Guido has been enjoying a very pleasant afternoon at the Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards this afternoon. Here are the winners in full:

• Newcomer of the Year – Andrea Leadsom MP (Con)
• Backbencher of the Year – Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP (Lab)
• Campaigner of the Year – Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP (Lab)
• Inquisitor of the Year – Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MP (Lab)
• Speech of the Year – Charles Walker MP (Con) & Kevan Jones MP (Lab)
• Resignation of the Year – Rt Hon Lord Hill of Oareford (Con)
• Apology of the Year – Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP (Lib Dem)
• Resurrection of the Year – Rt Hon Sir George Young MP (Con)
• Minister to Watch – Elizabeth Truss MP (Con)
• Double Act of the Year – Rt Hon Edward Davey MP (Lib Dem) & John Hayes MP (Con)
• Peer of the Year – Rt Revd Justin Welby
• Minister of the Year – Rt Hon Theresa May MP (Con)
• Parliamentarian of the Year – Jesse Norman MP (Con)
• Politician of the Year – Boris Johnson (Con)

Some worthy winners. Some less so…

The Rothschilds, offshore banking and a large political donation – all we need are a Russian oligarch and a yacht and it’s 2010 all over again. Yesterday’s Electoral Commission figures reveal that the Labour Party have accepted a £10,000 donation from Rothschild Private Banking, a wealth management service that specialises in discreet “wealth structuring” and “expert guidance on efficient tax and succession planning”. Are they predators or producers?

Its parent company is based, naturally, in Switzerland. Tax avoidance really is a terrible thing, isn’t it Ed?

The BBC have been briefing against Alun Cairns’ transparency Ten Minute Rule Bill this afternoon…

Read what they’re spinning only over on MediaGuido…

This afternoon Tory MP Alun Cairns will ask the House “that leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the British Broadcasting Corporation to publish all invoices for amounts in excess of £500 each quarter; to allow unrestricted access to the Corporation’s accounts by the National Audit Office; and for connected purposes”. The Beeb have been busy pre-emptively briefing ahead of the Ten Minute Rule Bill. Here is the briefing document in full:

That’s a no then…

The sheer idiocy of some of those who inexplicably manage to find themselves sat in the Commons never ceases to amaze Guido. Step forward Labour MP Yasmin Qureshi, who took to twitter yesterday to air her views on the Israel-Palestine conflict:

Are Tories really blinkered? Israeli is pounding gaza with thousands of missiles which are lethal unlike Hamas home made few rockets.—
Yasmin Qureshi (@YasminQureshiMP) November 20, 2012

Apparently those Iranian made 21-foot long Fajr-5 rockets, which carry 90kg of explosives and can be fired from up to 75 kilometres, have been put together by some amateur in a Gaza back yard. Crazy Qureshi then went on to tweet a link to Stalinist Hamas apologist Seamus Milne’s pathetic piece today about how he wants “a change in the balance of forces on the ground”. Qureshi is the MP for Bolton South East. Gorgeous George would be proud…

Comments in the comments please…

Margaret Hodge didn’t take too kindly to being accused of tax hypocrisy by Priti Patel yesterday. The litigious Labour MP and ardent anti-tax avoidance campaigner insists she has done nothing wrong with her shareholding arrangements at 0.01% tax rate paying Stemcor. She has succeeded in scaring off the dead tree press from reporting her arrangements. Guido has been crunching the numbers and it seems Priti is on to something…

Hodge claimed in a grilling by Michael Crick earlier this month that “I am a tiny, tiny, tiny shareholder”. Her direct shareholding is 1.26% which, given that Stemcor paid out £4,519,000 in dividends last year, means she received some £56,939. That shareholding alone is worth £1.8 million. Hardly a tiny amount.

What’s more Stemcor confirmed yesterday that this figure “excludes shares held in trust or in her children’s names”. The company share register shows that Hodge holds several million pounds worth of shareholdings in trusts, including for members of her family. As Polly Toynbee helpfully explains, this is a clever way of minimising future inheritance tax liability:

“The big sell is trusts, special ones devised for this company’s clients, guaranteed to protect almost all your wealth from inheritance tax. They are right, it can be done easily. Put all moveables and all cash and investments into a discretionary trust, and it passes to your heirs without tax as soon as you die, not even waiting for probate. It counts as a gift so the beneficiaries need pay no tax either.”

Yesterday Guido challenged Hodge to explain the purpose of placing her Stemcor shareholdings in a trust other than to reduce the future inheritance tax liability of her relatives. She has yet to reply…

A BBC journalist has called for chavs to be euthanised.

Read what he had to say over on MediaGuido…

Leicester Square is a moron magnet. We should euthanise it every saturday for the next year, and the UK will be chav free.—
Dave Lee (@davelee) November 17, 2012

Dave Lee, a technology reporter for the BBC, not at all snobbish. Advocating the mass murder of the lower classes…

Former Tory Health Secretary turned troughing piggy Stephen Dorrell should be drafting his resignation this morning after the Telegraph revealed that he sold his old flat to friends, did not declare the controversial deal that netted him £70,000, and then rented it back off of them. All to break the spirit of the new expenses rules.

Dorrell openly admits that he contrived this tenancy to maximise his benefits under IPSA rules, he told the Telegraph

“…I bought it on an interest only mortgage, because that was the rule at the time, and that ended. So I arranged for a third party to buy it. We had an independent assessment of the rent and it is rented at arms length.”

If he was claiming welfare benefits instead of MPs’ benefits he could be prosecuted for fraudulently ”contriving a tenancy”…

In an added twist, there is also a huge undeclared conflict of interest in the fact that the friends are involved in care homes – an area being investigated by the Select Committee Dorrell chairs. The only job he should be doing is Stewarding the Chilton Hundreds…