought and wring their hands, saying, "This is terrible, we have to ban everything that holds up a mirror to our failure."