Let me just say...nothing

On hearing that Miliband is apparently going to become European Foreign Minister a colleague drew to my attention the comedy value of this quote from Brown last week.

The PM had just been confronted with the possibility of his Foreign Secretary jumping ship to the continent.

"Let me just say – I have been at the meeting," Brown said.

"That was not their decision – just let me tell you. Also, if there is a shortlist, I am sure David would be on it, because he has excellent qualifications. But he doesn't want to be on it. And indeed – there is no such list."

Covering all the bases there.

Pillow talk

Kelly also announced a ban on MPs employing spouses – which seemed to be the one that caused most anger.

“For one thing,” one MP who employs his wife told me, “she is the only person that I can talk about the day’s work in bed with.”

Had he tried it with anyone else, I asked.

“Well, I thought about making it a part of the interview process for whoever I get to replace her.”

Pick up a copy of the Evening Post tomorrow to read the Parliamentary Correspondent’s column. I’ll link in later this week too.

Kelly has a dig

Drowning in expenses stories, but just a quickie. Respect to Sir Christopher Kelly for twice outing political game playing:

1. He said the leaks of his report were incredibly frustrating and that they had not come from his committee. In fact, he added, they had started to appear within hours of him pre-briefing party leaders on what his report would say. Tut tut.

2. Harriet Harman, he pointed out, had told his committee that MPs should not be allowed to employ spouses, but then speaking in the House reversed her view. It’s leaders that are meant to tell people what they want to hear, Hattie. You’re not one yet.

Crunch moment

Sifting through the blogosphere this morning there seems to be a fair bit of vitriol from grass roots Tories about Cameron’s Lisbon U turn.

Take a look through the comments at ConservativeHome, or underneath Ben Brogan’s piece on the Telegraph website.

Some try to divert anger on to Labour, their thinking – “we would never have had to break our referendum promise, had Gordon Brown not broken his in the first place”. A bit limp if you ask me.

You have to wonder how many votes Cameron will lose to UKIP over this. What happens now though is absolutely critical for the leader.

He has had months and months to get his policy sorted for this moment, and Tories who are still backing him will be hoping that the sense of behind the scenes kafuffle are unfounded.

If Cameron has learnt anything from this whole affair, it should be that he needs to be straight with people.

But I fear that when he spells out his new European policies later today there will be vague promises to repatriate powers which will be hard to keep.

Clarke not about

I wonder what Ken makes of Cameron’s pending refusal to grant the referendum on Lisbon.

I called his office but, ironically, he’s out of the country.

A humiliating disgrace

There have been reports floating around about Imtiaz Hussain – a convicted rapist that was due for deportation to Pakistan – which have been slightly inaccurate.

Before deporting anyone it’s usual practice to have them interviewed by an embassy official of the relevant country in order to get their papers sorted.

In the case of dangerous criminals, like double-rapist Hussain, the practice is for the embassy to send an official to the prison which logically removes the need for guards to bring dangerous killers/rapists etc to an embassy in central London.

But the UK Border Agency (UKBA) screwed up and brought Hussain to the Pakistan High Commission for an interview – further more they sent the crook along with just one guard and didn’t tell the Commission they were coming.

That much has been in the news. Reports have said that Hussain told his guard he needed the toilet and then climbed out of a bog window to escape – but that’s not how it happened.

The Pakistani Consul General told Lobbydog today that the Commission’s ‘on street’ CCTV footage shows the prisoner and UKBA guard approaching the building.

They enter and then not a minute and a half later the prisoner is seen walking out the front door and running off down the street, the UKBA guard no where to be seen.

Obviously the Commission’s own security didn’t stop Hussain, at this point they still hadn’t even been told UKBA had brought the rapist in.

The question is where did the original false story – that he’d escaped through a window – come from.

The real tale was more embarrassing (if that is possible) because it suggests the UKBA guard must have simply turned his back for a second and let Hussain run off.

He’s still on the run now. One MP was pretty spot on when he described it as a “humiliating disgrace” for UKBA.

The row rolls on

John Spellar MP has "weighed in" to the row over the scientists that have quit as Government advisers.

He says on his website:

“Alan Johnson is right and there is an important democratic principle at stake. Advisers and officials can give their views and ignore public opinion, but Ministers and MPs are answerable to the voters. Outside advice is useful, but ultimately we have to answer to the public and I think the public are clear in their opposition to a free for all on drugs. If someone has a different view they should put themselves up for election.”

If it is Spellar’s view that people with opinions varying from Government line should “put themselves up for election” then why bother having advisers at all?

What people are taking away from this, and what the Government is doing little to disprove, is that ministers only appoint advisers so they can appear to make decisions based on expert advice, when actually they are making them based on something else.

What is that something else? Spellar tells us when he makes the rather clumsy admission that “ministers are answerable to the voters”. In other words, it is not wise in an electoral sense to go against the public mood on an issue as volatile as this.

I’m not an advocate of some of the things these advisors have said about drugs, but you can’t simply ignore the fact that they are saying them.

Even worse, Spellar seeks to discredit them by misrepresenting their views. He implies these former Government expert advisers are calling for a "free for all on drugs". Childish hyperbole.

The Government has to face up to these people’s views if they have been appointed to give them.

They would be much wiser to tackle them in an open debate rather than throwing toys out of the pram like Alan Johnson did on Sky yesterday.

Wriggle it, and not just a little bit...

There was a distinct wriggling feeling about the answers relating to Kelly that were given in the Lobby this morning.

The discussion was all about the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA) – the body that will put in place the Kelly review, or so we thought.

Hacks were pressing PM’s mouthpiece Simon Lewis on three issues:

1) Who will get to appoint IPSA?

2) What powers will it have to reject parts of Kelly?

3) When will it report?

The answer to the first question was that it will be the Members Estimate Committee (Harman, Bercow and co), in some sort of guise.

Lewis repeated that the important thing was that appointments were made in a “fair and open” way, correcting my assumption that the most important thing was that it was independent (a fair assumption, given the I in IPSA).

While highly unsatisfactory in its substance, the answer was actually the most satisfactory in terms of clarity.

Lewis responded to the second question on ‘powers to reject’ saying that it was “for IPSA” to take Kelly’s report and implement it as it saw fit within its remit.

It felt like an answer that was preparing the ground for at least some of Kelly to be ditched.

The answer to question three was a straight forward “I don’t know”, which applied even when Lewis was pressed to say whether IPSA would report before the election.

If, as some are starting to suspect, Kelly’s review is kicked into the long grass or watered down beyond recognition, I’ve no doubt the Government will pay the price at the ballot box.

More backwards decision making at the Home Office

Just a few days ago this blog highlighted the backwards decision making at the Home Office relating to the national DNA database.

Ministers have decided they want to keep innocent people’s DNA on the database and are searching for evidence to back their stance.

It’s a dangerous approach to governance, rather than the more sensible process of conducting an investigation and basing policy ideas on the evidence that comes out.

One reader, Gareth, aptly named what the Government is doing as “policy based evidence making”.

Now the Home Office is guilty of doing the same again on the issue of drugs.

Two scientists have quit as Government advisers because they claim ministers are disregarding advice and asking them simply to rubber stamp drug enforcement policy.

“You can’t have a chief advisor …campaigning against Government decisions,” said Home Secretary Alan Johnson after axing Prof David Nutt, who said that LSD and ecstasy were less harmful than tobacco and alcohol.

Unfortunately, you can have a bloody-minded Government who doesn’t take any notice of the advice given to it.

At least the expenses scandal hasn't put everyone off politics...

It's been unusually busy for a Friday, so sorry for the lack of bloggage.

But I couldn't go home without mentioning the superb speech made by one lad in the House of Commons today, I think his name was James Evans.

He was among hundreds of members of the UK Youth Parliament who invaded the Commons chamber to hold their annual meeting. They are the first non-MP group ever to hold a debate in there.

I do this from memory so it may not be spot on, but in arguing for the voting age to be lowered to 16 Mr Evans said...

"We can smoke with our MP, we can marry our MP, we can sleep with our MP.

"We can sign up to the armed forces, fight and die for our MP, but we cannot vote for our MP. It's an absolute disgrace."

I wasn't a fan of lowering the voting age, but I have to say his speech, and the attitudes and passion of the Youth Parliament generally has gone a long way to convincing me otherwise.

Shame on the Tory MPs who tried to scupper this event earlier this year.

Backwards Government decision making

I know this looks like a longy. But read on, it’s interesting.

There was a story in the Daily Mail today to which there are a few hidden details which merit an airing.

I actually thought the tale deserved a better show – it appeared at the bottom of page 19 under the headline DNA of innocents will be kept for six years.

A bit of background – the Government has a huge DNA database which holds profiles of many innocent people, including kids.

Some angry people who had their DNA recorded by police despite never being charged with anything, took the Government to the European Court which ruled it was illegitimate for ministers to endlessly retain the DNA of innocents.

This blog revealed in March and again in April that then Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker was looking at ways around the European ruling, with the good old statutory instrument – a law which gets passed without a Commons debate – as the weapon of choice.

At the time the Government was talking about trying to keep innocent people’s DNA for longer than the Daily Mail’s “leaked” e-mail suggests. But the point is that ministers have been planning this for months.

However, what the leaked e-mail also shows – and I have seen the original – is something that, while it may not surprise, is as worrying as the Government’s desire to keep DNA.

The document reveals that officials are working hard to gather evidence to back the Government’s chosen view point – that innocents’ DNA should be kept for six years.

I know it sounds benign, but actually it is very dangerous. It suggests there has been no investigation to find evidence to indicate whether it is right to keep innocent people’s DNA.

Rather than the results of an investigation informing the Government’s conclusion, they have reached their conclusion and are looking for evidence to back it up.

It’s that kind of backwards decision-making process that leads to fiascos like the dodgy dossier.

On a lighter point the e-mail was not actually leaked, at least not purposefully. It was sent by mistake from a Home Office official to a lobby hack who happens to bear the same name as another Home Office official.

They tried to recall it several times in a panic, but it was too late. A wonderful gaffe.

The beast awakens

It seems there may be a backhanded plot to finish off Labour old-timer Dennis Skinner.

The leftie, known as 'the beast of Bolsover', or just 'beast' to his friends, was apparently a bit miffed to discover that work was being done to remove asbestos near his office in the Houses of Parliament.

While other MPs seem to have been evacuated from the area, Skinner was not moved or even told.

All that finger pointing was always going to come back on him one day.

McNutty will do a Smith

Old aquaintence of this blog Tony McNulty is being forced to hand back £13,000 of taxpayers' cash.

He claimed the money to pay off the mortgage on his parents' home.

He's also going to have to make an apology to the Commons at some point.

I've reserved a seat.

Clegg needs obamobile

Nick Clegg told Lobbydog that he had to step up security earlier this month on a trip to Bristol after being warned of a plot against him.

Fathers4Justice had apparently threatened to handcuff him, he wasn't sure exactly what to. Probably a man dressed as Sheera or something.

But he also said it apparently happens quite a lot, he received another threat of sorts while in York previously.

Perhaps he needs one of these.

Parcel Force

Imagine your postie walking up the garden path and instead of popping letters through the slot, booting the door down, stomping in and walking off with your flat screen TV.

“Sorry mate, but the records show you handed in a package for delivery without the right postage on.”

David Blunket brought in the Proceeds of Crime Act to claw back the luxuries of high ranking crime barons. It gives police the right to search peoples homes, seize their cash, freeze their bank accounts and confiscate their stuff.

But now The Times is reporting Alan Johnson wants to extend the act to a whole range of public organisations.

Councils might use it to get unpaid tax, Transport for London to get fare dodgers and Royal Mail – yes the same Royal Mail that can’t decide why it’s own workforce is on strike - will be able to use it for god knows what.

The Government lost support when people found out they had put thousands of innocent people’s DNA on the national database.

They lost support when they tried to push through laws that would let them lock people up for weeks without trial.

They lost support when we found out anti terrorism powers had been given to councils so they could make sure we put the bins out on the right day.

So what do they think is going to happen over this?

Cameron and Blair

Here is Cameron answering questions on Tony Blair and the EU presidency at his press conference today.

He says he’d rather have someone who was more of a chairman than the “all singing, all dancing” president that Blair would be.

But Bagehot asks whether Cameron really thinks Britain's interests in Europe would be better served by a foreign president than by Blair.

Given that it seems we are going to have a president now, I’d say it’s a question that needs answering.

For example, surely Cameron would have a better chance of sorting out the Common Agricultural Policy with Blair in position.

Admittedly Blair would have only got the presidency with CAP-loving France’s backing, but having a Brit there has to count for something. Doesn’t it?

The five hundred to one-ers

Forget about the Miliband brothers, or the tussle between Johnson and Harman – I want to see Esther Rantzen and Joanna Lumley slog it out for the Labour leadership.

The pair of fifty-somethings’ pin-up girls (I bet you like Lumley don’t you OldRightie) are among an elite group of outsiders who are at 500/1 to be the next leader.

They are joined by spin-Dr Alistair Campbell, tax dodger Kitty Ussher, Broxtowe MP Nick Palmer and Blair, that’s Cherie not Tony.

Just on a side note – imagine one Blair as Prime Minister and the other as President of Europe.

One isn't impressed

Loved this Hoonish bit from Black Dog...

In his first public speech since quitting as Black Rod, Lieutenant-General Sir Michael Willcocks recalled how ex-Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer apologised to the Queen at the 2005 State Opening of Parliament for the over-long Queen's Speech written for her by No10.

Geoff Hoon, Commons Leader at the time, chipped in limply: "We tried to take as much out as we could, Ma'am."

HM snapped: "Well you didn't do a very good job, did you?"

Clarke: When recovery comes, it'll be feeble

On Sky yesterday...

Labour MPs step away

Another East Midlands Labour MP is to announce they are standing down today – that makes six.

They are Pat Hewitt, Leicester West, David Taylor, North West Leicestershire, Mark Todd, South Derbyshire, Alan Simpson, Nottingham South and Bob Laxton, Derby North, who announced he would quit earlier this week.

Later this morning Paddy Tipping, who has been around since 1992, will announce he will step down too.

All of these guys have been around for at least 12 years each, and will be replaced by newbie candidates fighting against the odds.

Their departure is a big loss for Labour, which polls show is hanging on by the skin of its teeth across the region.

A room full of angry people, one of them covered in spit

Batten down the hatches, the militant homosexuals are coming! They’re going to round people up, teach their kids about being gay and force you at gun point to watch men kiss.

At least that’s what I’ve learnt militant homosexuals do, I’d never heard of them until Nick Griffin blurted out the term on Question Time.

But having seen the light, I’m now hoarding Will and Grace DvDs in the hope of tricking any militant homosexuals who come to get me into thinking I’m on their side.

Putting that weird glimpse into Griffin’s mind, and his sweaty, hand-wringing nervousness aside, the BNP leader held his own just about as well as he could have done.

That is, he did as well as he could have done defending indefensible racism in a room filled with people that wanted to parade his severed head on a pole around television centre.

Tonight’s show was always going to be a fight between two things – on one side a chance to spit at Nick Griffin, and on the other an opportunity to expose him as a racist while making incisive points about how it is the BNP have had electoral success.

As I suspected by the end of the show Griffin was drenched in spittle.

There were, however, just about enough moments to make it worth it – Griffin struggling with his holocaust denial and inappropriately joking about the Ku Klux Klan or Dimbleby pointing out the fake, palatable language used by the BNP.

The thing is Griffin’s attack on immigration policy, on the Iraq War and on UK Muslims – couched in this palatable language – will ring true with some people in the UK.

When these points were raised the mainstream politicians needed to break from the spitfest and engage. Jack Straw failed miserably, his hands tied by the fact that he can’t concede Labour immigration policy has been a mess.

Chris Huhne and Baroness Warsi called Straw out and then made tentative attempts to “square up” to the issue of immigration, something which is easier to do from opposition.

Baroness Warsi did at least highlight the issues of deprivation and poverty, and Huhne the disconnection from the political class, as factors in the BNP’s rise.

These issues could have used a bit more time. But with so much spit to get out – it was positively bubbling from some audience members – it was never going to happen.

Blonde Swede joins BNP

Don't Panic's latest film - probing the BNP's admission policy.

PBR lunch

Contrary to what you might think from his prosaic Commons performances Alistair Darling isn’t bad company.

A few other regional hacks and I are having lunch with him later.

No, it's not funded by the taxpayer before anyone asks.

However, it will be a chance to ask where the taxpayer stands with a pre-budget report just a few weeks away.

CWU lay cards on table

The CWU have just done David Cameron a right old favour.

They claimed Lord Mandelson sabotaged the Royal Mail negotiations to make the unions look bad, because he’s peeved about his part-privatisation plan being shelved.

Which totally blows apart what Gordon Brown said just a couple of hours ago about the strike only being about the “modernisation programme”.

It makes Brown look either out of touch or disingenuous.

What was he on about!

After getting an apology from Sir Thomas Legg Ken Clarke told Lobbydog: “My reaction to the original request for repayment was that I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I’m not the only member that has found there was a terrible mistake in the original calculation, and I imagine other MPs will be able to sort their's out as well.”

The MP was at first asked to repay £4,733, which has been revised down to £1,345.

The error arose due to duplicated forms which confused Sir Thomas’ team – another example of shoddy administration in the Fees Office.

The remaining repayment being requested of Clarke consists of claims made for cleaning which exceeded Sir Thomas' retrospective £1,000 a year limit.

Hat tip Paul Waugh.

Dunky settles into new job...

There was an interesting debate on prisoner release this morning related to the Al Megrahi (left) and Ronnie Biggs cases.

Nick Palmer MP was trying to get to grips with the question of when prisoners should be released on compassionate grounds and when they shouldn’t.

He reckoned it should never be down to a politician to decide – which given the manoeuvring around the Lockerbie bomber’s case feels like a sensible suggestion.

The SNP were there and a justice minister. But it seems as though Alan Duncan, the newish shadow prisons minister, found something more interesting to do.

He moseyed on down to Milbank for a slot on The Daily Politics, leaving David Burrows to fill in.

Party member hides a dark secret

Keith Vaz’s local paper, the Leicester Mercury, printed a story about a head teacher and Labour member who has quit the party.

Liz Warren wrote a letter to Keith Vaz urging him to stand down. She told the paper:

“[I am] ashamed even to admit that I live in Leicester East, let alone that I was once so supportive of you."

Ouch.

Shop for a new Government?

Who said the Conservatives weren’t a party of substance?! I don’t know. Whoever it was they obviously never went to the Conservative shop.

Sorry, it's actually called 'Shop For Change'.

It’s a place where you can buy an “It’s time for change” baby grow – just in case you want to use your offspring as a campaign poster.

Or, if you don't fancy the tacky gimmick policies offered by New Labour, then the Tory shop has a whole range of tacky gimmicks, one of which I'm sure will be for you.

Try the "honk for change" car sticker or the "big government = big problems" tea towel.

Seriously though, if you are a Tory and I know you, and you’re thinking of buying me a Christmas present this year, the section on the site entitled “great gifts” should not be taken at face value.

Political hair pulling

I had a chat with someone from Downing Street after it emerged that the three party leaders would NOT be giving evidence side by side to the Speaker’s conference tomorrow.

Clegg, Cameron and Brown had apparently been scheduled to sit together and answer questions from the committee.

However, Andrew Sparrow blogged on talk that Number 10 had kicked up a fuss about the format and had insisted evidence was given by the leaders one by one, instead of side by side – leading to “Brown chickened out” type accusations.

But the Downing Street spokesman claimed the Tories were playing a game of “smokes and mirrors”.

I had to ask a few times whether the PM’s team had expressed any preference on the format, or asked it to be changed, to which the answer was a “no, not to the best of my knowledge.”

In fact, the spokesman countered, Brown was the one that pushed for a hearing of some sort in the first place, and actually it was Cameron who had initially not wanted to take part, but had later changed his mind.

The Tory leader was probably scared of being shown up for not having enough women in his parliamentary party compared to Labour, he said.

Now, now children. Play nicely. It is a shame, though, that we won’t get to see the look on Brown’s face as he sits wedged between Clegg and Cameron.

Griffin must be allowed on

I’ve written lots of stories on the rise of the BNP and listened to endless Labour bods tell me how a “robust and united approach” is needed to counter their gains in the party’s heartlands.

So it has irked me no end to see the cabinet sending out totally conflicting messages on whether Nick Griffin should be allowed on BBC’s Questions Time.

On one hand you have Hain threatening legal action if the BNP’s leader is allowed to appear and on the other you have Straw pledging to go on and debate it out.

The fight against the BNP is crying out for some leadership, but at the Lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesman suggested Brown was firmly on the fence – “understanding” Hain’s views but supporting Straw’s presence on the show.

For my part there is no question about whether the BNP, fascists that they are, should be allowed on or not – of course they should, they are democratically elected.

When any of us votes, we are not just voting for a single party, but for the democratic system as a whole. That system includes freedom of expression and it applies to everyone.

As Mills explains in On Liberty, by letting people speak out the duff ideas can be countered, and the good ideas can be proven in debate – giving us an opportunity to believe in good ideas for more than just dogmatic zeal.

In other words, it isn’t just right that all the weird, distasteful ideas are aired, it’s essential for the system.

The row has given the show more publicity than it’s actually worth. Let’s hope Straw can expose Griffin for the charlatan he is.

Sheerman gathers support...

Nice to see the Sunday Times picking up on the ‘Sheerman stalking horse’ story that Lobbydog ran on Thursday and Friday.

I’ve spoken to more MPs who are considering giving Sheerman their support, but it’ll be impossible to tell until the day.

Friday Caption Contest

I don't think I've ever had a caption contest with more possibilities than this one.

A leadership challenge buds

Yesterday I blogged on a rumour that Barry Sheerman MP would put himself forward as a ‘stalking horse’ candidate in a Labour leadership contest.

The decisive point may be when Sheerman, one of Brown’s arch-critics, attempts to win the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Labour Party at the end of the month.

The fact that Sheerman is standing for the role at all is a pretty clear sign to Brown that moves are afoot.

I’m told that Sheerman and any rebels will watch the number of votes that he gets in the chairmanship race to measure whether there is wider appetite for a coup.

If the votes for Sheerman tumble in, then we could see some leadership contest action – though a lot depends on how things go with the Sir Thomas Legg review.

If MPs are continually pushed by Brown to pay up and they are hit with big bills then the PM could be in for trouble.

Vaz schmoozes up to Winehouse's dad

Keith Vaz doesn’t shy away from the limelight, and his tendency to get famous people into the Home Affairs Select Committee makes me cringe.

In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if one day he applied to go into celebrity Big Brother – we might even see him purring and licking imaginary milk from Anne Robinson’s hand. Shiver.

In the past Vaz has had Cherie Blair in to committee, Shilpa Shetty into Parliament and he put down a motion in the Commons celebrating the life of Michael Jackson.

Anything for a bit of that celebrity stardust to rub off.

His most recent move is to bring Amy Winehouse’s dad into the committee to talk about cocaine addiction.

Harman takes on Gord's leadership role, says Labour rebel.

Alan Simpson has got a big old rod out and is stirring up the doo-doo to the best of his ability.

The Nottingham South MP, who earlier this week said he would only pay £500 back if he were forced to by the courts, lauded Harriet Harman today for taking on the role that he said the PM had “walked away from”.

Simpson claimed Brown had “rolled over” on the expenses issue by simply ordering his MPs to hand whatever money back that Sir Thomas Legg demanded.

The rebel MP added that even loyal Labour members – like those who criticized Brown at the party’s meeting on Monday night – were beginning to realise that the PM would sacrifice anyone and anything to keep himself in Number 10.

Then up pops Harriet Harman during yesterday’s Business Questions to suggest that MP’s would be justified in not paying money back and that they were free to challenge Legg’s findings.

Simpson said: “What we saw yesterday was Harriet Harman taking on the leadership role that Gordon Brown simply seems to have walked away from.”

Rumours of a new plot to overthrow Mr Brown have begun to circulate in the Palace of Westminster.

At the end of this month Barry Sheerman MP, an arch-critic of the PM, will attempt to become the chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party – the organisation of backbench members.

Meanwhile another Notts MP Nick Palmer was among a group of ten members who launched Labour’s Future, set up to counter the idea that the party has become “intellectually exhausted”.

Palmer denied the move was meant as a criticism of the way the party was being led.