According to the Guardian, despite the 1688 Bill of Rights, it has been gagged from reporting a question to be asked in parliament later this week.  The gag was obtained by Carter-Ruck.  Wonder if it is this question:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Note to Carter-Ruck – Guido’s publishers will only accept service as per the requirements of the Hague Convention. Come to Charlestown, the weather is fantastic…

UPDATE : Apparently Carter-Ruck are trying to suppress this report.  Not doing a very good job of it are they?

Lord Paul says of his expense form declared ‘main home’…

“It’s true I never slept there. But it was available. I submitted the claim and I gave the flat as my address, because I have it as a place to stay.”

The Times says her career is ruined.  She could of course try to redeem herself by doing the right thing.  She could pay back the money she fiddled…

Nick Clegg is repaying £910 that he spent on his roses.

David Cameron has been asked to provide more information about his mortgage.

Legg is kicking a few troughs over…

This letter was sent to Jacqui Smith’s office this morning:

Given she did not offer re-payment with her apology this afternoon, the Sunlight campaigners say they will not let matters rest here…

No offer of repayment.

The Standards and Privileges Committee concludes

Whilst we acknowledge that there are mitigating circumstances, Ms Smith clearly breached the rules of the house by wrongly designating her main home from 2004 to 2009. We recommend that Ms Smith apologise to the House by means of a personal statement.

Guido is not sure that it should rest there.

Ms Smith accepts that she also breached the rules by failing to notify the house authorities for one year that she had changed the address of her designated main home. Ms Smith gained nothing from this lapse, and the public interest was not harmed. We therefore recommend no further action.

Absolutely untrue. If she had only been able to claim for the rent of her sisters spare room she would not have been able to refurbish her main family home at the taxpayers’ expense. She gained everything from the kitchen sink to bath plugs – which she would not have been able to do if she was just claiming for the rent on her sister’s place.

When her duplicity was first exposed in the media she also, let us not forget, claimed in interviews to spend most of her time in London. When her diary and police records were examined by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, this was found to be untrue.

She has not been asked by the Standards and Privileges Committee to repay a single penny.

The Political Porker-in-Chief, Sir Stuart Bell, who sits on the discredited Commons Members Estimate Committee, is going from broadcast studio to broadcast studio squealing that Sir Thomas Legg “is not staying within that remit, he’s not respecting the decisions that were made by the Fees Office in accordance with the rules at the time.”

Bell is as usual being disingenuous, the Fees Office had little authority or competence to enforce rules, it simply took ‘honourable’ members at their word and paid them the cash, no questions asked.  The Fees Office saw its role as working for MPs not the paying public.  Only in the most outrageous and unjustifiable cases did the Fees Office balk at paying out – for example Tam Dalyell’s claim of £18,000 for bookcases was rejected.

If MPs dare to go to Court to fight for their ill-gotten gains, Guido will be waiting…

UPDATE : Mandy says that he feels that retrospective action taken by Sir Thomas Legg, urging MPs to repay allowances claimed under the previous system, was “a little unfair”.  So because they thought they had got away with it, they think it is unfair that they got caught?  Tell it to the judge…