Bye bye McNulty

One time Lobbydog fodder Tony McNulty lost his seat today.

It would be rude to let the moment pass without saying something.

Tony, it was fun growling at you.

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.

MCNULTY WATCH: Yet another sighting

Lobbydog is calling on all readers to let this blog know when they see Tony McNulty pop up giving interviews for the Government.

The former minister, shamed due to his expense claims, has been on Sky, was on Newsnight yesterday and featured on the radio this morning towing party line.

The only thing I can think of is that the Government believes his position, or lack of it, will mean they have plausible denial if he says something silly on the Megrahi case – the subject of his interviews.

The Lockerbie bomber’s release has been a very tricky situation which has seen more eloquent press performers like David Miliband get into trouble.

Why else would Labour put McNulty up for interviews as a former “security minister” even though the police formed the main part of his brief when he was at the Home Office?

Where is Lord West, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Security and Counter-terrorism, or Police Minister David Hanson? Wouldn’t either of them be more appropriate?

McNulty trying to make a come-back?

Lobbydog has missed the little spats this blog used to have with Tony McNulty.

The former minister disappeared from the public eye after he resigned following the scandal over his shameful expenses claims – which were being looked into by the police.

But for some reason McNulty has been popping up all over the place today – this morning on Radio 4 and also on Sky News – putting across the party line on Afghanistan.

Why has the leadership fallen back on McNulty – over whose expenses there are still unanswered questions – to hit back? Why not some cabinet minister or member of the Government?

Surely it can’t be that no-one else wanted the job.

Here's a little "snubbage" nugget for you

Brown sent letters to all the ministers who either quit or were sacked in the reshuffle, a transparently ad hoc affair.

In those to both Caroline Flint – who later slated the PM – and Tony McNulty, who had scandalous expense claims, he told them he didn't believe it would be long before they returned to Government.

But in Margaret Beckett's – who even yesterday morning had been tipped for promotion – the phrase was conspicuously missing from the template letter.

In your face Beckett.

UPDATE: The Number 10 "list" had Beckett as a resignation, but Beckett told Lobbydog clearly that she'd been sacked.

Office of National Statistics probe

Lobbydog hears a probe has been launched after national employment figures were released early.

They weren't meant to be out until tomorrow, but for some reason they are already available on the Office of National Statistics website.

Another one to ask Mr McNulty about tomorrow.

See you soon Tony!

Lobbydog just wanted to wave at sometime reader of this blog Tony McNulty.

The MET Police announced yesterday that they were considering complaints against the Employment Minister, Geoff Hoon, Alistair Darling and three other MPs over their expense claims.

Tomorrow I’ll be seeing McNulty in person for a chat about employment – and possibly other news stories flying around this week.

McNulty can't talk

Employment Minister Tony McNulty has kept a low profile since the investigation into his parliamentary expenses began.

So it almost felt rude not to go along to a jobs stats briefing yesterday to try and squeeze in a question about the issue.

As we all know, he claimed £60,000 of taxpayers’ cash to pay the mortgage on a house his mum and dad were living in.

I asked him what he thought of the PM’s new system under which – as an outer London MP – he wouldn’t have been able to make his claims.

He said he’d been calling for such a change for a long time and endorsed it.

Eh? So he was calling for rule changes, presumably because he thought something was wrong with them, while at the same time making the most of those rules to claim tons of money?

After I pressed the point he replied that the investigation prevented him discussing specifics – to be expected I guess.

David Cameron and Nick Clegg rejected the PM’s expenses changes yesterday anyway – so we may be back to waiting for the Kelly review.

McNulty to get probed!

It's dirty work but someone's got to do it.

I couldn't leave today without acknowledging the Tony McNulty thing.

The Employment Minister is going to get investigated by the standards watchdog after paying sixty grand towards the cost of his mum and dad's house.

Here's the killer - McNulty insists he hasn't broken any rules.

I don't hold out hope for the investigation amounting to much, considering he hasn't broken rules.

We can only hope that public pressure for change grows and they bend to it.

Brown: Expenses are a matter for Parliament

The PM's spokesman was quick to side-step the mine that is Tony McNulty's expense claim at a briefing just now.

He said the PM had confidence in McNulty's ability as a minister.

But he added that expenses were not an issue that relates to Tony McNulty's Government roles.

They were a matter for Parliament, he said, and needed to be dealt with by the House.

When pressed on whether he had "an opinion" the same response came.

I didn't expect anything less, but it's enough to make your blood boil.

McNulty pays for mum and dad's house

McNulty is the latest MP to have shamefully “done nothing wrong” in the expenses saga.

The rules he hasn’t broken let him claim an allowance to pay the mortgage on a house where his parents live.

The Employment Minister, a sometime reader of this blog, has said he won’t return the estimated £60,000 he has received already – but has confirmed he’s stopped claiming on it.

Fairly brave of Greg Hands to come out and criticise this considering Caroline Spelman’s situation – no party has the moral high ground on this one.

You have to hope these stories will add to an overpowering crescendo of protest – the MPs have staunchly resisted fundamental change, but it can’t go on.

McNulty - more lobbydoggy, than attack doggy

“Is the blog-man here,” asked McNulty sitting down at the briefing table. Lobbydog put up his hand.

It was the start of a slightly bizarre exchange I had with the Employment Minister this morning, in which he revealed he was a Lobbydog reader.

At the last briefing he joked with other hacks that he wanted to ban me – but deep down it seems Tony “attack-dog” McNulty is actually a puppy, a glutton for punishment even.

Asked by another hack if he read their blog he answered: “You haven’t offended me yet.”

An invitation if ever I heard one.

He added that he reads Iain Dale every day – one in the eye for Draper and Campbell.

This blog certainly has a history of giving McNulty the odd slap and its readers are never shy in sounding off.

However, the minister said he’d resisted leaving a comment so far – come on Tony, you know you want to.

“I’m a big West Wing fan," he said to me. "Do you like the West Wing?”

“There’s an episode where Josh, who is the number two on the communications side, decides he’s going to answer something on the blogs.

“His secretary tells him not to because he gets obsessed when they then answer back – he has to say ‘that’s not right. That’s not right. Where do these people live? What planet are they on?’

“But really, I love my blogs.”

So bloggers – McNulty doesn’t know what planet you’re living on. Why don’t you tell him?

McNulty yelps at Lobbydog

Tony McNulty is biting back after a mauling from Lobbydog.

This blog has previously posted on ‘attack-dog’ McNulty’s various scraps.

But it seems the Employment Minister didn’t like his ribbing.

Today at a briefing on unemployment figures for the regional lobby, he joked with hacks that he wanted to bar your’s truly.

“Shall we tell him he’s banned,” the other hacks apparently asked.

“No. I want to do it myself,” said Tone, tongue in cheek.

Unfortunately I was covering a select committee meeting when all of this was said.

But come on Tony. I know you’re reading. I bet you never miss a post. You love it.

Why not leave us a message?

Theresa bites back...

Tory press office just put this out…

In response to Tony McNulty’s comments as reported on Lobbydog, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Theresa May said:

“Tony McNulty is like the rest of this Labour Government - living in denial…

“…Ministers need to offer real help to the unemployed instead of just spin.”

1 - 0 to McNutty I reckon. The tunnel comment (see below) was silly, but he wins round one for the directness of his attack.

McNulty finds his teeth

Tony McNulty has just launched a savage attack on new shadow work and pensions secretary Theresa May.

It followed an interview in which the Employment Minister had said the words "light at the end of the tunnel".

Sniffing a bit of "green shoots" action, May accused him of being out of touch with reality.

McNulty said to Lobbydog: "Theresa May god bless her has written the most pathetic press release you'll have ever seen trying to allude to my comments, 'the light at the end of the tunnel', being akin to 'green shoots' - which is complete nonsense.”

He said he was being open about the fact that things were going to get worse, but added he'd meant the recession would end one day.

"People need to understand that and cling to this hope. We will get through it,” he spewed.

"If I can't say that without some pathetic little retort from the Conservative Party - if this is the best Theresa May can do - perhaps she should give up now before the end of the first day."

Mc Mc Mc McNulty

In today's stats briefing Tony "the attack dog" McNulty gave a memorably crap answer.

The Employment Minister was asked by a hack whether he agreed with the Chancellor – that recession would ease off at the end of 2009 – or with Lord Mandelson, that it is deeper and longer than we expect.

He said: “I agree with both of course. I think that in different ways they are trying to say the same thing.

“Alistair was saying, rather like the Bank of England, all the signs look like, thus far, an up-turn towards the end of that year.

“But if you look at the chart that the Governor [of the BoE] introduced, as ever with bankers, economists and everybody, there was a huge spread between quite how sharp the line would go back up and how slowly it went back up.

“There was a huge array of, sort of, ‘this is the trend, here’s how it may go’.”

Thanks for that. The hack pressed him again.

“I think they are explaining the same phenomenon," he gibbered.

“One in an economic, er, er, e-e-e economic, economicistic way and one in a business focused way.”

Unemployment

Tony McNulty is giving us a briefing on today's unemployment statistics – showing 1.86m people are out of work – in 20 minutes.

Then at 2pm the Tory's have set their briefing up, let the spin tug-of-war begin.

We should be able to get some sort of breakdown to show how badly Nottingham has been hit, read about it in the paper tomorrow.