When presented with a cartoon picture of some boobs on a beer pump, Labour MPs in Westminster took us back to seventies student union politics and demanded it be banned. Jane Merrick’s column yesterday is well worth a read on the issue. Guido thinks the Sisters should take a leaf out of their European comrades book. Take for example the adverts for the EU Parliament’s in-house beautician.

Anyone offended on the continent?

Via England Expects

Guido chuckled at the following exchange he had with a Tory insider:

Tory: “What’s Labour’s position on the Syria crisis?”

GF: “They say you should be talking to Russia.”

Tory: “Labour have been saying that since 1945.”

The Rt. Hon. Sir Alan Haselhurst, who once claimed £12,000 on his expenses for the gardening costs of his Essex farmhouse, has excelled himself today. According to PA’s James Tapsfield, as Chairman of the Commons Admin Committee, Haselhurst has has recommended that every MP is “issued with an iPad style tablet device”. Apparently it will save on paper costs in the long run and it’s fine because they can be be bought in bulk.

Guido is sure the public will be very understanding…

Guido was watching Dacre on the other side, but hears that there were lots of cheers from the Tory benches when Theresa May mentioned Essex Police at Home Office Questions.

And rightfully so.

Did anyone get the video?

UPDATE: A Harlow co-conspirator kindly sent this video of Essex Police being praised earlier today by the Home Secretary and Tory backbenchers, it will no doubt be particularly appreciated by Chris Huhne:

Ed has been touring a hospital today, he even did a Q&A. It didn’t get any coverage though. David on the other hand has gone for the full house, popping up on Sky this lunchtime. He really likes his brother:

Got it? Good.

Carina Trimingham turned heads on Thursday when she sat casually having lunch in Portcullis House. Whilst the speculation today is whether or not she was wearing an engagement ring, Guido is more concerned about what a lobbyist is doing having unmitigated access to Parliament.

She apparently has a spouses pass…

And it’s not just wives and girlfriends that get this perk. After two terms in the House, former MPs are entitled to a pass, meaning they can get access to the bars and restaurants and continue to live their subsidised life. So they can retire back to the countryside and have exclusive use of riverside restaurants and bars to entertain in whilst in town, without paying London prices. A nice perk, especially if you are seeking to influence decision makers…

It’s bad enough that we subsidise the public sector workers inside the Palace of Westminster, but can anyone really try to justify feeding and watering their spouses and predecessors?

Though no longer an MP, Jacqui Smith is still lingering around. Today she’s gone violently off message in her weekly column for Lord Sainsbury’s Continuity-Tony faction, Progress:

“We need a ‘prawn cocktail’ offensive for the 21st century – a ‘scallops and celeriac purée’ offensive, a ‘baked figs and goats cheese’ offensive – anyway, you get my point. In the 1980s and 1990s, energetic Labour spokespeople led by then City minister Tony Blair toured the private dining rooms of the City trying to decontaminate the Labour brand with leading business people.”

She criticises Ed’s banker bashing and echoes David Miliband’s warnings of business desertion, before finally concluding:

“I want to see Ed, Ed, Chuka and Rachel on the telly, but I also want them to be in private dining rooms across the City and beyond – making the contacts, generating the policy ideas and building the consensus which will translate into a serious new business and industrial policy for the next Labour government.”

But Ed is doing that Jacqui. He’s using shady spinmeister Roland Rudd to set up all sorts of secret meetings with these types.

He refuses to release who was at the dinners though, because he is embarrassed.

Maybe you could ask him yourself, and let us know?

Opening up on the BBC this morning, David Miliband said “we talk to each other, he’s my brother”.  There must have been a rather blunt conversation after his interesting assessment of Labour’s problems in last week’s Staggers.

The King Over the Water decried the “soap opera” and claimed to be trying to “minimise” it, whilst simultaneously stirring it up:

“I lost an election. I didn’t take a decision not to think. I didn’t take a Trappist vow that said that I’m never going to say anything again.” 

There was plenty of praise for Ed, but David refused to rule out a return to the front-line one day. The tragicomedy rumbles on…

UPDATE:

@GuidoFawkes David Miliband is the Michael Potillo of the Labour party—
David (@cleverblok) February 06, 2012

Quite.

Labour spokesman embraces Aardman Miliband…

“Wallace is a man with a sense of decency and pursuit of fairness even in tought times means that he usually prevails in the end.”