Varley's warning

Barclays’ John Varley spoke with the precision you’d expect of a big bank’s chief executive when being interrogated by the Treasury Select Committee earlier.

There was no real tough questioning, perhaps because John Mann MP and a few others were absent.

The CE delivered this warning to trigger-happy regulators.

“To be clear - there is no economic growth without risk-taking by households and by businesses. The banks’ job is to ensure that they support that risk-taking responsibly.

“A risk free system is a system without growth, a system without employment and none of us wants that.

“The anxiety I have is that if you look at the banking system as a whole…you would see returns on capital operating at below the cost of capital.

“We’ve got to ensure that this equation between cost of credit, credit supply and the returns generated by banks is an equation that is on one hand creating fairness to consumers…and on the other hand creating adequate terms to shareholders.

“…massive reform beyond where we are already, layering capital requirements on banks, would have the effect of making banks both risk averse and, where they take the risk, charging for that risk in a way that consumers might consider unacceptable.”

Grayling's wobble

"No matter how hard shadow home secretary Chris Grayling tried to sound convincing, there was a little wobble in the back of his throat betraying the fact he wasn't even persuading himself.

He was trying to refute claims the Tory party had misrepresented statistics to make it look like violent crime had gone up more than it actually had under Labour.

But within seconds he began to sound like someone with a complex for being short, who stands in front of the mirror telling themselves that size doesn't matter."

Read the Evening Post Parliamentary Correspondent's full column here.

Changing shape of midlands Labour

After seeing that three more Labour MPs announced they were standing down I thought I’d review the situation in my area.

When I say my area, I mean the areas of the newspapers that I write for – Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and north Staffordshire.

When I started my job two years ago there were 28 Labour MPs out of a total of 40.

Eight of those have announced they are standing down – Alan Simpson, Paddy Tipping, Bob Laxton, Mark Todd, Tom Levitt, Patricia Hewitt, David Taylor (who passed away recently) and Liz Blackman.

I strongly suspect a further two, Geoff Hoon and Alan Meale, may also stand down soon.

That makes ten, about a third of the original figure, which will be replaced.

Another group of six, which includes two ministers, are in seats that are wobbly to varying degrees.

With the weakest majority first, they are: Andy Reed (1,996), David Kidney (2121), Nick Palmer (2,296), Charlotte Atkins (2,438), Vernon Coaker (3,811) and Judy Mallaber (5,275).

If we say it is probable that those with a majority of less than 3,000 could lose their seat it would mean four more MPs being replaced.

From the original 28 Labour MPs half would be replaced, either by a new Labour candidate or an opposition MP.

The original Hands letter on Brown's "undeclared" £50,000 fund

...and the one from Greg Hands MP to the Commissioner for Standards, sent on January 28.


Dear Mr Lyon,

I am writing to you regarding the allegations made by Peter Watt, the Labour Party’s former General Secretary, that the Prime Minister was the beneficiary of a secret fund held by the Labour Party to enable him to conduct private polling.

His central allegation is that ‘Before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon [Brown] went to some lengths to insulate himself and the Treasury from our financial troubles, setting up his own personal pot of cash at party HQ.’ (Inside Out, Peter Watt, 2010, page 105). Mr Watt provides further details:

• He alleges that this was for Mr Brown’s ‘own projects’ and may have been used to finance ‘his long-term campaign to become party leader.’ (Inside Out, Peter Watt, 2010, page 105)
• Separately, he has claimed that Gordon Brown used ‘up to £50,000-a-year of Labour money to pay for private polling’ (Mail on Sunday, 17 January 2010).
• In the same newspaper report, it was also reported that a Labour official confirmed the fund existed.

A number of newspaper reports support these assertions. For example, The Sunday Times reported in 2006 that ‘private polling and focus groups show Brown is much more trusted than Blair, especially since the Iraq war.’ (12 February 2006)

To date, Mr Brown has not declared any of these material benefits on his Register of Interests. Therefore, I believe there are three grounds upon which an investigation is required:

1: Code of Conduct for Members of Parliament

I note that The Code of Conduct and Guide to the Rules relating to the conduct of Members (House of Commons, 22 June 2009) states:

‘Members are responsible for making a full disclosure of their interests, and if they have relevant interest which do not fall clearly into one or other of the specified categories, they are nonetheless expected to register them...’ (Page 12)

2: Registrable Interests

Under the Categories of Registrable Interests (Category 4b), Members are told:

‘any other form of financial or material support as a Member of Parliament, amounting to more than £1,000 from a single source, whether as a single donation or as multiple donations of more than £200 during the course of a calendar year.’

Under the clarifying note (Section 33), the rules also state:

‘Category 4(b) covers any other financial or material benefit in support of a Member’s role as a Member of Parliament (Any contribution for the personal benefit of a Member should be entered under Category 5 (Gifts, benefits and hospitality (UK)).’
3: Precedent set by the Committee on Standards and Privileges

In 2008, you investigated Mr George Osborne for failing ‘to include in his personal entry in the Register details of donations made to the Conservative Party and used by the Party to support the cost of running his office as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.’ (Conduct of Mr George Osborne, House of Commons Committee on Standards and Privileges, 10th Report of Session 2007-08, 14 May 2008)

In that investigation, you upheld the complaint and set out a series of recommendations, including:

‘...in the case of identifiable donations received through a party’s central office, it would aid clarification if the fact that the donation was received through that office were recorded in the Register entry’ (Page 5)

Given that this fund, worth thousands of pounds, was set aside exclusively for Mr Brown’s personal use and secured ‘from the Chancellor’s supporters’, it should have been registered with the Parliamentary authorities.

As a matter of courtesy, I wrote to the Prime Minister on this issue two weeks ago and requested a response. I have not received one to date.

Therefore, as a matter of public interest, I believe it is important that you investigate the Prime Minister’s failure to declare the material benefit he received from the arrangement noted by Mr Watt.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you require any further information.

Yours sincerely,

Greg Hands
Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham

Leaked letter from Pickles to Brown

This letter that Eric Pickles sent to Brown today after PMQs was leaked to Lobbydog:

Dear Mr Brown,

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, you told the House of Commons that you knew nothing about the secret fund, worth a reported £50,000, which was held by the Labour Party for your benefit. When asked why you did not declare this on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests (RMFI), you said specifically: ‘I know nothing about what he [the questioner] is talking about.’

This simply cannot be true.

It is clear from Peter Watt, the Labour Party’s former General Secretary, that you were the beneficiary of a secret fund held by the Labour Party. He has said explicitly:

‘Before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon went to some lengths to insulate himself and the Treasury from our financial troubles, setting up his own personal pot of cash at party HQ. This was money we could not dip into, since it was set aside for the Chancellor’s own pet projects. Murray Elder helped secure donations from the Chancellor’s supporters’ (Inside Out, January 2010, page 105).

He went on to claim that it may have been used to finance your ‘long-term campaign to become party leader’ (Inside Out, Peter Watt, 2010, page 105).

Mr Watt’s assertions were widely reported. Indeed, across several pages in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Watt claimed that you used ‘up to £50,000-a-year of Labour money to pay for private polling’ (Mail on Sunday, 17 January 2010).

The allegations were explicitly confirmed as truthful by a Labour official who said in the same article: ‘It [the fund] was funded through donations to the Party.’

In the light of these allegations, my colleague, Greg Hands MP, wrote to you more than two weeks ago, on 17 January, to query why you had failed to declare the fund properly the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This letter was publicised in several newspapers on 18 January.

As you did not respond, Greg Hands submitted a complaint to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner this week. I attach a copy of this complaint for your reference. Again, this complaint was reported.

Yesterday in a speech titled ‘Transforming Politics’, you said that you would ‘do all that is necessary to restore trust’ in politics and the conduct of MPs. If you wish to restore trust in politics, you should stop treating people like fools by claiming that you were unaware of this fund when all the evidence points to the contrary.
I therefore urge you to admit to this fund’s existence, apologise for misleading the House and co-operate with any inquiries that John Lyon may wish to make.

Yours sincerely,

Eric Pickles

DNA expert slams Government

The professor who developed genetic fingerprinting slammed ministers earlier for wanting to retain DNA profiles of innocent people on the UK’s national database.

The database is the largest in the world, holding five million profiles, some 850,000 of which are from innocent people.

“If my DNA were to be put on the database I would object profoundly against that,” said Sir Alec Jeffreys at a hearing of the Home Affairs Committee.

“What advantage is it to me, as an entirely blameless citizen? The best outcome is that my DNA would sit there cluttering up a fridge and that my DNA profile would sit there cluttering up the database.

“The worst that could happen is that there is some glitch in the database that made a false match to my DNA profile and that brings me into the frame of a criminal investigation which has very serious repercussions.”

He said that if, when first developing the process, he’d known a database would be used by the Government in the way it has, he’d have been “astonished, perplexed and deeply worried”.

“I’ve always understood that one of the great foundations of English law was a presumption of innocence, but obviously now there is a presumption of future possible guiltyishness,” he said.

Prof Jeffreys acknowledged that the chances of a DNA sample from a crime scene being wrongly matched to someone’s profile on the database could be between one in a billion and one in ten trillion.

But he went on to explain: “That’s about a million times less likely than you winning the lottery, but every week someone wins the national lottery.

“Now if you look at the ‘lottery’ of the national DNA database, we have five million players there and you run the ‘lottery’ tens of thousands of times a year by doing searches across them.

“So even for matches down to the one in a trillion level, false matches start becoming likely after that.”

The expert pointed out that false matches between family members – who share similar DNA profiles – were even more likely, with the probability narrowing to one in 200,000.

He said only profiles of the guilty should be retained. The Government is bringing in new rules that will allow them to retain the data of innocent people for between six and 12 years.

If the polls don't turn enough in Labour's favour...

Hat tip SlurpyStudios

You're not debating, you're not debating, you're not debating anymore!

Lobbydog has learnt that plans for the live leaders' debates have been thrown into disarray – the problem is they’ve been scheduled for Wednesday nights.

Assuming the election is on May 6, that would mean the debates clashing with European football’s Champions League semi-finals.

Given that each debate – like a football match – will last 90 minutes, organisers fear viewers may prefer to watch the soccer over the politics.

Surely people would find the cut, thrust and intensity of the debates far more appealing than elite European football.

Ok. I thought I’d at least write that last line down before totally dismissing it. They need to rearrange.

Labour MPs: Let's spend loads more

THERE were a lot of the usual suspects among the 40 Labour MPs who signed a letter today calling for the Government to bring in radical left-wing policies.

They reckon the measures are needed to reinvigorate the party membership in both “numbers and activity”.

Stronger union rights, splitting banks and a programme to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor all feature in their ideas.

Interestingly, on a day when the Government announced big cuts to higher education, the MPs call for “massive public investment” to tackle the recession.

With Darling asking for ministers to come forward with more spending cuts I don’t think they’ll make much headway.

But the letter highlights the internal battle over cuts which is now heating up throughout the party from top to toe.

Legg and Kelly

There is the predictable hubbub about who Sir Thomas Legg’s report will finger when it comes out on Thursday.

But there should also be another interesting confrontation that day in the Thatcher Room over at Portcullis House.

There the Public Administration Committee will take evidence on standards from that other recent nemesis of MPs, Sir Christopher Kelly.

Sir Christopher’s proposed changes to the expenses system are in the process of being implemented (watered down).

View it live here.

Clarke honesty is refreshing...

Tory press officers looked slightly agitated just now after Ken Clarke strayed off message in a press briefing.

He’d been asked about Tory plans for regional development agencies (RDAs) – the massive quangos that are meant to develop regional economies and business, but have also been given roles in transport and planning.

His predecessor Alan Duncan once told me they would be either scrapped or slashed down beyond recognition, with their power divvied up between councils and central Government.

And that was the prevailing view of most Tories, though exact plans have not been forthcoming. A point highlighted by Clarke, much to the press team’s distress.

He started by saying: “You plainly require a level of Government below the national level.

“I never thought you could run the health service from a building in Whitehall. I never thought you could run the education system from the dreadful office I used to have. And I’ve no intention of running support for business from an office in Victoria Street.”

He added: “You need a level of Government bringing with it local knowledge and expertise and partnership with local people below the level of Whitehall.”

He explained that the Tories would look at all the RDAs' different functions and see whether they were all necessary before making a decision.

But when challenged that the Tories had been deciding for years on RDAs but had failed to put forward anything except a vague document of intentions, he went further.

“The only document we put out is not clear, not totally clear, and we are attempting to finalise it.”

Pens started scratching.

Unseen affects

The Department of Health is launching a campaign to warn drinkers of the “unseen” affects of long term boozing today.

Having checked out the website most of the consequences are ones we all know about.

But I was surprised, and not a little perturbed, to read that long term drinking can make your, er, ‘thingy’ smaller.

Really. The NHS says it, so it must be true.

No doubt some of you would, however, be interested in seeing the evidence, if you still can.

Touch the tip of your nose!

Did anyone notice that odd chunk of the Clarke Vs Mandy fight on Channel 4 when it turned into a version of the playground game ‘Simon Says’?

Mandy was trying to frustrate Clarke, with some success, painting him out to be a Tory rebel who’d supported Labour policies, by using phrases like ­Ken agrees and Ken says.

Clarke responded with I didn’t, I didn’t in an increasingly high-pitch voice that made him sound like a schoolboy denying he’d smashed classroom windows with a slingshot.

But the real strangeness was triggered when the shadow business secretary turned the tactic and started a sentence with Peter says.

“Peter says, Peter says,” interrupted Peter, making the playground game his own.

Peter says don’t start public spending cuts now because it’ll endanger the economy’s growth.

Peter says 0.1% growth is still growth.

Peter says stand on one leg and touch the tip of your nose.

There’s something disconcerting about a man referring to himself in the third person. Normally only cartoon cavemen do it – “Ug go eat now!”

As well as his attempts to disconcert Clarke, Mandy’s other weapon was his fawning manner – employed in such force that at one point Mrs Lobbydog even commented “Mandelson seems like a lamb”.

If ever there was a better example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, I know it not.

The main tussle was whether, as Clarke argued, debt was the weight holding the economy down or, like Mandy claimed, public spending was the balloon holding it up.

Believe Mandy and any attempt to cut spending sends us into double dip hell.

Believe Clarke and the economy’s growth will remain as impotent as today’s 0.1% increase if our debt, and spending, is not cut.

Big Beast Clarke was his blustering best, trampling over Peter when needs be, and even trying to “out” Mandy as cunning, wily, and dishonest.

He claimed that Labour would make cuts now too if there wasn’t an election round the corner.

In return Mandy accused his opponent of talking the economy down. To which Clarke neatly replied that you could not talk down 0.1% growth.

And he’s right. If you did we’d be talking about 0% growth – no one would be silly enough to say something like that.

Trying not to speak...

It’s not surprising that Margaret Beckett didn’t have huge influence over the decision to go to war in Iraq, given that she was only Environment Secretary at the time.

None the less, one answer she gave to the Chilcot Inquiry was particularly amusing.

She was asked what she'd said in meetings leading up to the decision to go to war.

Her answer was: “I don’t remember…how much I exactly said. I’m sure there were times when I did contribute.

“I tried to not repeat something that someone else had already said.

“I tried to not take up the time of the cabinet by repeating some contributions that someone else had made or by making obvious statements that were self evident.”

Basically – she didn’t say much. There is however a slightly darker side to her comments.

Yes, she’s admitting she was not a huge contributor, but is she also saying that the contributions of others were pointless – that people sat around repeating each other and stating the obvious in an attempt to make it look like they were useful.

We’ve all seen that sort of thing happen in meetings between a group of employees and the boss. You’d just hope the people running the country were more robust with one another.

Ken and Peter tonight!

Nicked this off Dale, they're on tonight on Channel 4 News . Can't wait.

Brightening up the day...

Mervyn King told MPs just now that no amount of regulation is going to stop banking, as it is, from putting the economy at risk in the way it has.

The problem as far as he was concerned was that bankers would always take risks as long as they thought the Government was going to bail them out, which it always has.

His basic thrust was that we shouldn’t restrict the size of banks, and we shouldn’t bring in loads of regulation.

We should instead fundamentally alter the banking system so as to remove the expectation that Government’s would bail out banks, while protecting the people at the bottom, (mortgage holders/savers), if a bank goes down. The market would do the rest.

Oh, and he added that it was going to take 50 years to get stability in the system. That’s all sorted then.

A little more on Hoon....

After the Evening Post broke the story of local Labour party members in Ashfield plotting to unseat Geoff Hoon, LD has learnt a little more.

Hoon, I’m told, would stand aside if he could find a suitable role for himself outside Parliament.

Only last week he was said to be a candidate to replace Lord Mawhinney as executive chairman of The Football League.

But I’m also told that if Hoon remains in his seat without finding another role, it is likely he’ll want to fight attempts to dump him.

Personally I’m still not sure there would be enough support for an attempt to get rid of him in Ashfield.

I say this only because many people are angry with him after his actions to overthrow Brown made the party look as if it were squabbling amongst itself.

An embarrassing battle now to get rid of a former cabinet minister who doesn’t want to be unseated would do exactly the same thing.

Many local supporters are just hoping that he does the decent thing and stands down quietly. Thought they’re not holding their breath.

On marriage tax breaks...

LD was chatting with an up and coming Tory about marriage tax breaks earlier.

He was arguing, as Danny Finklestein has I think, that the current Tory policy was badly sold to the public.

The idea that you can actually socially engineer people to get, and stay, married was never the purpose, he said.

The policy, which would probably not make a whole lot of financial difference to a couple, was simply meant to be recognition that marriage is the right thing to do.

It was, he said, meant to show that the Tories “supported marriage” in a general sense – a sort of symbolic gesture.

It would of course be a hopeless waste of money if social engineering was the goal.

Unfortunately it is also a hopeless waste of money to squander much needed public funds on a symbolic gesture.

I’m all for marriage, in fact I’m just about to get married, and I believe that kids from married couples do have a better start in life.

My first reaction, though, is that freedom of choice dictates that it’s none of the Government’s business whether people opt to get married or not.

If Cameron must meddle in this sort of “encouragement”, do it through the education system and through the media. Not through tax.

Hoon wants a kick about!

You have to hand it to Geoff Hoon, he is trying his hardest to keep us guessing.

After his political career takes its last few gasps, the Notts MP is apparently trying to land a job at the Football League.

If that doesn’t work out he’ll have to go to even greater lengths to stay in the limelight.

Perhaps he could become the next human spider and start climbing tall buildings, or try and break the world record for the longest uninterrupted Morris Dance.

Even scarier is what might happen if he actually does pull it off. Matches will be delayed because shipments of balls are withheld while he takes “further advice”.

On the up side it might mean football fans across the country come up with terrace songs about him. “You’re Hoon and you know you are, you're Hoon and you know you are…”

I’m sure you lot can come up with some better suggestions.

The real losers in all of this are the people of his Ashfield constituency, for whom he doesn’t care enough to fess up about whether he plans to stand down.

Bring on the Peter and Ken show!

Last year Ken Clarke told this blog that he wanted a TV debate with Mandy but that the Business Secretary wouldn’t do it.

“I’m making it clear that I would want to appear on television with [Lord Mandelson],” said Clarke.

“I’ve made that clear to the television companies – my guess is that those companies would love to put us together for a debate.

“But he won’t go on TV.”

In the past Mandelson has shrugged off suggestions of a live debate. But today Lobbydog asked him straight whether he was up for it or not.

“There is absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t be,” he said.

I guess he had little choice but to say yes, but interestingly he then turned round and claimed it was Clarke that had chickened out in the past – all in typical Mandy style.

“We were going to do it originally for Channel Four and he said he had to go to a meeting of the shadow cabinet.

“Who on earth would rather go to a meeting of the shadow cabinet than appear on a Channel Four debate with me.

“What’s the shadow cabinet got that I haven’t got, it’s dull and boring.”

Clarke has just totally denied that he ever refused or pulled out of any debate and adds that he too is ready and willing.

So Clarke wants it, Mandy wants it, TV producers want it and we want it – what’s the hold up?

Reform wriggle

Harriet Harman is trying to wriggle out of a major reform of Parliament – again.

Last summer Commons reformers recommended ways to make Parliament more able to challenge Government.

They said MPs should set the schedule for what is discussed in the Commons – a power currently held by the Government giving ministers obvious political advantages.

This blog reported in the summer how Harman tried to get around this suggestion in order to retain power for the Government, but after reformers protested she temporarily backed down.

Today Harman made a second attempt to block the reform by only offering MPs the chance to schedule “non government business” – the less significant stuff that takes place and only about 15% of the total.

In fairness, MPs will be offered the chance to elect who sits on and chairs select committees, which is important because they pick through laws proposed by ministers.

But if Parliament is to be seen as a bona fide check on the power of Government it must have the power to schedule what it debates.

What enraged me most was Harman’s suggestion that people who criticised the Government’s wriggling on this were troublemakers seeking to block reform.

She said: “You have got a choice. You can either seek to work with us to make progress or you can get in a huff about the process. It's down to you to choose."

Home Office naughtiness

When Jacqui Smith got done last year for claiming for porn films on her expenses we all hoped the problem would not be more widespread.

I’m afraid I have a troubling announcement.

It seems a couple of Home Office employees have followed their leader’s example – two have been disciplined over the last few years after they looked at porn on their work computers, officials tell me.

People are always talking about how busy the department is, what with its broad range of duties and all.

But these two, at least, seemed to have had a bit of extra time on their hands.

Clegg gets the handbag out

I actually thought Clegg might cry at PMQs just now – he had a right old mare.

It wasn’t really his own fault. He was subject to what can only be described as group bullying.

His problem is his ‘angry man – I’m too serious for the silliness of PMQs when there are people dying out there’ persona that he wears every Wednesday.

Everyone knows that when a person is miffed, the way to make them look silly is to mock them and make them more miffed. And so when he started being all incensed the House roared “ooooooooooh!”

You know the noise. The action to go with it is holding your hands up as if you were gripping a handbag.

Clegg often draws this response at PMQs but today it happened repeatedly and each time the Lib Dem chief was getting a little more vexed and liable to trigger another “oooooooooh!” at any moment.

When Brown was answering his last question Clegg was so livid that he just kept on shouting “si’down,si’down,si’down!” while every time making a jerking move with his head, not dissimilar to that made by a walking pigeon.

I’ve heard Clegg actually has a bit of a temper, but on the main when I’ve spoken with him in person he comes across as passionate at most.

The angry man thing only works at PMQs every so often, try some wit next time.

The pain of being a number two

A hack colleague noted the plight of poor Employment Minister Jim Knight earlier.

For months and months during the dark days of the recession Knight has been on the telly once a month to brief us on unemployment stats.

Then things start to turn around and up pops the Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper to explain what a great job she’s been doing.

It must be tough being one underneath Cooper in the pecking order – I imagine she has a very sharp beak.

Hoondog has his day...

I began to wonder what on earth could have been up Geoff Hoon's nose that required such an effort to dislodge.

He rubbed, stroked and poked furiously all in the space of a few moments as he was being asked when the decision to go to war in Iraq was taken.

Some might say this is what is called "displacement activity" – the result of a person battling two conflicting instincts which leave them unsure of what to do or say.

Of course it may just be that Hoon had early hay fever, because when he was asked another toughie, he blinked about 20 times in the space of 20 seconds.

Click to read the Evening Post Parliamentary Correspondent's take on Hoon.

Campbell and Dacre - a bad romcom

I imagine that next Alastair Campbell might point at Paul Dacre and tell him that his dad could beat-up the Daily Mail editor’s dad.

As you will no doubt have seen, Campbell took his spat with Dacre to new silly levels last week when he accused the editor of having homo-erotic fantasies about him.

Today he follows up the accusation with a post in which he claims he was only being light hearted.

He then goes on to draw attention to a new Downfall video in which Dacre is cast as Hitler – getting all agitated about his unrequited love for the Labour spin doctor.

The Downfall video is about as funny as the last fifteen hundred Downfall videos, people should find another film to rip off.

However, there is an uncomfortable feeling of the playground about Campbell’s remarks. Kids pointing at other kids and singing “you are a gay-lord, na, na ,n-na, naa.”

Isn’t that the kind of playground bullying that Campbell’s Labour party is trying to teach out of schools?

And isn’t Campbell’s response I was only joking the same response a playground bully would give – which would be frowned upon by teacher?

What has occurred to me is that the obsession in this little face-off seems to work both ways. In his blogs Campbell seems gleeful – almost as if he takes pride in his belief that Dacre likes him.

Maybe it’s going to be like one of those bad romcoms where the lead couple are always arguing, until they’re trapped in a lift together, and then when the doors finally open they’re seen kissing passionately.

Or perhaps this one just isn’t destined to have a happy ending.

The leeches

"I see the leeches are here," sneered Sheffield MP Richard Caborn, as he strutted passed your correspondent.

Being a macho man Caborn would have had no problems pushing the door open if the room was packed like before.

In truth, no-one expected this meeting to be as dramatic as last time or for Gordon to have any real problems. Why? "Because of Geoff Hoon's incompetence," one Labour MP suggested to me afterwards.

Oddly enough, the same answer was once offered to me on an entirely different subject. On this occasion however, while it seemed fair, it was not altogether accurate.

Click to read the Evening Post parliamentary correspondent's column.

Even Shilpa couldn’t believe it…

From the blog of Bollywood film-star Shilpa Shetty, who recently got married:

“We were back in time to attend our second wedding reception (and finally the LAST!) very kindly thrown by a very dear friend of ours MP Keith Vaz.

“When he told us he wanted to do it at the House of Commons I thought he was joking - but he actually did!”

It turns out Mr Speaker, whom she describes as “articulate” found time to give the actress a tour of his residence. Sally was there too of course.

Shetty even got a signed gift from the PM. Politicians will do anything for a bit of star dust.

Hoon update...

I tweeted earlier that I was expecting some sort of statement from Geoff Hoon today.

I’m still not sure exactly what it will say, but it seems as though it will be delayed until tomorrow.

Here is some background – at the meeting of his constituency party the other night some members wanted a vote of no confidence, I'm told.

Apparently this couldn’t take place because it was not on the agenda at the start of the meeting.

I don’t know how much support for it there was, but it looks like Hoon is liked in his own constituency Labour party, about as much as he is in the parliamentary one.

It feels like the writing is on the wall. I was told by another Labour MP that we could probably expect the member for Ashfield to stand down “very soon”.

Labour meeting sets tone of election campaign

It’s no surprise that tonight’s PLP meeting was a rallying call to galvanise the party for the election campaign.

The Hoon and Hewitt debacle was alluded to only in vague terms by the PM, through his salt mine joke, and by Mandy when he told the party “we are not going to let others insert wedges between us.”

There were a few MPs who talked about it but they were, I’m told, unanimously derisory about the pair of rebels – neither of whom had the guts to attend the meeting.

There seems to have been an effort to show the party that this was an election campaign being run by more people than Brown – “I am not a team of one, I am one of team,” he told them.

Mandelson, Harman and Douglas Alexander all gave speeches in which they outlined various parts of election strategy.

One MP told me they wanted to show that the PM would not be involved in the minutiae of day-to-day decision making, but would concentrate on getting out around the country campaigning.

The party will use signs of economic recovery as a platform for their campaign and will then seek to show that Labour can be a party of change – the “right kind of change” that is.

Meanwhile they will try and score points off the Tories by claiming their ‘austerity’ financial plan will endanger the recovery.

See you in the morning for more fun.

The Salt Mine Joke

This was an aide’s account of a joke told by the PM to members of the PLP at tonight’s meeting.

It seems to have been one of the only times the PM acknowledged what happened with Hewitt and Hoon.

The aide recalled: “He said that there was a big issue that confronted him last week – when he spoke to the head of the salt union.

“He asked him what we could be doing more to help. And the man responded ‘Prime Minister we need more people to go down the salt mine’.

“The PM responded that he could immediately think of a number of people that could fit the bill, but added that Tony Lloyd the chairman of the PLP would be opening nominations and that it would be important to have a secret ballot.”

The aide added: “If you’re in the PLP, that’s like Peter Kaye.”

Friday Caption Contest

SHEEE'S B'HIND YOOOOO!

Hoon did he speak to?

I’m trying to work out which constituency party members Geoff Hoon had the “conversations” with, which prompted him to launch his coup.

In Central Lobby the other day Hoon was adamant he’d not spoken to potential leadership candidates or other rebels, and claimed it was chatting to people in Ashfield that led to his decision.

He and hacks had this rather bizarre exchange:

“So you haven’t talked to Charles Clarke about it then?”
“No,” said Hoon.
“And you haven’t talked to David Miliband about it?”
“No”
“Have you talked to anyone in the Government about it?”
“No”
“Have you talked to anyone who recently left the Government?”
“Well – I recently left the Government.”
“Are you saying you talked to yourself about it?”
“No.”

The thing is, members of the Ashfield Constituency Labour Party also have no idea who Hoon spoke to, according to the Nottingham Evening Post.

The people who count – the former Labour leader of Notts County Council and the Ashfield Labour district councillor – all seem as angry at Hoon’s cack handed plot as everyone else.

Perhaps it was the guy that empties the office bins or the canteen lady?

Surely it couldn’t be that Hoon wasn’t utterly candid when he said he was acting independently from any other Westminster rebels or people in Government?

Don't tell him yer name Pike!

LD was chatting with serial Labour rebel Alan Simpson about the “plot” which he was suitably scornful of.

He said: “What astonished me was the incompetence and disorganisation of this latest attempt on the leadership.

“Poor Geoff seems to have emerged as the Captain Mainwaring of failed coups – there is no point in shouting ‘charge’ if you haven’t lined up the troops to go with you.

“I wasn’t involved simply because there was no wider involvement. It’s obvious there is dissatisfaction within the party, but everyone knows that half a coup is worse than no coup at all.

“In fact I’d almost be tempted to say that Downing Street would have paid good money for such a piece of political incompetence.”

Notice the nuance of his last line.

He points out that Downing Street has actually benefited – the door to a future more organised leadership challenge has been shut because this particularly incompetent one has been spiked early on.

It would be high conspiracy theory to suggest that Downing Street might actually have had something to do with the failed coup.

But if Geoff Hoon happens to pick up some sort of cushy post-politics position in the future then remember this blog.

What I am certain about is that Hoon is a man that doesn’t do anything without getting something.

A layer of faff

First they said they would implement Sir Christopher Kelly’s recommendations. Then they said they would pass them to Sir Ian Kennedy to implement. Now Sir Ian is passing them to, er, us.

Earlier I toddled over to pick up a copy of Sir Ian Kennedy’s expenses public consultation document.

Sir Ian is asking “the people” about which of Sir Christopher Kelly’s recommended changes to the MPs’ expenses system should be brought in.

First of all let me say this – if ever there was a pointless layer of faff, this consultation is it. Can somebody not just make a decision?

Secondly Sir Ian is actually asking people to comment on his own version of Kelly’s proposals – some of which he has watered down.

These include allowing MPs in the home-counties to claim travel expenses – under Kelly’s plan they would have been excluded.

Furthermore, Kennedy says Parliament should decide whether MPs have to repay capital gains arising from taxpayer-funded homes (i.e. let’s allow the Turkeys to vote for Christmas). Kelly said the decision should be made by a regulator.

This whole thing is totally unnecessary.