Chris Bryant caused a stir on Newsnight last night with a clumsy comment on immigration. Perhaps he was harking back to his days as a member of the Oxford University Conservative Association:

“It would be nice sometimes when you go into a British hotel if the receptionist was British.”

One might have thought Bryant would choose his words more carefully given the vigour with which he jumps on “offensive” comments from his opponents, such as  “pantomime dames”. Imagine the enormous hoo-haa Labour would be kicking up right now if Bryant were still a Tory…

Vid via @liarpoliticians

Last night during the Leveson debate Chris Bryant brought up the issue of how did Murdoch’s New York Post and Sun newspapers obtain the famous picture of Saddam in his pants?

Clearly they paid someone a bung. Is it evidence of systemic corruption? Not really, it was opportunistic and reputedly cost about as much as Bryant gets paid for his Indy column. Is Chris Bryant, a public servant, corrupted by being in the pay of an ex-KGB media mogul? Of course not. Is the prison guard, a public servant, any more corrupted being in the pay of a different media mogul?

Perhaps he has another motivation for feeling so much sympathy for a fellow politician humiliated in his underpants? Well, Chris?

Sir Malcolm Rifkind has quit his position as president of Conservative Friends of Russia after the group got into hot-water for accompanying a story about Bryant with that photo. Chairman Richard Royal has apologised after his spat with Bryant last night made it into the Telegraph. Quite where Bryant got the homophobia idea of from aside, it was a PR own goal from the group.

Guido notes that Bryant has yet to address the original accusations though, so what is going on with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Russia?

Another batch of politicians, another expenses scandal. This morning’s Telegraph reveals that John Bercow is attempting under the cover of “security reasons” to cover-up the publication of another round explosive expenses documents that would expose a property merry-go-round between rent-swapping MPs.

Here Guido gives the “How-To” low-down on how sleazy MPs are swapping their rent to line their own pockets:

The first and most simple method of rent-swapping involves the MPs who make money renting out their own previously taxpayer-funded properties while claiming expenses to rent out homes nearby. According to The Telegraph Chris Bryant rents out his mansion flat in Bloomsbury while claiming £2,000 expenses for rent on another London property. We have repeatedly asked him for an explanation this morning without receiving any reply. The Speaker claims the truth cannot be released because it would pose a security risk. Laughable, Guido and anyone else who wants to know, already knows where he lives.

The second, far more serious, category of rent-swapping covers a handful of MPs suspected of renting out properties to each other, effectively an “I’ll pay yours if you pay mine” scheme. MPs are banned from renting homes to relatives but a loophole in the rules allows them to trouser huge sums of money by renting out properties to other current and former MPs. Bercow cites security reasons for not revealing the address or names of landlords, but there is absolutely no reason why he cannot release the names of the MPs involved in this form of rent-swapping. It is a cover up.

There is also potentially a third category: the so-called “phantom” rent swap. This involves the possibility of MPs telling the authorities they have moved when in reality they have not, and then swapping their rent on the quiet.

If these people were claiming housing benefit “Rent Swapping” like this would fall into the category of benefit fraud plain and simple, it is in the parlance of welfare fraud investigators a “contrived tenancy” punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment.

Stay tuned. There is more to come…

Chris Bryant has been leading Labour’s onslaught against the Sun for running the Harry pics:

“I can see no public interest whatsoever in publishing Harry photos. It’s about a nasty ‘friend’ making money and papers pretending outrage. One more irony: Sun campaigns against children’s access to porn and leaps to publish soft porn images.”

This from a man who spends his spare time publishing semi-naked pictures of himself on to the internet.

Guido can’t think why he’s so against the media publishing embarrassing photos…

UPDATE: It hasn’t been the best morning for Chris, who has now been forced to apologise for claiming that Louise Mensch is no longer an MP. After know-it-all Bryant sent dozens of tweets insisting the BBC were wrong to introduce Mensch as an MP earlier today:

Note to BBC : @LouiseMensch is no longer an mp or a cms cttee member. No need to interview her any more. Just get @rupertmurdoch direct—
Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) August 24, 2012

Louise got in touch to set the record straight:

.@LouiseMensch In which case, apologies. I understood you had been offered and accepted and had told constituents you were no longer MP.—
Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) August 24, 2012

Doh…

When asked a question by Labour niggler Chris Bryant yesterday, Dave sulkily replied:

“The word I’m waiting for from him, because he introduced a point of order claiming that I had misled the House, is ‘sorry’. He has said sorry to everybody else… I think he has said sorry to the House in general but the person he accused of doing something wrong he’s not yet said sorry to. Until I get that apology, I think I’ll leave off the answers.”

With Bryant on the order paper for PMQs today, this could get feisty…

The Speaker sparked a furore in the House after refusing to ask Chris Bryant to withdraw his accusation that Jeremy Hunt is a liar. Bryant claims it was fair game as Hunt was mentioned in the motion though others do not agree:

Speaker rules that @ChrisBryantMP can accuse Hunt of being a "liar" – usually unparliamentary ie leads MP to be expelled—
Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) June 13, 2012

Astonishing that Speaker Bercow has not pulled up Chris Bryant for saying Jeremy Hunt "has lied to Parliament". Tories will be furious.—
Toby Helm (@tobyhelm) June 13, 2012

The Tories weren’t in a mood to let Bercow off the hook, with Jacob Rees-Mogg hitting the nail on the head:

How many more decisions like this from Bercow will the Tories tolerate…

Video via @liarpoliticians.

After Guido brought you the news that Bryant had apologised to Lord Justice Leveson for his leaky ways, yesterday he apologised to the House:

“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. On 25 April, I told the House that the Leveson inquiry had published certain information regarding meetings that had been held between Rupert Murdoch and the Prime Minister. I believed at the time that that was the case, but it has subsequently turned out not to be true. I have, of course, apologised to Lord Justice Leveson, but I thought I should take this opportunity to apologise to the House as well. I hope the apology will be accepted. I had no intention of misleading the House; that was purely inadvertent.”

Naughty boy.

Eagle eyes blogger Alex Andreou has picked up at least one extra meeting revealed in Coulson’s evidence yesterday, but it seems the Cabinet Office amended their “full” list last December to include the New York meeting. It’s all rather vague though…

M’learned co-conspirator has drawn Guido’s attention to this ruling by Lord Justice Leveson issued on Thursday and overlooked in the Borisfest:

It has happened that a core participant who is a politician has used material from the disclosed evidence (which was, in fact, later corrected) publicly to challenge the Prime Minister; an apology has been received by the Inquiry for what was, in that case, a total disregard of the terms of the confidentiality agreement but even if the question had been withheld until the statement was published, there was almost no time for the information (wrong, as it turned out to be) to be checked and the question dealt with.

Chris Bryant used a Point of Order to accuse the PM of lying to the house about meetings with Murdoch. As Leveson says in his ruling this was based on erroneous evidence that was uncorrected, unpublished, confidential and yet to be checked and published by the Inquiry. Chris Bryant only had access to the evidence submission by virtue of his status as a Core Participant in the Inquiry. Guido said at the time Bryant would regret it, Baroness Warsi insisted he apologise to Leveson – advice he has clearly accepted – and that the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner should reprimand him – which remains to be seen.

As government figures prepare to appear before the Inquiry it seems obvious that Bryant should lose his Core Participant status, he is clearly ready to use it for political advantage. He has demonstrated that he simply can’t be trusted to keep his word.

Predictably the contents of the Culture Select Committee report into phonehacking has leaked, despite it being printed overnight at heaven knows what cost, in order to avoid this exact situation. Ahead of this morning’s press conference we already know that James Murdoch will be criticised but not accused of misleading parliament, unlike News International bad boys Colin Myler, Tom Chrone and Les Hinton. However it’s the sideshow that caught Guido’s eye…

I see ITV are predicting what DCMS Select Committee will say tomorrow – can I just point out leaking a Cttee report is a contempt of parl?—
Chris Bryant (@ChrisBryantMP) April 30, 2012

This is the same Chris Bryant who last week revealed information that he only had access to due to his special status as a Core Participant of the Leveson Inquiry, meaning he gets to see evidence in advance. Given that he later went after the ITV journalists personally for doing their job he does not appear to be joking…