Red Lion patrons enjoyed some prime entertainment last night from the shadow education secretary Kate Green, who clearly needs to learn to hold her drink better. After regaling people on the need for a left-wing Labour leader and the merits of Lisa Nandy, she was seen by around three dozen patrons “face planting” in the pub “after one too many”, with Steerpike reporting – without naming her – that she tripped up a flight of stairs and collapsed flat on the ground, “smashing [her] glass in the process.” 

An audio recording of just after her fall, passed to Guido, has Green being asked by an aide “oh my God are you OK” to which she replies “yeah I’m fine”. When asked again a few seconds later however she concludes “errm no…”. 

She was subsequently carted off by a bag carrier. Thankfully for Green, fellow Labour MP Charlotte Nichols is also in the news this morning for getting so drunk on a recent parliamentary trip she had to be carted off from the airport in a wheelchair, so could be worse…

Yesterday Guido’s eye-witness report of Alastair Campbell’s ill-fated awards compèring clearly touched a nerve. Campbell spat back denying various aspects of the story. A dodgy dossier it was not…

Oh dear. Number 10 puppy ‘Guido’ getting a tad obsessed again. On Brexit,show of hands of 500 people in room, one said it was going well. Probably Puppy pal. On transition team we had what we call good banter and I said they did good job raising awareness Brexit happening 1/2 https://t.co/gD5EIAAQdU

— ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (@campbellclaret) November 10, 2021

Guido does have a correction to make regarding yesterday’s supposedly sexed-up story: Campbell claimed that our photo showing a table of his books had gone unsold, misrepresented the truth.

We now accept that was incorrect. Multiple sources tell Guido they were in fact made available free of charge. Couldn’t even give them away…

Labour is keen to fuel the sleaze claims against Geoffrey Cox, even though Guido’s pointed out Sir Keir was just as keen on the lucrative legal advisory game. Yesterday the party went in hard on the story that Geoffrey Cox had used his parliamentary office for non-parliamentary work, writing to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner demanding an investigation. The letter from Angela Rayner cited the MPs’ Code of Conduct:

“Part V. Article 16 of the Members Code of Conduct is very clear that “members are personally responsible and accountable for ensuring that their use of an expenses, allowances, facilities and services provided from the public purse is; always in support of their parliamentary duties. It should not confer any undue personal or financial benefit on themselves”. My understanding of this rule has always been that members were never to use the facilities gifted to them by Parliament and their constituents for their private interests.”

This has always excluded using taxpayer-funded facilities for party political campaigning, over the years MPs have been reprimanded over and over again and had to repay the costs of their abuse of the system. A classic example would be partisan campaigning mailshots sent via the free parliamentary postage facility.

Guido suggests the Labour Party gets their own house in order on this issue first. A preliminary search – more to come – has turned up a number of Labour MPs using parliamentary facilities for non-parliamentary work. Pictured here is the former chair of the Parliamentary Standards Committee Kate Green with shadow disabilities minister Vicky Foxcroft, phone banking for a by-election from their parliamentary offices:

Here Helen Hayes can be seen clearly sitting in a Parliamentary chair while also phone banking for Old Bexley & Sidcup:

Guido is certain this is just the tip of the iceberg. The pandemic moving many events on to Zoom has made it easier to gather the evidence. Guido is equally certain that if Geoffrey Cox has broken the rules on using his office facilities for non-parliamentary work, whatever punishment he is given should also be given to the likes of Kate Green, Vicky Foxcroft and Helen Hayes. Using taxpayer funded facilities for private or partisan advantage is rightly against the rules. Phone-banking from parliamentary offices is blatantly abusing the system. Labour may come to regret going down this path…

In this morning’s media round, government spokesperson Paul Scully tried to point the finger at journalists and blame them for all the bad press Owen and his sleazy mates have been receiving these past 12 days. He claimed:

“…as often happens, there are stories that are sitting within journalists pockets that they bring out at times like this”. 

However, Kay Burley’s frosty response stopped Scully in his tracks:

“Are you saying it’s journalists fault that corrupt politicians are taking money when they shouldn’t be. I’m sure you’re not saying that for one second. Are you?” 

After realising his error, Scully sheepishly retreated from blaming hacks. “A politician complaining about the media is like a sailor complaining about the sea….”

According to the ONS, the UK economy grew by just 1.3% between July and September which is down on the previous quarter. The level of real quarterly GDP in the UK is still 2.1% below where it was before the coronavirus pandemic at the end of 2019. Though there was strong consumer spending in the third quarter, expansion was weaker than expected. 

This must be some sort of record – 20 minutes after Guido revealed DWP civil servants were set to hold a Q&A with a witch next week, the department’s confirmed to Guido they’ve cancelled the event. It must have been too high stakes…