Scandal

Saturday

Stephen Bates

A narrow escape

For once, I felt sorry for Bill Clinton. It was January 1998, and the press reported that the President had had an intimate relationship with one Monica Lewinsky. In Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s office, where I worked, we had evidence that Clinton had sought to hide his dalliance through perjury and obstruction of justice. But that didn’t matter anymore. No president could survive the public revelation of sex (however defined) with a White House intern. Clinton was about to be driven from office over fellatio rather than felonies. I started thinking about a conciliatory statement Starr might release when the President resigned. Our judgment, as Ken Gormley observes in

Friday

David Blackburn

A tyrant surrounded by cowards no longer

Well, the Chancellor’s not for budging. Alistair Darling stands by not “some of” but “all of” his “forces of hell” comments. Martin Bright wrote the politics column in this week’s mag, arguing that opponents are intimidated by the political mobsters surrounding Brown, and who Brown encourages a la Henry II. Martin names Charlie Whelan and Damian McBride as the goons, and Ed Balls is rumoured to be the consigliere.   Peter Watt claimed that Douglas Alexander admitted that most senior Cabinet ministers loathed Brown and his vicarious emotional terrorism, a sense reinforced by Darling’s comments. If that’s the case, why has Brown not been removed? Cowardice is an unpleasant but

Thursday

David Blackburn

Byrne’s cuts deception

Liam Byrne has caught the Brown bug – not for raging in his underpants you understand, but for fiscal conceits. Tony Wright, the Public Administration Select Committee Chairman, called Liam Byrne (and the opposition as well) to task for misleading the public on the dire effects of cuts. Wright may be proved right: frontline services could well be decimated by the cessation of funding. But he missed Byrne’s deception. The indispensible Andrew Sparrow reports: ‘Byrne said that between 1985-86 and 1988-89 public spending as a share of GDP dropped by 8.6%. Between 2011-12 and 2014-15 it is forecast to drop by 5.9%.’ Because Treasury figures have been constantly out, the

Peter Hoskin

Brown v Blair: a comedy

First the tragedy, then the farce: if there was something dark, perhaps shocking, about last weekend’s bullying allegations, then the latest Rawnsley revelations veer towards the hilarious.  They’re centred around Brown’s efforts to oust Tony Blair, and the Guardian covers them here.  I won’t pre-empt your enjoyment of them, except to highlight this passage from the report: “Rawnsley reveals that Brown rang Blair while he was staying with the Queen at Balmoral. He was furious that Alan Milburn, Blair’s close ally, had written a piece supporting the prime minister’s right to stay at No 10. Rawnsley writes: ‘The chancellor’s fury was titanically demented even by his standards. ‘You put fucking

Wednesday

Lloyd Evans

True romance

‘Any closer and they’ll start kissing,’ said Cameron. The PM and his beloved chancellor were seated side by side at PMQs today, chatting showily throughout. Their rhubarb-rhubarb conversation was intended to quell the rumours of civil war in Downing Street. The ploy misfired. Two men conversing don’t both speak at each other simultaneously. But that scarcely mattered. The session was the rowdiest and least illuminating of the year so far. At times it was noisier than the Pamplona bull-run. Cameron began by trying to elicit answers about the appalling mortality rates at Staffordshire Hospital. Brown adopted his cenotaph grimace and reeled off a list of inquiries, investigations and disciplinary sanctions

Peter Hoskin

And what about Ed Balls?

Two related points, worth repeating. The first from Ben Brogan: “Mr Brown is on surer ground on a narrow point, in that in all likelihood he did not explicitly order his Eighth Circle chums to unleash hell against Mr Darling. Then again, he didn’t need to. His reaction to the Chancellor’s Guardian interview will have had the required Henry II effect. If Dave wanted some sport [in PMQs], surely, he should have asked whether Ed Balls ordered his friends to undermine Mr Darling. He wanted the job after all, and as has long been realised, there was what amounted to a Balls operation within the Brown operation designed to promote

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

How not to calm the bullying row

Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, probably thought he was being helpful to Gordon Brown by describing Christine Pratt as: “this prat of a woman down in – where’s she from, Swindon?” But, erm, he wasn’t.

Peter Hoskin

Terror on Downing St: The Movie<br />

You think you’ve seen everything, and then Dizzy goes and unearths this Taiwanese news report about Brown and the bullying allegations. The computer dramatisations, from the 35 second mark on, are simply jaw-dropping:

Peter Hoskin

The bullying story keeps on rolling, but will it affect the polls?

Much confusion on the digital grapevine, last night, about YouGov’s latest daily tracker poll.  Turns out, it doesn’t have the Tories leading by twelve – but, rather, the positions are unchanged from the poll in the Sunday Times.  So that’s the Tories on 39 percent, Labour on 33, and the Lib Dems on 17.  A six point gap between the two main parties. The poll was conducted between Sunday afternoon and Monday morning – so, after the bullying story broke, but, perhaps, too soon for it to have filtered through to the public consciousness.  Even so, Labour will be encouraged by what they see.  A below-headline question has more people

Saturday

Peter Hoskin

Brown faces the Rawnsley revelations, while the Tories face the polls

The question tonight is: which piece of bad news will make the biggest impact?  The bad news for the Tories, or the bad news for Labour? Let’s take the second one first.  I’m referring, of course, to the first installment in Andrew Rawnsley’s revelations about Gordon Brown.  ConHome have already published some snippets – click here – and they give you plenty of juice for your buck.  Not only are there the expected allegations about Brown hitting his staff (much of which seems to have been covered in the Mail on Sunday a couple of weeks ago), but Rawsley also reveals that the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O’Donnell, investigated and reprimanded

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

In the name of the father | 20 February 2010

“I’m not perfect” Gordon Brown said in his speech today – knowing that, in a couple of hours, we’ll hear details of the many ways he is not perfect, when the first extracts of Andrew Rawnsley’s book are published. He has got his defence in early on Channel Four news. Here is a transcript: Q: You know tomorrow there are going to be a whole slew of new allegations being made by Andrew Rawnsley, so let’s hear about you at work. Do you get angry at your staff? Do you swear at them? Do you throw things? GORDON BROWN: If I get angry, I get angry with myself. Q: Do

Friday

James Forsyth

John Terry and politics<br />

John Terry’s sacking as England captain tells us something interesting about what is considered a sackable offence in today’s world and what is not. When the story was just about Terry allegedly cuckolding a team mate his position as captain seemed safe. As Danny Finkelstein argued on the Today Programme, modern society is reluctant to have people lose their jobs because of sexual indiscretions—politicians don’t have to resign as soon as they are caught having affairs these days. But as soon as there started to be stories alleging financial impropriety—the claim that an associate of his was hawking out the Wembley box that Terry was entitled to through his position

James Forsyth James Forsyth

More fuel for the anti-politics fire

Obviously, after the news that three Labour MPs and a Tory lord have been charged with various criminal offences over their expenses, there is a limit to what can be said for legal reasons. But it can be noted that because the four charged are from the two main parties, the politcal impact will be more anti-politics than anything else. I suspect the attempt of the the three Labour MPs to claim Parliamentary privilege will exacerbate these feelings. P.S. In case any CoffeeHousers missed the news, Lord Hanningfield has resigned from the Tory front bench and had the party whip suspended.

Peter Hoskin

Four Parliamentarians to be charged over expenses

It’s just been announced which Parliamentarians will face criminal charges over their expense claims. They are: David Chaytor Jim Devine Elliot Morley Lord Hanningfield So, three Labour MPs and one Tory Lord.  Expect plenty more public anger – the Legg report has no way near drawn a line under this issue.

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

Legg latest

The Legg report is about 240 pages, if you can manage it.  But the message you can take from it is short enough: there’s going to be plenty more public anger with our political class.  Guido’s post here should tell you why.  But, suffice to say, there are MPs paying back up to £42,458.  There are dodgy claims for flagpole accoutrements, luxury furniture and expensive gardeners.  And even the report itself cost more than the money than it’s going to recoup. Although I don’t think the parties should be trying to make political capital out of each other’s misdemeanours – beyond, of course, proposing ways to fix the mess –

Peter Hoskin

It’s Legg time

Consider the expenses wound well-and-truly reopened – not that it ever really closed in the first place.  Sir Thomas Legg’s report into the matter will today identify around 350 MPs who have to return a total of about £1 million in dubious claims.  What’s more, in his introduction to the document, Legg is set to attack MPs in general for “knowingly” encouraging and exploiting a “culture of deference” in the Parliamentary fees office.  The papers are calling it “devastating”. But what will it all come to?  The worry is that Legg’s report won’t draw a line under the whole stinking affair – but will instead kickstart a new round of

Friday

David Blackburn

Here’s to you Mrs Robinson

The Spectator will have to amend its list of political scandals because if the sinisterly-named Selwyn Black’s allegations stand up, then Iris Robinson’s in a league of her own. An older woman seduces a toy boy and strives to set him up in business: this is a remake of The Graduate with high politics thrown into the mix.    There is a further, potentially serious complication. The BBC allege that DUP leader Peter Robinson was aware of his wife’s financial misdemeanours but neglected to inform the appropriate authorities, as the ministerial code dictates he should. Robinson denies this with the tenacity of a man fighting for his political life. The delicate

Friday

Peter Hoskin

And so it rumbles on…

Expenses, expenses, expenses.  This morning’s Telegraph splashes with the news that the junior culture minister Sion Simon paid over £40,000 in taxpayers’ cash to his sister.  How so?  Well, he rented a London flat from her between 2004 and 2008, and claimed against it as his “second home”.  Problem is, the practice of renting a property from a family member at taxpayers’ expense was banned in 2006.  Simon has since said he’ll pay back the money that he “inadvertently” claimed. Aside from the fact that it’s yet another example of, at best, gross error on a politician’s part, two other details stand out.  First, as the Telegraph puts it, “Mr

Thursday

Peter Hoskin

What will today mean for the expenses saga?

So MPs have until the end of today to declare whether they’re appealing against Sir Thomas Legg’s request that they repay certain expenses claims.  Three have already done just that, one from each of the main parties: Jeremy Browne, Frank Cook and Bernard Jenkin.  You imagine that more may follow throughout the day, especially given the rumblings that the Legg review contained a fair few errors. Now, it’s only fair that MPs have a right of appeal – but you still wonder what it will mean for the expenses saga more generally.  From the public’s perspective, a swathe of appeals could look like MPs resisting reform.  From Parliament’s perspective, it

Friday

Peter Hoskin

Committee overload

We all know how bureaucratic and convoluted a lot of Parliamentary practice is, but this reminder from Heather Brooke of the bodies involved in reforming MPs’ pay and expenses is still pretty astonishing: “Currently we have: the senior salaries review body (which makes recommendations on MPs’ salaries and pensions); the committee on standards and privileges (appointed by the House of Commons to decide on complaints against individual MPs reported to them by the parliamentary commissioner for standards – currently John Lyon); the committee on standards in public life (which deals with complaints about unethical conduct among MPs – the current chair is Sir Christopher Kelly); the members allowances committee (made