Even if the two MPs caught up in today’s sting, Jack Straw and Sir Malcolm Rifkind, are found to have done nothing wrong, their parties cannot be seen to be protecting them. Straw was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party last night and this morning Sir Malcolm Rifkind has had the Tory whip removed.
Rifkind says he will not stand down as chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee unless the Committee calls for him to stand aside. It’s difficult to see how he can stay in the role while the investigation into his behaviour takes place. There will also be an immediate investigation carried out by the Tory party, given Rifkind is standing again at the election.
One error that Rifkind has made, regardless of the details of the allegations against him, is to make this a debate about MPs’ pay. Telling the Today programme that £67,000 is an ‘unrealistic’ amount of money to pay MPs is hardly the way to rally sympathy.
UPDATE: Paddy Power has opened the betting on what’s next for Rifkind. It has odds-on at 2/5 that Rifkind will still be ISC chair by 1 May 2015, but is just 7/4 to stand aside or lose this position. As for the Kensington ballot, it is 4/7 for Rifkind to be the Tory candidate for the 2015 general election and 5/4 that he is not.
Comments