SpAd Put Through the Mill-er
Accusations from the Tories that the Telegraph coordinated their Maria Miller expenses story to coincide with the gay marriage announcement yesterday went down very badly over at Buckingham Palace Road. Still smarting, they have thrown the ‘rules’ out of the window and published rather embarrassing communications between Miller’s people and the paper in the run up to the story coming out:
“The Telegraph has decided to disclose details of the private conversations amid widespread concern about the potential dangers of politicians being given a role in overseeing the regulation of the press. When a reporter approached Mrs Miller’s office last Thursday, her special adviser, Joanna Hindley, pointed out that the Editor of The Telegraph was involved in meetings with the Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary over implementing the recommendations made by Lord Justice Leveson.
“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about,” said Miss Hindley. Miss Hindley also said the reporter should discuss the issue with “people a little higher up your organisation”.”
Not the best way to try to fight a negative story and particularly chilling in light of the fact Ofcom answers to the Culture Secretary – the exact chain of command that would control Leveson’s state backed press regulator. Eyebrows were raised about levels of experience after the Adam Smith mess at Culture when Miller hired Hindley back in September. She had been at Prince Charles’ Foundation as head of comms after a relatively junior role in the CCHQ press office. A pretty awkward situation…
I would like to use this widely read blog as a platform to announce how I intend to kickstart the economy. I will use a two pronged approach both being massive infra-structure projects …
1. I will build hundreds of churches around the UK, called Church of Englund. These will cater to the hoards of Gay marriage requests. This will be pink pound positive in its third year.
2. We will also build very impressive British embassies in all the major cities around the UK. This will employ hundreds of builders, not to mention untold numbers of pilgrims and box tickers when they are complete.
I think you can see what I am trying to do to help the average man in the street. Remember we are all in this together, and on that you have my cast iron guarantee.
Will all these new churches pay rates ?
Look do you expect me to have detail FFS? I was just handed this by my handler what do I know.
Listen numbnuts, we build British embassies in other people’s countries. That’s a place called “abroad”. In return they build theirs in our country.
So, if you are sending all our workers overseas to build more embassies, can you please cancel the silly toy railway to Birmingham as we don’t really want or need that either.
By the way, we won’t need these embassies anyway for much longer as your mates in Brussels seem to be taking over all their normal functions.
Well you have me lost over this one Guido. WTF are you waffling on about?
On a more serious note it is now obvious Dave is running the country as if the country were London and the center of the world.
Exactly, no hate figures, sex or explosions, this story is a fucking disaster.
It’s really quite simple, FC – this inept minister and her inept spad saw fit to threaten the DT. For all normal human beings with an ounce of honour, this would be a resignation issue – or even a sacking if One Term Dave had any balls. However, none of the above applies when we are talking about the current bunch of arrogant, conceited and out-of-touch politicians currently infesting the H of C.
So here you have it – and full marks to the DT for exposing this spectacular own goal.
Well done DT.
Is it just the SPaD who must go?
The worse mistake this country made was to vote for Blair. Even I voted for Blair in 1997. From Blair there was a massive leap in mismanagement of this country. Everything comes out is spin no minister takes any responsibility.
I am not a fan of Mrs T or Major either.
I never voted for Bliar…it was obvious to me from the start that he was a “huckster” and Brown was incompetent
This is why ministers need to be whiter than white. If she feel compromised she should resign as ministers and MPs are only there to serve the public and not to serve them selves.
If minister or MP wants to make money then they should leave parliament and find a job.
MPs are there to serve themselves, the public are only needed at voting time, the the rest of the time they get in the way and ask questions that MPs don’t want to answer as it might upset their masters or the company that has bought them, just for their intelligent business knowledge you understand.
If Maria Miller wants an expensive house in London she should work and buy it.
But not for us. She is not trustworthy enough
She did. She had the house before entering Parliament.
She did. She had the house before entering Parliament.
There aren’t any jobs!
That’s why they go into politics.
How many “graduates” are chasing each job for which they are “qualified” for?
On average a graduate can apply for approx 1000 jobs over 2 years before getting a job…of those applications less than 3% get a reply and of those only 45% result in an interview
As a matter of interest a colleague has been made redundant and leaves on Friday. She starts her new job on Monday. People were queueing up to employ her.
So all those highly qualified people should do as my sons have, emigrate to a country that needs graduates and earn what they’re worth rather than sit around on benefits and whinge. There’s fuck-all left for strivers in the UK.
Racist.
I’ll get you for this
You’re going to f**king regret that
Tom Watson, bigger than God…..probably
Sorry Tom the full English with extra lard is off this morning.
You’re going to fucking regret that!
You cannot get in trouble for telling the truth.
You could be killed though but that would be murder .
“So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about”; sound like a threat. I thing special adviser should be sacked.
Is she handing out North Face Holdalls as Christmas gifts, as a veiled threat?
Perhaps this was a ‘prank’ call.
If Ministers have twats like that workin for them then they shoulldn’t have special advisers at all. They are clearly a waste of money as well as being active subverters of the constitution.
culture…. ..anti marriage.
media….. anti investigative freedom.
sport…….. anti be a good sport and behave.
if the Queen’s christmas message has been recorded then there may be a statement on all these subjects.
in the meantime, the scary new BoE man states, let bygones not be bygones.
==
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in other news imagine if the nurse was going to be told that the royal connection with the hospital were to break…
___
are we reaching a climax as we approach the 21st…will our awareness dramatically change soon after that. will a new way of living become possible then?
I’m more worried about 12:12:12.12 GMT today.
I thought it was 21 December that we had to worry about ?
I have lived through 25 “End of the Worlds”.
Queenie is too busy burning William’s clothes and rope from the day he strangled that nurse.
“Let bygones not be bygones” is code for goldbergsocks inc saying “We want our money back”. You have been warned. No good will come of his appointment.
“I have a bit of paper what has the time writted on it”
leave my little sister alone…..or else..
Where’s my post? I tried to put it up and a message said it had to be moderated (God knows why).
My posts yesterday just didn’t register. I changed my user name or moniker or whatever and all was fine. Why?
Not sure but it seems to be a common issue. You have to change your moniker by just one character an it works again, until it doesn’t and you have to change again.
No good expecting your post this time of year, what with all these students and tinted temps working out of Mount Pleasant.
Thanks.
I also suffered that yesterday. I’ll just flag that up for you to think about.
‘I am just going to flag up that connection for you to think about’ thinly veiled threat. And then I see the potty mouthed tom watson is at it as well with his threat to Guido ‘You’re going to f hhmm g regret that’
These MP’s really do get above themselves. What happened to the days when they were regarded as public servants?
That was when they served the public. Rather than their own ego, fame, and wealth. Subhuman scum
Agreed. Just another reason why they need to get what is coming to them.
Showbiz for ugly people…
Let’s face it, the state’s probably 5-6 times bigger than it was a century ago and we, mankind, aren’t 5-6 times cleverer or more honest. What do you expect with a couple of nice inexperienced lads like Dave and George in charge of a business 50 times the size of BP or Amazon and probably 100 times as sprawling and complex. It’d be the same with the two Eds, or whoever.
Ah but if it was the two Eds what would we get to know.
That’s the point. Under Labour it all gets covered up until they are booted out and only then you realise how neck deep in the shite we all are. If they had their way with their socialist utopia they’d ensure they were never booted out ..ever.
Who gives a fuck really
Fisrt!!
No-ooo wunder miiiiii shishhhh kebbbab wazzz cold.
I would like to announce to the world that England is open for homosexual weddings.
If it helps to pay off the national debt.
And Eddie Mair, asking Mrs Miller on PM last evening, how gay marriage is to be deemed ‘consummated’, for the purposes of the law where marriages have grounds for annulment – was priceless!
Yes, it was, and it seems that a gay marriage cannot be annulled in the absence of consumation. On the other hand, it sounded to me like just another minister floundering around and making it up on the hoof. Par for the course these days, she’s obviously been taking lessons from Dead End Dave.
Yet another Minister too small for her (ethical) briefs?
Not in our establishments matey…the Government lawyers discovered that Canon Law takes precedence in these matters and that to change it you would require majorities at Synod in the Houses of Bishops, Clergy and Laity and as the House of Laity voted down women Bishops there was no chance on that so thus such marriages had to be made illegal in Church of England(and Wales)establishments.
Dear old Dave. It will be illegal to marry gays in the C of E faith. Of course the gays can always trot off to the Quakers who seem quite keen.Not sure about mosques though.Might be a bit risky.
Total cock-up or maybe not.
Dunno about that. Seems to me half the vicars I see chuntering away on the box Ducky are as kw eer as a box of frogs?
*That’s the jumpy type, not our cousins from Calais.
dO POLITICIANS HAVE ANY CONCEPT OF RIGHT OR WRONG ?
cap lock !
“People close to Miller point out that her arrangements have been cleared twice as being wholly proper,”
If you think you are being followed and people are taking your photo. You are right.
Lol, ‘Jack Reacher isn’t a Dwarf’
Those where pretty much my exact thoughts when I saw the trailers. Cannot possibly watch that little shortarse play that role.
Great books.
Like Alan Ladd had to (and Sarkyboots as I recall) he’ll have to stand on an orange box to look the villains in the eye.
It has just come to the attention of myself and my Committee that churches up and down the country have not been paying council taxes for as long as there have been records .
This flagrant contempt for the well being of the people cannot be tolerated. It is obscene and immoral for some of the largest landowners in the country to pay no annual land taxes whatsoever .
I estimate that over the years the State has been defrauded of twenty six trillion pounds.
I am very angry about this.
They should have put all their assets in a trust like me and pay nothing.
Marge, isn’t there a Silent Order somewhere (like Shutyertrappists) who might take you in?
Where do you stand on synagogues?
Have you been ‘tipped off’ ??
It’s all got rather messy between the press/media and the politicians. Revenge or stupidity?
The relationship is supposed to be messy, especially when our politicians try to steal from us.
Not ‘try to’ but actually did, on almost the same monumental scale that the EU stole our sovereignty.
I stand corrected. It is hard to get out of the habit of a lifetime and hope that there is one honest person left in our parliament. Still, one has to come to terms with inconvenient truths and adapt to the times.
Repeat 100 times after me: “The British politician is a nest-lining, troughing incompetent who lies through his/her teeth and tries to take us all for fools.”
You are now forgiven.
This has more than a whiff of the “Don’t you know who I am?” all over it and puts into sharp relief her role / impartiality when it comes to ensuring that the press has an absolute right to go to print on stories no matter how politically embarassing they may be…..
Well done The Telegraph!
+100
It works both ways.
As the actor said to the bishop.
Margaret Hodge is hoping her tax avoidance issue will just go away. It won’t.
In much the same way that I was hoping Hodge the Dodge might go away – or be sacked – when her own tax position became known. Fat chance.
The BBC News is currently bashing Heathrow and flight delays. Same old boring BBC.
Presumably their London based staff daren’t risk the train to Salford because of the wrong sort of frost.
Stupid fuckers. It’s foggy and the distance between aircraft is therefore increased.
One may suggest they want the planes landing closer together in foggy conditions, increasing the probability of a serious accident, so they can get a news story which will distract from the current buffet they are conspicuously avoiding.
Can people a little higher up your organisation do the next post?
O.k.
Give that man ( another ) prize.
Much as I despair of the thought of Edmil as PM, it is now utterly clear that the Tories will lose, and. worse, deserve to lose.
Keep your evil thoughts off this blog.
If we all put our fingers in our ears and say ‘la la la la la’, maybe Dave and Nick will just go away by magic
You mean they’ll just vanish with a poof?
Someone call?
Just a tiny tiny tiny sprinkle of fairy dust…
Nothing is certain in politics they say but this is absolutely certain as it can ever be.
But who wil be pulling the strings behind Empty Edd?
That is the question….
I assume the same hedgies, crooked bankers, private equity and PFI rip off merchants and dodgy PR spivs as under Blair and Brown…
I will.
Don’t forget me.
Damian Green has been got it. He has gone all pro EU.
This Tory “Government” – & I use that in its loosest context, never seem to fail to disappoint.
Vote UKIP
My thoughts too when I saw the piece in the DT this morning. This was his conversion on the road from Downing Street. Presumably they Photoshopped out the bruises.
Clifford v Burrell – how the hell do we decide between those two?
My Rock
My cock
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Apparently, in the Ministry of Culture, an Orwellian title if ever there was one, the threat of violence is the first refuge of the totally clueless.
You’re gonna fucking regret that GOM!
The Ministry of Culture is where they grow all the little amoebas these days.
Is there any Tory M.P. who has enough spirit and and determination to resign from the Conservative Party and join UKIP over the same Sex Marriage issue?
Come on guys, just one of you to start with. You will be amazed at the support you will get, including from Labour supporters of the traditional family in your constituency.
+1
I’m very tempted indeed.
Particularly when it comes to £15k of public money paid to his daughter to rent her empty flat when his son was living in another of his London flats rent free. Still, it was all within the rules, so that’s alright then.
Cash by name …
They don’t even have the gumption to sack an incompetent leader. They are cowards who are going to leave the hard work to the public, like at the last election when we crafted the numbers that came up with a coalition instead of Labour.
Election 5 May 2015……..Cameron out 6 May 2015
I’m not fat. I’m just easy to see.
Do you see a fat bastard when you look in the mirror?
The number of people out of work fell by 82,000 between August and October, to 2.51 million, official figures have shown.
Total pay was up 1.8% compared with the same period last year.
Fuck you Balls, and you still wanna give the sick, lame & lazy bastards 3%plus……..
So unemployment is falling yet GDP is in decline .
A very strange way to run a country.
The grey economy is expanding to deal with the drop in demand in the legitimate economy caused by the punitive levels of VAT and other taxes.
And most of the jobs are part time agency work for the public sector, below minimum wage. See immigration does work and is good for the economy. Boaz.
Well said Handy. My economic policies have been vindicated. Without this mass immigration implemented by my government and a few self interested supporters like your self, the NHS and local government would have closed down or taxes would have doubled, and public sector pensions can still be paid. The only thing that didn’t work is that they didn’t vote for us, but they did for you, how did your boys fix that?
Not to mention that we have some of most educated part-time shelf stackers in the World. You now need to have at least a degree at 2.1 level to get an interview for such prestigous positions in retail
I haven’t got a degree nor even one ‘O’ level,’ in fact I have no educational qualifications whatsoever and I’m an MP, so there is hope for everyone. Boaz.
Good old Ed!
Sorry mate just coming round the corner. Your kebab will be here in 2 minutes
So, how many of you righties secretly bang rentboys behind your wives backs? Come on, we all know how many of you are latent homeboys.
Its called projection.
As you are a bed wetter you probably don’t understand so here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
That’s what Pastor Ted Haggard, good wholesome christian family man, creationist and personal pal of George W Bush, also said.
And then he was found to have been fucking a rentboy for 4 years and taking amphetamines with him.
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t projection. Just shows that paster whatshisface was also a phoney. Many religious leaders are.
The error you’re making is in assuming that I have a problem with being gay. I don’t. It’s those who shout the loudest. Ted Haggard did protest a bit too much.
Crispin, I take it you know nothing about Miranda Blair and her cottaging episode or the Imbecile’s rocking-horse photos. The HoC is overrun with nutters and perverts of every political stripe, as indeed is the country at large.
Fuck if I had known you were Gay I would have ignored you.
I’d have married you – with Big Butch Dave as my best “man”.
Don’t say that, ducky. By the law of probabilities, one of your relatives or friends is gay. Maybe you yourself are struggling with your identity.
2% of population is gay – you have a higher probability of having a psychopath in the family.
An old lady just came arched back slowly past me to the bus stop, “I have trouble with my joints in this weather,” she complained.
“I know what you’re saying,” I replied tapping my frozen spliff on the bus shelter.”
The bus shelters have all been stolen by the Romanian scrap metal thieves in my part of town.
But the good news is that there’s another 300,000 on their way.
Apparently we are ,according to the Census,much more educated,
apparently there are many more of us,apparently we are deep in debt and
living beyond our means.I wonder why?
Jacta est alea……….The die is cast.!!
Much more educated than what? The chimps in London zoo?
Well done The Daily Telegraph for exposing this sordid little mess and the disgraceful way Miller’s people tried to gag the story. What a loathsome creature the politician and their aides is!
The Telegraph exposed the corrupt gravy train that was and is the MPs’ closed shop expenses claims process…
Yes, credit where credit is due. Thanks very much Telegraph. it is good to know that some parts of the media are still reporting real news that has relevance.
The paper will also doubtless get the bill for the Spad’s time.
Guido
Incredible that all these SPADs spend millions of man/woman hours intellectually masturbating with the medja….who are equally clueless (while going down the tubes in the case of the Dead Tree Press)
Abolish the little buggers
Ministers should concentrate on the job in hand
And give a press conference once a month to report to the people (all medja included) on the progress (if any!) they are making
When and if sanity returns to the British Government and Press that will be rhe end of these sordid little stories…
I agree. SPADs are utterly worthless and thier employment just shows that their minister is not worth their own pay either. Sack the lot of them.
The Foreign Office is very, very committed to a regular supply of SPAD’s.
They go through them quickly.
…masturbating…job in hand…
Indeedy! And get rid of all these qangos and return responsibility where it belongs – with the minister and not some anonymous bureaucrats on far too high a salary.
Truism of the Day.
Google’s tax avoidance is called ‘capitalism’, says chairman Eric Schmidt.
Yes, capitalising on thick (usually left wing) Ministers and dim ill-educated civil servants who can’t produce a very simple tax code which everybody can understand and apply.
She and Miller are threatening the press with regulation before it even exists!
Looks like it is time for the real knives to come out.
Get the popcorn in, this is going to be interesting.
I will deal with this in my own time. I will be open and decisive just as I have been with all other issues which have come my way.
In many peasant cultures, it was considered good form to display the bloodied bed-sheets from the wedding night, as proof that the virgin had been deflowered and the marriage consummated. (Probably still do, in the more enlightened parts of Romania.)
What will then pass as proof in the case of Gay Dave’s kapok-cruncher scenarios ?
Mind-bleach, please.
Any dame (past or present) from Eton can tell you how the boys like to mark this event.
A person is guilty of blackmail if with a view to gain for himself or another or with intent to cause loss to another, he makes an unwarranted demand with menaces and for this purpose a demand is unwarranted unless the person making it does so in the belief;
a) that he has reasonable grounds for making the demand and
b) that the use of the menaces is a proper means of reinforcing the demand.
This looks like a clear cut case . Telegraph should report it to the Met fro investigation
Did the previous government not change this Law to read “darker-hued mail”?
Is Maria the female version of Tim Nice But Dim?
I also see that video of a recent Cabinet Strategy Away Day Meeting has emerged
The Bribery Act .
Perverting the course of Justice.
Theft Act.
Assault/demanding by menaces.
A nice little Christmas essay for this years undergraduates perhaps.
Or perhaps some recommended Christmas reading for SPaDs.
No.
Just plonk it all on the desk of a CPS Prosecutor if we are all still here 22 December.
A prosecution or two here for a young whipper snapper wanting to make a mark.
… along with a small supply of apostrophes for 2013?
Sadly for the Telegraph and perhaps tellingly this story about the MP fiddlers (yes you Ms Miller) has disabled comment on the subject…
I have noticed this with the Telegraph they are very selective about allowing reader comment as to when and when not.
So…not that confident eh?
They are worried about readers calling it as they see it ie that the Minister has no clothes. Such a sight might then cost the Telegraph 5% of its male readers over say 75 and clog up A&Es and morgues across the contry
Maria I’ve just met a girl called Maria and suddenly I’m £70,000 down…how on earth did that happen
Oh, I thought they called the wind “Maria”.
No you are thinking of a fart…..although you could br right