Scourge of News Corporation Tom Watson gave his most personal account yet of the phone hacking scandal at GMB Congress yesterday. Referring to Rupert Murdoch’s regular audiences with British prime ministers, the West Bromwich East MP told delegates:
“When it comes to secret liaisons in Downing Street, after only a year, David Cameron’s back passage is already well worn by Mr Murdoch.”
As if a media mogul dictating your economic policy wasn’t bad enough?
UPDATE: Apparently the children’s minister concerned was not Sarah Teather, as stated here previously, but her junior, Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families Tim Loughton. This gives us the perfect opportunity to reprint the front cover of Community Care magazine, from which Loughton pleads pathetically: “I want to be your friend”!
Though the prime minister’s Benny Hill reference has caught the imagination of the media, Scrapbook’s favourite moment from PMQs were these choice words from John Bercow to recalcitrant Liberal Democrat frontbencher Sarah Teather Conservative MP Tim Loughton:
“The Minister for Children is not obligated to behave like a child. It isn’t necessary.”
However there is no issue with ministers in this portfolio looking like children.
As those familiar with the Parliamentary email system will no doubt know, if you are going to send out an insipid email to every MP and staffer, then you have to be prepared for people to respond by telling you exactly what they think in front of every MP and staffer.
So spare a thought for Charlie Campbell, a Parliamentary researcher who had to send everyone an invitation to ‘Northumberland Day’ on behalf of his boss, Tory MP Guy Opperman.
You might have thought that everyone would’ve been happy to have been invited to a celebration of all that is great about Northumberland as a tourist destination for two hours on a Monday afternoon, but it appears that the MP for Stockton North, Alex Cunningham, was less than impressed. In his open reply, he opined:
“Shame the government stopped the RDA’s advertising budget for tourism and numbers of visitors dropped last year in the North East whilst they increased in Yorkshire and Cumbria whose budgets were retained.”
It’s fair to say that Charlie’s area of expertise is probably not British tourism; he recently sent out a similarly open email asking if anyone fancied going skiing in the Alps with him next winter. Unfortunately, the pompous nature of the email (Scrapbook had to Google “après”) left fellow researchers musing whether it was all a joke.
What a proper Charlie.
It seems AV referendum celebrity endorsements have suddenly become more interesting than Professor Robert Winston (Baron Winston to you) and Colin Firth. While yesterday saw Peter Stringfellow come out for the ‘No’ camp, PoliticsHome report a rather, erm, pithy remark from Steve Coogan as to why he wants to change the voting system:
“Cos those who want to say ‘No’ are a bunch of dicks.”
For his own safety, Coogan should probably steer clear of Glasgow South.
The leader of the Liberal Democrats on Liverpool City Council has stated publicly that Nick Clegg will be toxic to the party in May elections since “jumping into bed with the Tories”. Warren Bradley will be banning the use of the Liberal Democrat leader on campaign materials:
“We couldn’t possibly use Nick Clegg as part of our campaign I think it would be a really bad move to do so. And to be honest, I think Nick Clegg would probably say ‘for god’s sake, keep me away from your local campaign’.”
Scrapbook looks forward to strained smiles from councillors “welcoming” Nick Clegg on the campaign trail.
Terrible poll ratings, broken promises, grassroots unrest and an imminent scandal – things aren’t looking great for the Lib Dems.
Until the scandal breaks, however, you’ll just have to make do with this Lib Dem councillor from Colchester, Nick Barlow, calling for a senior Coalition partner to be thrown to the sharks.
Scrapbook thinks the “Coalition’s passive aggressive hippo” wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Scrapbook’s favourite part of the Sunday Times isn’t behind a paywall and the rascals operating their newsroom Twitter seem to be doing so from the Commons press gallery this afternoon.
When Iain Duncan Smith was asked asked if he’d give advice on an issue to the government, the former Tory leader and Quiet Man reportedly responded:
“I’ve stopped giving advice, given my own political career.”
Good to see he has a grip on his department.
That EU-funded feminism claptrap has clearly been vanquished over at ConservativeHome, where LGiU wonk Glyn Gaskarth outlines the division of labour in the Big Society:
A healthy male can mow a lawn or clear a drive. A healthy female could form a neighbourhood watch; volunteer to assist at a local school, help at the local library or begin to run a youth group for local children etc.
Next week: how to install white picket fencing while your wife is afflicted by female hysteria.
