Shadow Justice Minster Pay £25.000 of Expenses Conservative Shadow Justice Minister Eleanor Laing is paying back £25.000 in expenses after a metro expose despite being cleared by Sir Thomas Legg's report. She said she did not owe any money but felt honour –bound to do so, as I said I would go months ago. The Conservative MP also face a confidence vote by her local party in 12 days...
Details are emerging all the time of the amounts Sir Thomas Legg is asking individual MPs to repay. The Conservative Party have just released details that more than half (15) of their front bench team (including Cameron) have been fingered by the long arm of Legg (so to speak). Kenneth Clarke £4733, gardening and cleaning (under discussion); Andrew Lansley £4,482.22, mortgage and service...
When the election comes, we shall be voting for our local representative and not for the entire party. That, at least, is the theory, although the whipping system means that we cannot ignore the party as a whole. At the time of the election, I plan to publish a post giving my own views on the manifesto commitments of each party, but I thought it might be an idea to give a thumbs up or down for (some...
David Cameron's conference speech was highly revealing about who will be in his first Cabinet if he wins the general election... and which Shadow Cabinet members should now be worried. Only a handful are definitely in, it seems, after a speech that included some firm pledges, some rather shifty evasions and some glaring missions. The first to receive a firm pledge was Liam Fox, confirmed as Defence...
For the third year the Daily Telegraph is publishing a Top 100 People on the Right list . A few weeks ago I chaired a panel which consisted of three Telegraph journalists, two Tory MPs and three political commentators which drew up the list. Here's the first part, running from 51 to 100. You can read the short biogs HERE on the Telegraph site. The second figure denotes the position last year. 50 66...
Conservative leader's move causes alarm among senior colleagues who fear a 25% reduction David Cameron is planning to make his ministers take significant salary cuts if he forms the next government, senior sources have told the Guardian. The Conservative party high command have calculated that if they are to push through cuts in public services, their politicians have to show they are prepared to...
Alan Duncan appeared last night to have retained his place in the shadow cabinet after the Tory leadership gave him a public dressing down but stopped short of disciplinary action over comments he made to an independent filmmaker
I have known Alan Duncan for more than a third of a century - ever since April 1975 when we competed against each other in the national final of the English Speaking Union public speaking competition for schools. (My school won, though he later got revenge by beating me for the presidency of the Oxford Union !). He's always been an interesting person, a highly talented individual - intelligent, charming,...
Just a quick thought on politics for a change. I'm sorry also about the lack of pictures. I'm not writing this on my usual computer. Why is Alan Duncan still in the shadow Cabinet? The man is an idiot. He has put his dinky size nines (or are they smaller) in his mouth so many times over the last year or so and yet still he remains one of the senior members of the Tory front bench. One mistake can be...
The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant (Free subscription) | 13/08/2009
Wednesday: So, the Conservatories’ Spokesperson for Making Mr Ian Hislop’s Job Easier has once again placed himself in mouth-foot conjunction, caught on hidden camera with the suggestion that MPs are “ living on rations ”. Oh throw up your fluffy feet and decry how dreadful, greedy, out-of-touch, etc, etc copyright all overpaid news-editors. Except, let’s be honest he...
ToryDiary: 99% of Tory members expect Cameron to be Prime Minister after the General Election Bob Seely on Platform: Seven reasons why Liam Fox is wrong to question Sir David Richards' assertion that British forces may need to remain in...
Alan Duncan’s future in the Shadow Cabinet was in the balance last night after he was forced to apologise for claiming that MPs were living on rations because of the expenses row.
Doubt has been cast over the frontbench future of senior Tory Alan Duncan after he was forced to offer an unreserved apology for saying, in the wake of Westminster’s expenses scandal, that MPs were forced to live on “rations” and were treated “like shit”.
Peter Mandelson - the man who dripped pure poison into George Osborne's ear last summer - complains Alan Duncan says one thing and private and another in public. Even by political standards, this statement is breathtaking in its hypocrisy . Enough of that. Back to Alan Duncan. He shouldn't have said MPs live on rations. They are some of the best paid people in the UK. This is total nonsense, but at...
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