MPs who were hoping to watch the whole of Barack Obama's inauguration speech live were interrupted when the division bell went off just after the new president started speaking. There was a vote on some EU documents relating to the Brussels economic recovery plan. The ever-creative Denis MacShane, the Labour former foreign minister, has just put out a press release claiming that this amounts to a Tory snub to the new leader of the free world.
I was saddened to leave Mr Obama's world historic speech in order to feed Conservative isolationism by voting in a division on a vote to take note of European Union policy on the financial crisis. There was no decision impacting on UK law or government decisions but the Tories are so obsessed against Europe they called a division just after Mr Obama had begin his speech. I hope our friends in America take note that David Cameron would rather have UK legislators voting symbolically against Europe rather than listening to President Obama's historic speech.
