British MP Nigel Mills became the target of criticism in the press Monday after the appearance in the press of a photo showing him absorbed in a game on his iPad while in the meeting of the works and pensions committee.
The photo of the conservative politician caught trying to create combinations of candies in the game “Candy Crush Saga” appeared in the tabloid The Sun, which included the statement of a witness, according to which Mills would have dedicated to this activity two and a half hours.
Mills told The Sun: “It was a long meeting on pension reforms, which is an important issue that I take very seriously. There was a bit of the meeting that I wasn’t focusing on and I probably had a game or two. I shouldn’t do it but if you check the meeting I would say I was fully engaged in asking questions that I thought were particularly important in how we get the pensions issue right.”
The Amber Valley MP, elected in 2010, expressed on Twitter his regret and promised that this will not happen again. “I probably had a game or two. I shall try not to do it in the future,” he said.
We know it’s hard to resist a candy call, especially when you’re in a boring meeting. Even David Cameron himself has said that he likes to relax playing Angry Birds, so maybe Nigel Mills thought that he is following Prime Minister’s lead.
What comes to mind is that another Tory MP, Caroline Nokes, texted her lover from the chamber because she was “bored to death” and couldn’t wait meeting him for a quickie in a hotel room. Maybe the life is boring in the Parliament and the MPs are good at multitasking. Humans are adept at quickly shifting attention from one thing to another and back again.
Reply