A great spot by Labour-Uncut.

Uber-self promoting Tory MP Chris D. Kelly even let the children stroke it.

UPDATE: As Dizzy points out it seems the Uncut team are somewhat in denial describing Kelly as the “Conservative MP for the Labour seat of Dudley South”. It’s not on loan lads…

Lord Mandelson said back in April:

“It is simply not possible to accept the assumptions being offered by anyone, whether they are the IFS or the Treasury”

Big Guido fan Tim Walker over at the Telegraph’s Mandrake is offering readers a bottle of champagne if they can identify the mysterious “B” on that baseball cap:

Looks a lot like a B for “Bentley” logo to Guido. So the bottle of champagne this way please Tim…

One of the rules MPs managed to block when it was proposed by Sir Christopher Kelly’s Committee on Standards in Public Life was the ban on employing family as staff members. Nepotism being the oldest and most basic form of petty corruption.

Staff Members with same surname as employer MPs:

MPs will protest that they pay their spouse / son / daughter / sibling a pittance and they work extra long hours and suchlike. The truth is they deny someone more competent the chance of a job won in open competition. Many MPs really use the staff allowance as a subsidy to family members. Who can forget Derek Conway’s lavish family staffing arrangements, with payments to offspring at university? Peter Hain’s employment of his octogenarian mother despite having a staff of civil servants, special advisers, private secretaries, secretaries and case workers.  Bob Spink famously employed his former wife, his lover and her daughter.

Many MPs now employ their wives / partners in their maiden names to disguise the dodge. For example Elaina Cohen is Khalid Mahmood’s partner – he dumped his wife for her – but contrary to the rules of the House he doesn’t declare the relationship. No doubt some of the above will have innocent explanations for why – against best private sector practise – they issue staff passes to family members. They shouldn’t do it, it is nepotism.

*The ‘it’ being our taxes. Research thanks to co-conspirator, James Spencer.

Parliament has finally got round to publishing the list of pass-holders and their various sponsors. Tory Mark Garnier has given one to the nice lady who organises his dining society. For his life Guido can not work out why Labour’s Anne McGuire would need to give unfettered access to a US Embassy ‘Political Analyst’. Sounds very spooky…

Matthew Ball is a lobbyist, and a not bad one at that. He’s the director of the Westminster Bridge Partnership. They lobby on behalf of the Co-Operative group mainly. How nice then of Andy Love, a Co-Op MP, to give him a pass. All day Ball can wander around Parliament pressing flesh on behalf of his clients, keeping it all in the Co-Op family.

Guido is bemused at how, despite clear guidelines on lobbyists being in Parliament, the rules can be broken so blatantly. How about Rosemary Hadow who works for the Lighting Industry Federation, representing a niche but lucrative industry. Conveniently she does a bit of work for the All-Party Parliamentary Lighting Group and hey presto she can have a pass from Tony Baldry. Perfect for spreading the word about the fight against compulsory maximum wattages on light bulbs and other campaigns over drinks on the Terrace eh?

And what about those forgotten lobbyists, pushing for the special interests of a minority. Well seventeen Labour MPs have given a parliamentary pass to trade union political officers, with no fewer than five for Unite.  The list is long – could co-conspirators help crowd source the cross referencing of lobbyists and passholders. Have a look through the list yourself and email Guido with any names you might recognise or that stick out…

Matthew Parris told Iain Dale…

“I think there was something very odd about Gordon Brown. It wasn’t an oddness that made him unfit for any useful role in public life but it certainly made him unfit for any central role as a communicator or explainer but more than that as a listener. He wasn’t a good listener, he wasn’t good at being honest about what the problems were. He seemed to have a difficulty with bad news that was more than the difficulty Tony Blair had, which was he didn’t want people to know it. Gordon didn’t seem to want to hear it himself.”