As reported in the last post, Sir Anthony Bamford the JCB chairman got to write a policy report for the government. He also popped into the flat.

Dinners in No 10 which major donors have attended:

14 July 2010 – No 10.  Attendees:

Anthony & Carole Bamford

Michael & Dorothy Hintze

Murdoch & Elsa Maclennan

Lord John & Lady Sainsbury

Andrew Feldman

Jill and Paul Ruddock

Mike and Jenny Farmer

Michael and Clara Freeman

28 February 2011 – flat

David Rowland and his wife. Andrew Feldman also attended.

2 November 2011 – flat. Attendees:

Henry and Dorothy Angest

Michael Farmer and wife

Ian Taylor and wife

27 February 2012 – flat

Michael Spencer and partner.

And what about Chequers?

The Downing Street flat is one of the most protected pieces of public property in the land. The Treasury have spent millions on renovations and upkeep over the years. The area around Downing Street has been Crown property since, as the No. 10 website puts it: “when Henry VIII confiscated York House from Cardinal Wolsey in 1530 and extended the complex.” The government’s own website goes on to state that “King George II presented both the house on Downing Street and the house overlooking Horse Guards to Sir Robert Walpole” in 1735. Since then they have remained government property.

The Camerons pay no rent on the flat, and though they met some of the recent restoration costs, the taxpayer picks up most of that tab. Since 1989 you have required security clearance to even get onto the street, let alone into the building or up the stairs. Any notion that this is somehow private property is either a vast delusion of grandeur or a desperate holding measure while the list of unsavoury characters is scanned and checked for landmines…

UPDATE:

Was this a private or public affair?

This morning Francis Maude told the Today programme “we have been more open about this than any government… all ministerial meetings are disclosed in a way that has never been done before.” That is untrue, no ministerial meetings have been published by the Cabinet Office since June 2011…

In The Times this morning Guido argues that the distinction between private social and official public meetings is bogus for Ministers and Prime Ministers in public life. The Sunlight Centre is calling on Francis Maude to publish details of Downing Street donor meetings:

It is a Whitehall farce…

Downing Street says:

With his wife and young family, Steve will be moving to California. He will join Stanford as a visiting scholar at the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and will also be a visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He will spend his year on campus teaching, researching and writing, and will focus on innovation in government, public services and communities around the world.

He will work with a wide range of centres and organisations across the university, including FSI’s Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law and The Europe Centre; the Graduate School of Business’ Centre for Social Innovation; the Centre on Philanthropy and Civil Society; and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.

That sabbatical likely to turn permanent…

Last week the Number 10 website was updated with a full history section about previous Prime Ministers. For balance and independence the biographies were outsourced to Queen Mary University’s Mile End Group, but their historical impartiality wasn’t enough for one person concerned about their legacy. Downing Street sources say that Gordon had a mighty strop about it, vetoed various photographs and demanded revisions as the text “was not flattering enough”. Seems remarkably generous to Guido…

The Information Commissioner is set to pave the way to make the private email accounts of those in government FoI-able. Given that most SpAds and Ministers are sick of civil servants snooping around and leaking things before decisions have even been made, government by GMail is widespread in Whitehall. Someone told the Guardian: ”Everyone is shitting bricks at the implications. It looks as if they are going to say Post-it notes are disclosable. There is going to be material on the budget, Libyan strategy, everything.” One senior Downing Street staffer, quick to eschew convention, has given up on official emails completely:

From: Steve Hilton shilton@no10.x.gsi.gov.uk
Date: Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 10:41 AM
Subject: Out of Office AutoReply:

Thank you for your email – Please note, Steve does not access his No.10 emails.

If you require a response please contact ███████ █████ █████@no10.x.gsi.gov.uk or via the No.10 Switchboard on 020 █████ █████.

Many thanks

Annette Craze
Assistant Private Secretary to Steve Hilton

For latest news and information from Downing Street visit: http://www.number10.gov.uk

Help save paper – do you need to print this email?

“Steve does not access his No.10 emails.” Guido refuses to believe that the Downing Street Director of Strategy never sends emails related to his work. It’s right that we are able to see the decision making that is currently off the books. 

It seems Clegg is taking this fake row thing a little too far…

UPDATE: Cleggies tell the Sun that Nick doesn’t “want to be a distraction”. Yeah right…

According to a tweet from The Sun, glamorous Gabby Bertin, the PM’s press secretary is breaking the strike to man the border at Heathrow.

Echoes of Churchill’s strike breaking aristocratic bus drivers from the 1926 General Strike…

The East London Tech City is the pet project of some of the trendier inhabitants of No 10. Yesterday Dave announced 600 new businesses have started up in the area Old Street.

He also appointed a “Tech City Ambassador” - Ben Hammersley of Wired. A King of the Dickheads, if you will…

Former Minister for Dirty Tricks Tom Watson thinks he can redeem his past sins on the back of pummelling Murdoch. The media are too terrified to say a negative word about him, so not for the first time it falls to Guido to highlight some hypocrisy ignored by the craven Old Media. A Labour Party press release in Watson’s name yesterday bleated:

“At a time when David Cameron is squeezing the income of millions of hard working families, he has decided to show off his grace and favour accommodation which he has lavishly and unnecessarily refurbished at the taxpayers’ expense. £30,000 of taxpayers’ money was reportedly spent on refurbishing the flat – more than most workers earn in a year… This is blatant hypocrisy and shows just how out of touch Cameron is.”

What our Tommy fails to mention, “wilfully” you might say, is that the refurbished flat will last far longer than Cameron’s premiership and will remain the property of the people. Unlike someone else’s lavishly fitted out residence…

The personal flat that Watson shares with fellow former Minister Iain Wright has seen them claim over £100,000 for refurbishments and such like for their pad including their shares of the legal costs involved in buying it, as well as the fees to buy the freehold. Unlike the PM he will be able to sell and keep the profit from his taxpayer feather-bedded nest. Interesting to note that Watson is suddenly willing to bring Cameron’s family into play. Given that the Watson clan have collectively taken £300,000 off the taxpayer you might wonder whether Tom is really one to be criticising anyone…