When chair of the Conservative 1922 committee Bob Blackman fired the starting gun on the most prolonged leadership contest, he introduced a “yellow card” system designed to prevent any more Tory infighting. Safe to say that hasn’t worked…
Leadership candidates’ campaign teams haven’t been able to help themselves from blatantly attacking their rivals. Though still no yellow cards have been issued, despite Blackman’s gallant promise to give candidates a “public dressing down” if they did. Guido thought he’d draw up a list of some of the attacks he’s seen:
- On Kemi taking holiday: a rival camp told Guido “It’s nice to have Kemi back in the country,” while Jenrick’s team told a briefing “As you can see, this campaign doesn’t take holidays.”
- On Jenrick calling for a liberal immigration policy in 2017: A rival camp source told Guido: “nothing like a leadership vacancy to turn someone from liberal centrist to an immigration hawk. But why is anyone buying it?”
- Campaign Cleverly seemingly attacking Kemi: “It’s really easy to use the most aggressive language when we’re in politics. If you’re chasing clicks and likes on social media, that’s the way forward.”
- Team Patel appeared to swipe at Jenrick: Why would candidates take Ozempic when it “affect(s) your functionality?”
- On Kemi’s previous remarks urging to scrap winter fuel allowance: A rival camp said: “This is terrible. Labour’s decision to cut the winter fuel payment was our one effective attack on them. They’ll seize on these comments.”
- At Jenrick winning the first round of votes yesterday: A source in a rival camp suggested the result would mean careerists in the party who want to row in behind the winning team will now be having second thoughts, adding “‘the result is so anaemic a doctor would bring it in as an in-patient”.
Meanwhile, “uniting” the party is the current theme amongst most candidates’ campaigns. Though the Tories can’t quite kick the habit of battling it out with each other…
Sadiq Khan’s disastrous “Night Tsar” Amy Lamé is taking it easy after miraculously recovering from “unplanned sick leave” and immediately going on holiday in August. She returned to work this month, just in time for yesterday’s 3-hour meeting of the GLA Economy, Culture and Skills Committee meeting on the capital’s night-time economy. And yet Lamé was – you guessed it – not present…
As night-time businesses shutter up at a rate of about a thousand per year some Assembly Members are trying to figure out what to do. Their meeting took views and evidence from numerous interested parties as part of the committee’s investigation into “the impact of existing Mayoral policies and initiatives aimed at supporting and invigorating London’s night-time economy, and what progress the Mayor has made in achieving his vision of London becoming a ’24-hour city’.” You’d have thought Lamé would be interested – was she too busy picking up her £133,000 pay cheque?
New public expenditure figures from the Treasury show that the cost of gold-plated public sector pensions enjoyed by 80% of public sector workers has more than doubled. Taxpayers have forked out £10 billion to prop up the system in the past 5 years…
Luxurious defined benefit pensions paid to the likes of civil servants and MPs have steadily risen from a total of £40 billion in 2019 to £49.6 billion this year, while the proportion of contributions received has fallen – meaning the taxpayer has to cover the rest. The net cost has more than doubled from last year from £1 billion to £2.4 billion. Private sector employees could but dream…
Angela Rayner has admitted she’s preparing to rip up Margaret Thatcher’s Right to Buy scheme, a policy the housing secretary benefited from herself when she bought her first home at a 25% discount, making a £48,500 profit when she sold it later. Guido remembers Rayner telling the Press Gallery how “proud” she was to be able to own her first home – which was why, she said, she kept it while her husband and children were living at a separate address. Surely she wants others to have that same feeling?
Speaking to Sky News this morning, Rayner said: “there has to be a balance, we’ve got to make sure we have the social housing…We are doing a consultation on it.” Pulling up the ladder behind her…
The Foreign Office is blazing into the new government with a whopping price tag on taxi use. An FoI request dispatched from Guido reveals the department alone has spent £140,000 on taxi rides since the election. Whitehall wonks are no strangers to spaffing the cash on private rides…
About two-thirds of FCDO staff turned up to the office according to the last occupancy statistics, before Labour stopped reporting them. Meanwhile PCS, the Civil Service union, continues its relentless push for a “a significant shortening of the working week with no loss of pay” while balloting members for strike action. Nice work if you can get it…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”
