We have just received shock news that MPs are seeking to honour Kevin Warwick - aka Captain Cyborg - with an Early Day Motion.

The proposal, sandwiched between other matters of national import such as Water privatisation in Bolivia and the Prostate awareness campaign, reads:

That this House congratulates Professor Kevin Warwick of Reading University on the success of the Cybernetics course which, at a time of falling applications for science subjects nationally and the closure of science departments, has seen a growth in applicants so that there are three hundred applications for one hundred places on the Cybernetics course despite the application grades having risen from Cs and Ds ten years ago to Bs now; welcomes the feed-through to the computer science and electronic engineering courses at the university which have also experienced increases of 11 per cent. and 16 per cent. respectively in the face of continued national drops in applications of between 10 and 25 per cent. in these subject areas; notes that every student on the four year course will leave having built a robot that will be able to move on command; and calls upon other scientists to learn from Professor Warwick how to teach subjects in a way that makes the subject interesting and relevant so that more students will want to develop a career in science.

Who, we must ask, is the primary sponsor of this outrage? None other than Labour's Reading East MP, Jane Griffiths. Griffiths is no slouch in the EDM department, having already attracted moderate support for her Private hire vehicles in Reading motion:

That this House congratulates just Cars of Reading for being the first private hire company in the town to fit door signs on its minicabs so that people know they are getting into a licensed car with a licensed driver; congratulates Reading Borough Council on insisting that all the 500 private hire vehicles in Reading should have such signs by April; and takes the view that such measures will protect the public from unwittingly getting into unlicensed vehicles which has too often ended in tragedy.

Naturally, readers are now demanding the names of the hundreds of other MPs who have come out in support of Griffiths' glowing appraisal of Captain Cyborg's contribution to humanity. Mercifully, as we go to press, only Lynne Jones - Labour member for Birmingham Selly Oak - has offered her support.

The solution is clear - with a General Election looming, voters must ensure that any MP who thinks it's a good idea to build robots which move on command is cast forever into political purgatory. We await clarification of Michael Howard's position on cybernetics with eager anticipation, although we suspect it will involve blaming Tony Blair and wheeling out some sobbing granny who has been waiting two years for a Captain Cyborg hip implant as proof of New Labour's shameful incompetence. ®

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