Mad SpAd Jostling Climax
Despite promising to clamp down on the numbers, the list of new Special Advisers is steadily growing:
David Cameron
Chief of Staff: Ed Llewellyn, Deputy Chief of Staff: Kate Fall, Strategy Adviser: Steve Hilton. Policy Advisers: James O’Shaughnessy, Oliver Dowden, Tim Chatwin. Head of Strategic Comms: Mark Flanagan
No surprises here really except the retention of Mark Flanagan, a hangover from the old regime, who famously shot “that video” of Gordon smiling.
Nick Clegg
Special Advisers and media: Sean Kemp, Jonny Oates, Lena Pietsch and Chris Saunders
Oates was poached back by Clegg from Bell Pottinger. Very new politics. When blonde bombshell Lena Pietsch and Clegg don’t want the media to know what they are talking about they converse in German.
William Hague
Chief of Staff: Arminka Helic. National Security Adviser: Sir Peter Ricketts
Michael Gove
Special Adviser: Henry De Zoete
George Osborne
Special Advisers: Rupert Harrison, Eleanor Shawcross. Media: Ramesh Chhabra
As expected really. Eleanor Shawcross, a fellow St Paul’s alumnus and head-turner made the jump, but anyone know what happened to Rohan Silva?
Vince Cable
Special Adviser: Will de Peyer
The long-term Lib Dem treasury man was rewarded. Gone very quiet since election day.
Iain Duncan Smith
Special Adviser: Philippa Stroud
The voters of Sutton made it pretty clear that they didn’t want to send Stroud to Westminster. Without The Observer retracting their “gay-curing” story her appointment would not have been possible. A source in the DWP said “it’s common for newspapers to get a story wrong when their source is either wrong or lying, but it’s pretty worrying when a front-page story is based on a source that doesn’t exist.” Legal action is apparently ongoing.
Chris Huhne
Special Advisers: Duncan Brack & Joel Kenrick
A real left-wing grouping here. Despite his hippy tendencies Kenrick used to advise the CBI on climate change. Long term wonk Duncan Brack is most definately of the beards and sandal variety of Lib Dem.
Danny Alexander
Special Advisers: Willie Rennie and Alison Suttie
So nice of the Scotland Office to rescue the failed career of former Scottish MP Willie Rennie. He lost his seat at the beginning of the month but is back at the levers regardless.
David Laws
Special Adviser: Katie Waring
This is in no way a complete list but these things are very slow to be confirmed. Know more? What do you know about this lot? Drop Guido a line.
Guido, you might like to keep an eye on this page too now that so many comrades are on their arses
http://acoba.independent.gov.uk/former_ministers_appointments.aspx
There appears to be a direct correlation; the thicker the minister the more advisers they have.
Talking of which, the queen of “advisers” is at it again:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/25/blair-lands-silicon-valley-job?CMP=AFCYAH
Come on….they have given up the chauffeur driven jags and they need all the advise they can get with the mess the country is in, maybe we should give them a break they are trying to run the country following the departure of the “There’s no money left” party.
John Pilger is calling for riots in the UK
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2010/05/greece-pilger-britain-imf
John Pilger is and always has been a fucking idiot.
Agreed, an utter c*nting pisslicker.
Shame he wasn’t fragged in Vietnam…
Is he suggesting something positive like burning down the unions and Labour party?
Isn’t he some sort of an Aussie? Why can’t he organise a riot at Bondi Beach?
Coz everyone knows people have to get pissed before they riot.
Have you seen that poor excuse for donkey piss that the convicts brew?
Victoria Beer = Shandy and Queer
Take Grear and Tatchell at the same time please.
Wonder if he’s got any pregnant daughters we could burn alive in their workplace?
Monumental fool.
fuck sake , how much will all them cost us?
Rally is there any difference between the LibDems/Cameronian Tories and Minibore Labour?
“They’re all the same” used to be a patent piece of hyperbole, but these days……
Probably all fecking useless.
O’Shaughnessy should do a good job, he’s a very clever chap.
Wonder how much he’s being paid.
Will de Payer at Treasury? Seems an appropriate name for a cash counter!
I had rather hoped to see Guido Fawkes’ name as special advisor to a member of the Cabinet
Are you available ,if selected?
I would love to see the “dream ticket” of Guido Fawkes & Old Holborn in action
The UK would boom again
Too fucking right it would. Why are we importing a million Poles that send money home to pick carrots in the fens when the whole of Wales is sat in front of Jeremy Bastard Kyle every day, slurping govt sponsored Stella?
Hairy palmed morlocks
Time to put a few houses in order me thinks
http://www.oldholborn.net/2010/05/gravy-train.html
Stella is at least £1 a can OH, your average spazmoid dosser has to make do with strong cider (that doesn’t come from apples).
No, he makes his money growing weed and claiming incapacity benefit whilst you and I work for a fucking living.
Fucking MILLIONS of ‘em
Growing weed tends to be the more entrepreneurial members of the clan. But most of them have got a fiddle for a bit of gardening or doing up motors, just cash of course. In fact , some of them could teach hain & byers a thing or two !
It’s the Vietnamese gangs growing the weed OH, and in most cases badly. Tracksuit warriors don’t have the initial cash outlay for the high pressure sodium lighting set up.
…..and then washing the cash through the numerous (but empty) “Chinese Medical” centres springing up in every high street.
Braintree has two FFS.
But Guido these politicians that are in charge don’t need special advisors or anything like that,as they have the ordinary people they can get advise from, sorry in dream mode,they have just taken power and have debts to honour with the real people pull the strings as they are just the puppets
Peter Ricketts is hardly a special adviser – he was Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office until two weeks ago!!
Well, what is a permanent secretary but a glorified special adviser?
P Stroud; Sutton and Cheam, not Strutton
Thanks for the mention Guido
Rohan De Silva?
don’t know about him but his bruvver made classic dance tune
play it loud!
why do they need advisors? aint us voters there advisors?
No, we are to be ignored. A 23 year old from Oxbridge knows best.
its well fucked up init
That’s right.
I’m afraid I’m too old now to know it all.
At least their advisors can spell “their”
Ed Balls is on BBC news lying his bastard head off [we WERE going to do all this - honestly!] – lying swine that he is.
The same Ed Balls who told Lab supporters to vote LibDem in Tory marginals?
LOL
A bit like Highlander there can be only one. I fucking hope so, anyway.
Could Balls be on medication?
Serotonin Syndrome:
This dangerous and a potentially fatal condition usually occurs when your body contains too much Serotonin, as a result from serotonergic enhancing drugs, but can also be a result of taking too many drugs that increase your Serotonin at the same time, such as being on a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI e.g., Prozac); Tricyclic medications, at the same time.
Signs of Serotonin Syndrome include: euphoria, drowsiness, sustained rapid eye movement, overreaction of the reflexes, rapid muscle contraction and relaxation in the ankle causing abnormal movements of the foot, clumsiness, restlessness, feeling drunk and dizzy, muscle contraction and relaxation in the jaw, sweating, intoxication, muscle twitching, rigidity, high body temperature.
http://www.5-htp.org.uk/5-htp-side-effects.php
Why do they need all these special advisors can’t they think for themselves?
And i thought the civil service of each ministry were the advisors. This must be costing us a fortune.
Re: Philippa Stroud: As I understand things the article was pulled following an injunction from her lawyers. The Observer is contesting the story and their lawyers have been in contact those mentioned to get statements. The joy of our libel laws in action.
Ms Shawcross is an alumna, not an alumni. A chap would be an alumnus. ‘Alumni’ is the plural, or alumnae if they are all women.
One could alternatively take the view that a woman should also be called an ‘alumnus’ on the grounds that we do not decline English nouns according to gender and by analogy with such unisex words as ‘chairman’ and ‘director’.
Who pays her salary?
Does it go like mensa?
Sir Wm, to avoid all taint of grammar Naziness, she should be termed an “old girl”. Her Labour granddad was chancellor of my alma mater, and a right tosser he was too, except, to be sure, for the real Naziness he nailed at Nuremberg.
Ah – a veritable expert in show trials then, as would be expected from a socialist.
He changed sides and was thereafter called Sir Shortly Floorcross.
mensa mensa mensam mensae mensae mensa
Mensae mensae mensas mensarum mensis mensis
amo = ‘ang about fer a minute
amas = collect your giro
amat = what you’re standing on
amamus = a mummy’s boy
amatis = similar to a mantis (but foreign)
amant = ‘ow much I get on me giro
Latin for beginers…
do advisers have advisers?
Yes. Unions, business, climate change nutters, that sort of thing. Anything but you and I gets a say at Westminster.
Bastards
Are they the equivalent to WW1 staff officers?
So who are these advisors going to pinch er get ideas from?
Glad to see Guido knows how to spell ‘adviser’. But…Will de Peyer…at the Treasury? You’re making it up!
Shame about “definately” and at least one more faux pas up there, though.
Sir W should sit Fawkes in the naughty corner and make him decline “nauta bonus”.
Guido, I think you mean that Eleanor Shawcross is an alumnus of St. Paul’s (not alumni). Any fule kno that, and I only went to a Sec Mod.
When has the old boy’s network gone all latin?
It started in America
Latin America
Yeah , hun .
Everyone knows that alumni is the most commonest element in the Earth’s crust an I didn’t even go to school .
E x .
That’s the yank spelin.
Its all very aluminating.
Most commonest?
FFS.
Maybe, but it only occurs naturally in its oxidised forn of Al2O3.
Alumni can take a running jump. I was the Gunners’ best ‘keeper of all time. They didn’t call me *The Cat* for nothing, I’ll have you know.
ever felt like you been conned?
Only when I wake up every morning.
poor anthea
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-23837200-anthea-turner-tells-of-struggle-to-deal-with-financial-trouble.dooo
She could get a job.
There’s a new vacancy going flogging access to Prince Andrew.
Has she ever given access to Andrew?
Who says Tories party of business? Cuts to transport, unis etc undermine economic growth.
http://twitter.com/DMiliband/status/14616326428
Chortle!
Cut’s to marxist indoctrination stations that we have the nerve to call universities will be good for the economy.
Sure David. ending first class travel and ministerial cars is really going to hurt the economy, as is doing away with ridiculous courses at universities.
Cuts to transport means less jobs for Bob Crow’s and Simpson and Woodley’s lazy militant workers – GOOD!
You may laugh, mate. Just heard that 800 drivers are being given the boot because it can all be done by twiddling a few knobs and dials in some poncy office. They’re gonna stick a load of miserable-looking cardboard cut-outs in the cabs “to reassure the travelling public” instead. Bob is crowing about it, needless to say. I don’t care – I fucking hate the public. And working, come to think of it.
Oi!
Wotch it ‘n that!
Oi dun a dergree inni
‘n media studees or summit.
Gotta A or 1 thingy.
carnt not git a job tho.
And they take money out of the economy, just like not increasing NI.
Errr… David, there’s economic growth and there’s economic growth.
I could get this country moving again. Just get a million workers (avec shovels) to dig 40 foot deep, 12 foot wide, 1 mile long holes on every motorway at 2 mile intervals and add massively to the GDP.
But what f**king good would it do, you moron.
If I was in charge, I could give tax breaks for you to scrap your 10 year old car that still runs like a dream and buy a new one from Germany or Korea or Japan.
But what f**king good would it do, you moron.
Re. Huhne. Energy policy – beard and sandals – serious shit.
“When blonde bombshell Lena Pietsch and Clegg don’t want the media to know what they are talking about they converse in German.”
How bloody rude. But then, they are Liberals so one mustn’t expect anything better.
It should have been Flemish
or bollocks
or Phlegmish
Maybe if we didn’t have such a bunch of no-hopers reporting on politics, we might find a few who can manage a few words of Kraut.
Boulton does have a little of the Goering look about him, come to think of it…
Face facts, if he hasn’t called by now, he’s probably not going to.
And after all you’ve done for him.
Ken Clarke:
Special advisers: Benson and Hedges
Liam Fox:
Special adviser: Jonathan Aitken
Theresa May
Special advisers: http://www.teresamay.org.uk/
Blimey, she scrubs alright, doesn’t she?
And hasn’t gone metric.
Apparently not.
TERESA TAKES TEN INCHES DVD.
….. for our younger readers – Teresa can take nearly half a metre up her or thereabouts
Half a metre is nearly 20 inches, or 8 Milibands.
20 inches = 10 Prescotts
1 Prescott = 2 Jags
By simple induction, we can prove that 1 Jag = 1 inch, thus illustrating that although caddish, Jaguar drivers are underendowed in the trouser department.
Think I’ll stick to the Ford Focus then.
I amazed that that thick ugly northern twot derek simpson and even use twitter also its very girlie. Still when you “share” a cushy union job that can only be girlie pisstake. Him and woodley share a job but still get a house each, cars, and dont split their salary do they. So unite really have 2 twots doing 1/2 a job in total. what utter wankers
Its nice work if you can get it, losers.
I assume that da Silva didn’t make the cut because they’d already reached the quota of people with “de” or “da” surname prefixes.
dat my well be da troof
Way to go!!
Not at all sure that all this Quango burning is really necessary.
Who’s going to establish the universal symbol for a cash point that has malfunctioned? Decide on the appropriate European wide unit of measure for carpet underlay thickness or the correct opacity of a shatterproof ruler ?
These things won’t just monitor themselves you know.
The ConDem Conspiracy is just New Labour with better breeding and table manners.
I concur
I came, I saw, I concurred.
AND better suits in the case of Cammo and Cleggie ……..but the ties are just as bad !!!
They will ride up with wear.
Clegg’s jackets are too tight at the waist and too broad on the shoulder. (Perhaps after all one can be a hero to one’s valet). Cameron’s jackets are better cut, but his habit of pushing his head forward prevents their hanging as well as they should.
One had to look to Mr Osborne to see how a suit should be cut and worn.
Suit you, Sir?
Maybe, but suits are already being worn 15% smarter than under old New Labour.
At least no one looks like they’re from a Romanian trade delegation stocking up on decadent Western Capitalist blue jeans anymore.
When they moved Gordon from Burtons to Armani to make him look less like a Poly lecturer in a cheap suit he ended up just looking like a Poly lecturer in an expensive suit.
SIR – Forgive me for being somewhat emboldened by copious jiggers of Red Bull avec eggnog, sir, but it is mighty refreshing to hear the Condom Party speaking in a dialect that one can comprehend, one should mention.
One finds it rather rum that one has been excluded from the Socialist Party’s political shenanigans for the past thirteen years due to their insistence on using a foreign tongue, sir.
Yours, Mrs. K is not averse to an alien tongue, sir, Col. M.T. Kernel (retd)
I really think there should be a limit on the number of spads. Looking at the cabinet table recently it was certainly very crowded and definitely a very poor advert for their ‘smaller government’ pledge. Or does this just apply to everyone else apart from the cabinet??
Given the crap Election Strategy followed by Mr Cameron, it worries me that Steve Hilton is still there doing an Alistair Campbell, but clearly less effectively.
A real left-wing grouping here. Despite his hippy tendencies Kenrick used to advise the CBI on climate change. Long term wonk Duncan Brack is most definately of the beards and sandal variety of Lib Dem.
Definately? more like definitely mate
what’s the point in being a journalist if you don’t spell check at a minimum?
I’d love to hear some definitions of a spAD or spADS
Starters
“Some pillocks advised Dave’s surrender”
As may or may not already have occurred to Guido: the LibDems don’t have much in the way of major donations and, as frugal as the party has learned to be, Cowley Street is basically funded from short money. Except that there isn’t much short money. I understand most people at Cowley Street are now spending most of the time, most days trying to get one of the limited SpAd positions because otherwise… er… they’re looking for jobs during a recession?
I’m pretty sure Duncan Brack (a different LibDem Duncan) is shaved these days. I’ve not seen him in over a year though save for his blog photo so you never know….
“When blonde bombshell Lena Pietsch and Clegg don’t want the media to know what they are talking about they converse in German.”
Fucking Krauts.
Mind you, I doubt ‘the media’ would understand even if they speak the Queen’s English.
“Arminka Helic”? Is this country really unable to produce a decent home-grown adviser for the Foreign Secretary? Precisely whose interests will a Bosnian Moslim have at heart? It’s a bloody disgrace.
Philippa Stroud’s result in Sutton (1.7% swing to conservatives) doesn’t look so bad if you look at what happened to the Conservatives next door in Carshalton & Wallington (7.9% swing to LibDems) and how well the LibDems did in most of their existing seats in the South-East. As a resident of Sutton who voted for Philippa Stroud (but not a member of the Conservative Party) I think I can say with fair confidence that most voters round here are intelligent enough to be very suspicious of a smear piece appearing in a LibDem supporting paper just a few days before a major election.