444 items found
Gary Gibbon
Nigel Farage’s UKIP got 3 per cent to the Tories’ 57.4 per cent in Buckingham at the last general election but the UKIP MEP and party leader is going to give the seat a try anyway and take on the Speaker, John Bercow. Tradition has it that the main parties don’t challenge the Speaker at a general election so the…
Gary Gibbon
Away for a break now. We now know that an already busy autumn political season will be peppered with Iraq Inquiry public hearings. That’s on top of pre-election conferences, a Pre-Budget Report, the Legg Inquiry on MPs’ expenses, another by-election and who knows what else? Thanks for reading this blog. I look forward to chatting…
Gary Gibbon
The £25 per day subsistence allowance for MPs splashed across the front page of the Daily Telegraph today has been claimed by MPs since it appeared in the Green Book of expenses rules in March 2009. But don’t expect it to last much longer. Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life produces its reforms in…
Gary Gibbon
The more you look at the Norwich result the more puzzling it is. Sea-change political moments require “converts,” or so we’ve always thought. You can’t build a mighty national majority on the other party’s core vote staying at home, or can you? Tory strategists claim they got some Labour converts and that the party tallies…
Gary Gibbon
11.50AM UPDATE: We are hearing that the Libs have held on to third place and that UKIP may have pushed the Greens – who had high hopes here – into fifth. Not long to wait. – I am in a sea of Confederate flags and caravans at the Norwich North by-election count. There’s a country…
Jon Snow
Bye Bye to my member, and a word to Chris, Joe10 and Ken on yesterday’s class war blog. That’s it, they’ve gone! Eighty two days now before we see another MP in the House of Commons chamber on October 12th. And in what a parlous state they seem to be leaving British politics. Tomorrow, The…
Gary Gibbon
A statement could come soon from the Met Police. The Home Secretary has just confirmed in an interview that he’s spoken to the Met Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson, who’s assured him the police are looking at the 2006 investigation again in the light of the new allegations in The Guardian (not, presumably, that “new”…
Gary Gibbon
David Cameron believes that one of the high points of his leadership has been the “Flying Squad”/”Get Carter” way he dealt with Tory MPs’ expenses. He and his team believe this has won him points for “getting it” when it comes to the public distrust of politicians. Can he really afford to risk this right…
Gary Gibbon
David Cameron’s self-denying ordinance on Shadow Cabinet outside interests will look to many in his own party like a bit of tokenism. At his press conference this morning David Cameron made the argument FOR MPs having outside interests, even mentioned that he used to have some himself when he was Shadow Education spokesman. Then he…
Gary Gibbon
Gordon Brown has a habit of upsetting people he’s asked to conduct inquiries. Adair Turner didn’t look like a man who’d like to take up another commission from Gordon Brown after his pensions inquiry. More recently, Sir Christopher Kelly’s team looking at MPs’ expenses was repeatedly publicly harried by No.10 and didn’t appreciate it.
Gary Gibbon
Just back from the splendour of Speaker’s House state rooms where I’ve been interviewing John Bercow. It’s a bit like a doge’s palace in there. Speaker Bercow will be living in the less stately but pretty nice private accommodation upstairs, with his young family. There will have to be a few adaptations to the property.…
Gary Gibbon
This’ll get some Tory MPs’ blood boiling. Not least the ones who cheered the anonymous attack on David Cameron that turned up in Conservative MPs’ postbags on Monday. The Chair of the Senior Salaries Review Body, Bill Cockburn, was giving evidence to the Public Administration Select Committee today. Mr Cockburn will be working with Sir…
Gary Gibbon
Some MPs may be looking at the tidied up versions of their expenses published in the blacked out FOI release today and be thinking “if only …” “If only that was all the public got to see.” It is only the Telegraph’s uncensored version of the receipts that allows us to know about Margaret Moran’s…
Jon Snow
On one level he is the fall guy of the expenses scandal. But on another, some see Michael Martin as the agent of his own undoing. Look no further than the absurd scenes enacted yesterday as he processed through the Palace of Westminster. Did anyone ever think of cutting that frock coat so that some…
Gary Gibbon
Tory Whips this afternoon texted MPs not to respond to press questions about the anonymous letter which Conservative Home got hold of today in which a Conservative MP appears to attack David Cameron as “Stalinist” and “despotic.”