Over the weekend the News of the World revealed that Conservative Party Chairman Caroline Spelman’s Chief-of-Staff, Simon Cawte, was paid out of her parliamentary expenses for two years (2006 & 2007). Parliamentary Staff Allowances are prohibited from being used for partisan purposes. Andy Coulson told his former colleagues at the News of the World that their story was rubbish.

“It is entirely wrong to suggest Simon Cawte was not paid in accordance with the rules. Simon Cawte was employed to support Caroline Spelman in her role as part of the Official Opposition in Parliament. He discharged duties such as speech writing and answering correspondence relating to Caroline Spelman’s role as the Shadow Local Government Secretary. This is entirely permissable within the rules.”

The issue boils down to: Was Cawte’s work in assisting Spelman “entirely attributable to the Member’s Parliamentary work”?

Timeline of Declarations of CCHQ / Taxpayer Funding for Simon Cawte

“X” = No declaration of CCHQ Chief-of-Staff funding, “/” = declaration of CCHQ Chief-of-Staff funding, note registers issued irregularly, these are all that were found.

Cawte was definitely paid for by CCHQ in 2005 – and properly declared that February – he was however back on Spelman’s parliamentary expenses in 2006/7 when he suddenly is supposed to have become apolitical, before once again going back on the CCHQ payroll in 2008 when she became Party Chairman. Spelman could hardly pretend that the Party Chairman’s Chief-of-Staff was a non-partisan role, could she?

Guido has had a look at some of the speeches Spelman’s supposedly non-partisan speech writer wrote for her. Here are the final paragraphs from some of the speeches Spelman delivered during that 2006 / 07 period:

The challenge for us is to help people, help themselves. As the Big Issue slogan says “A Hand Up Not a Hand Out”. And that is exactly what David Cameron’s modern, compassionate Conservative Party is all about.

Regenerating our communities is a social, not just state, responsibility 03/10/2006

I say continue, because let’s not forget, we are already coming back in places like Birmingham and Leeds and we control the councils of towns and cities like Bradford Coventry Dudley Walsall and Tamworth. Those places are feeling the effects of a modern Conservative Party in tune with the aspirations of today’s electorate. The challenge for us is to make sure the Conservative Party continues to strengthen its presence in or towns and cities and I hope that you, like me, will be straining every sinew in between now and May 4th to help deliver that.

Reconnecting with our cities 07/04/2006

This will be a new politics under a new conservative government. A new Conservative policy on regeneration needs to restore civic pride in community by raising up and building the capacity of local champions who in turn engage the whole community in bringing about change which people want to see and take ownership of. A new Conservative government will have to provide a framework where schools and education are at the heart of regeneration, a sustaining local economy underpins regeneration, and the regeneration of lives goes hand in hand with the restoration buildings. Our hand should be open to the needs of the poor to offer a hand up where money is leveraged by the goodwill and instinct of people to build a better world around them for those they know and love.”

Rebuilding lives – not just places 28/02/2006

There are plenty of speeches to choose from, all in the same style, almost all concluding with words to the effect “Vote Conservative” – which seems a tad partisan.

Most shadow cabinet Chiefs-of-Staff are paid for by private donors or CCHQ – not the taxpayers – precisely because they do the party political work. Cawte was also Spelman’s Chief-of-Staff when she was in charge of the local government election campaigns – did he really stay out of party politics when the campaign she was leading was going on? We were expected to believe that the professional nanny Tina Haynes was actually her constituency secretary not her child minder at the taxpayers’ expense, based outside the constituency and doing political stuff with a small “p”. We are now expected to believe that her Chief-of-Staff Simon Cawte was not doing partisan political stuff with a capital “P”. That is not credible. Her stories are full of holes…

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