Andrew Pierce was on Today this morning and his telegenic features are popping up on Sky and BBC news channels.  He tells us how the Telegraph’s noble role in the expenses scandal has saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands already, how it is leading to the reform of the system and how it was achieved because outraged moonlighting soldiers providing security at the plant where the data was being redacted, provided the evidence.  The whole story is out today in a book, No Expenses Spared, from the Telegraph’s chief reporter, Gordon Rayner.

The Telegraph headlines that MPs Lived Lavishly as Soldiers Died, it quotes their source as saying “It’s not easy to watch footage on the television news of a coffin draped in a Union Jack and then come in to work the next day and see on your computer screen what MPs are taking for themselves... When they’re out in Afghanistan they’re out there for Queen and country, earning £16,000 or £17,000 a year, knowing they’re going to take losses, while the MPs are sitting in Parliament on £65,000, with massive expenses, and meanwhile you’ve got bodies coming home.” Clearly the whistle-blowers were motivated by a justified sense of moral outrage at the troughing of MPs and the parsimonious way they treat the troops, their comrades. £20 a day for MPs’ lunches versus rations for them. Guido called up Gordon Rayner, one of the book’s authors, to ask was it true that he was donating the royalties from his book to Help for Heroes? “Look, I’m not going there” was his response.

So no royalties spared...

UPDATE : Lembit thinks all profits should go to Help for Heroes

Money well spent…

It does say at the top of this page “rumours and conspiracy”.  File this theory under conspiracy. Shriti is the most loyal of Brownies, you would expect her to remain in the bunker with the dear leader until the bitter end, so why is she going to a non-existent G20 secretariat job?

Paul Waugh’s cynical thought is:  “has Shriti quit as a minister today because that allows her to continue working for Gordon without actually being covered by ministerial rules?” Thereby avoiding the six month  ‘cooling off’ period before she can take up lucrative private sector jobs come the defeat.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Guido’s alternative theory derives from the knowledge that Gordon has always fancied beefing up the international financial architecture, and would crave a legacy of that kind.  Given the disastrous state of the British economy, the idea that he would go to the IMF is laughable, the IMF is more likely to have to come to British shores.  The OECD prefers trained economists who understand econometrics rather than merely how to fiddle the figures.  The World Bank is a possible career direction for Gordon, though it has a focus on project finance and global development.

The G20, if it was beefed up, would provide Gordon with a bolt-hole.  He could spin that he is off to save the world, it includes India, China and Brazil, so lots of very important travel would come with the job.  He could give himself the task of setting up structures to rival the IMF and World Bank.  Give the G20 a remit to review global financial regulation, or as Gordon prefers to call it, the “global financial architecture” and he could save face, busying himself saving the world.

That would solve a huge headache for Mandelson – where to put Gordon before the election – it would appeal to the vanity of the Prime Mentalist, building a global quango allowing him to tell everyone he was “getting on with a big  job”.

The first step would be to send Shriti, his trusted emissary, to lay the groundwork.  Does anyone really believe the Koreans are incapable of taking on the chairmanship of the G20 without the shrieking Shriti’s advice?  Korea is a major developed economy.  They have hosted the Olympics so surely they could organise an agenda and haute cuisine menus for a couple of conference summits and a few photo-ops on their own?

Is the loyal Shriti merely puffing the pillows for a new seat for Gordon at the G20? Do you think Gordon is mentally prepared to courageously face his biggest, in some senses first, electoral test knowing it is doomed.  Will he wish to lead Labour to the greatest swing against the party in electoral history or do you think he will do his  usual Macavity trick?