Two counts of false accounting. Trial to last a week.

UPDATE: After an excellent investigation by the Herald’s investigations chief Paul Hutcheon it was the Sunlight Centre that got the ball rolling:

UPDATE II: Sky and the BBC are both tweeting live from the court.

UPDATE III: The judge just told the jury not to search the internet about the case. Despite what Guido said about Krishnan in the last post, this was no doubt his finest hour:

Guido imagines the interview will be played by the prosecution. And that’s all he has to say on the matter.

Sir Ronnie “PFI” Cohen donated £1.8 million to Labour in the past and bankrolled Gordon’s ascendency to the top. Regular readers will remember that at one time the venture capitalist had a direct debit paying £20,000 a month to the party. He pretty much owned Gordon Brown.

Bad news for Ed Miliband then, as it seems this once loyal party donor has drifted away. Guido was most surprised to see Ronnie pop up on BBC 4′s “Justice: Fairness and the Big Society” as an audience member, quick to spin for Cameron:

“The gap between rich and poor is getting bigger. Those left behind find it extremely difficult to rise out of poverty. The government hasn’t been able to do anything much about that even though it’s cost an absolute fortune for decades… I think what the Big Society really means is that space between government and the private sector, which needs to deal with social issues in a professional way. And Cameron has said that every penny out of the hundreds of millions of pounds that are unclaimed assets in bank accounts will got to create a Big Society bank, who’s role will be to empower those who want to help others.”

Watch here from exactly 40 minutes in.

If the Tories hadn’t made enough of a mess from dodgy non-domiciled donors it would be worth trying to turn Ronnie…

Their tension in the House has been noted previously. First it was those passionate gazes held for an extra second across the despatch box in hot and heavy Culture Media and Sport sessions, but it seems Gloria just can’t get enough of Ed Vaizey. While Ed was busy chatting up/to the somewhat hostile MumsNet crowd for their lunchtime web interview, his shadow just couldn’t stay away, wading in with her own questions:

Ed’s reply was short and firm.

Gordon Brown’s constituents in Kircaldy must be delighted to hear that their part time MP is making a cool £15,000 an hour on the international stage. It’s no wonder he was so quick to give the money from his dire book sales to charity, on top of what he is raking in from speaking he would have only lost most of it in tax anyway. The rest of the cash is apparently going straight to The Office of Gordon and Sarah Brown and thus his staff and operation. If he paid his staff out of his fees they would be paid out of 50% post-tax income, this way they are paid out of untaxed income – a handy little tax dodge.The GB/SB Office is not a charity though, unlike the similar structure Blair has set up.

Through his Sports foundation, a charity, Blair is able to avoid paying tax on income he receives. The charity comes into question when it is revealed that the charity isn’t really doing very much. They paid more in staff costs in the last quarter than they spent on charitable activity. A similar get up is going on with the Faith Foundation which employs old loyalists like Ruth Turner at £120,000 a pop. With Blair’s staff costs rumoured to be a £5m a year, that’s a heck of a lot of cash saved through the donations and “charity” staff.

UPDATE: Guido is trying to get hold of someone from UK Uncut who will no doubt be livid about such practices. Right?

If you were wondering why new Shadow Foreign Secretary wee Dougie Alexander was so quiet today, a quick peek at the Socialist International website will show you why. The Labour Party are affiliated with Mubarak’s hopefully outgoing National Democratic Party.

Awkward...

The FT note how Tom Baldwin has saved his boss from near media oblivion, but the re-branding doesn’t stop there. Apparently in preparation for what will no doubt be an in depth interview with Piers Morgan in next month’s GQ, Ed has called in a personal trainer.

It did wonders for Gordon…

Andy Burnham seems to have let the cat of the bag about the reality of the Education Maintenance Allowance that looks set to be scrapped in the Commons today. On the BBC last night Reeta Chakrabarti put it to him that:

“…there is anecdotal evidence that sometimes EMA money isn’t just spent on books and transport but on clothes, nights out and even gym membership.”

In reply the Shadow Education Secretary let slip:

“Yes, they may spend some of it on food and even the occasional time out with friends…”

He went on to ask why some people should be able to have fun while others can’t. Perhaps Andy might like to explain why he thinks the government should be spending £500 million on taxpayer funded nights out on the town? Would he rather half a billion was cut from the schools’ budget to keep funding it?

Guido noticed the less than subtle use by Labour since the new year of the term “Tory-led government” in every media hit or speech, but he didn’t realise Miliband’s bad-boy spinner Tom Baldwin was quite so brazen in his attempts to sign the media up to the theme. This went out to all the media:

As you may have noticed, we have changed our language in recent weeks to avoid describing the Government as a coalition or a partnership of equals. We believe a more accurate description is that this is a Conservative-led government. I understand that the phrase a “Tory-led government” is two words too long to be repeated on every occasion. But I also think that you are making a choice whenever you call it “the coalition”. When we were in power, no one was left in any doubt that our most unpopular decisions were those of a “Labour government”.

The word “Coalition” is one that avoids party labels while also suggesting a degree of inter-party harmony and co-operation which is, day-by-day and split-by-split, being shown as false. Unless Nick Boles gets his way, “the Coalition” will not be standing for election.

Can I suggest you at least vary your description of this Tory-led government. On some occasions, you might call it a Conservative-Liberal Democrat government. On others it might be just “the government”.

When you are talking about this government in a political context, I think it would be fairer to refer to it by reference to party labels.

With best wishes, Tom Baldwin,
Director of Strategy and Communications

Guido got thinking, given that Baldwin is constantly referred to as “the former Times journalist”, despite the fact he was on the way out anyway rather than being poached, perhaps there should be a redesignation of how he is described:

That should do it…

Labour rent-a-quote Lisa Nandy MP is fast becoming a blog favourite. The member for Wigan has found herself facing an onslaught of questions from the Tories concerning her staffer, Lisa Johnson, who is a political officer for the militant hard left University and Colleges Union. The problem for Nandy is the fact she is on the Education Select Committee and therefore her staffer is highly likely to be privy to information about legislation that she can pass back to her other employer. Just imagine if it was an oil company and the Energy Select Committee…

Tory MP Gavin Williamson has sent an exhaustive list of questions concerning:

• Whether any parliamentary expenses are being used to pay a union official to carry out union work.
• Whether the UCU is being given special access to confidential information reserved for members of the Education Select Committee.
• Whether parliamentary mechanisms, such as written questions and select committee proceedings, are being used to promote the UCU’s agenda.
• Whether the substantial number of UCU officials who have backed violent and illegal forms of protest now have a direct line to parliament.

Given the UCU are organising riots outside Parliament, how does Nandy feel it’s appropriate to have an organiser inside in such a sensitive position?

Many Peers barely make it through an afternoon session in the Lords, but somehow they have managed to pull an all-nighter to debate a mere three of a possible two hundred amendments put forward to the Bill that must be passed by Friday if the AV referendum can take place on the 5th May.

However it is the coalition’s rebalancing of seats, to make them of equal size, that Labour is finding hard to swallow. Days like this that highlight just how flawed our constitution is – we have unelected and unaccountable peers breaking convention in order to block a move that will make our representative democracy fairer and more balanced. You couldn’t make it up…

UPDATE: The FT’s Jim Pickard highlights why Labour’s claim that they are not filibustering out of party interest looks ridiculous:

Lord Harris of Haringey, Lab, 01.45:

“So what were the reasons for choosing 600 (MPs) as opposed to 650, 630, 575 or 585? I was tempted to say that there was some sort of arcane numerology about this. Noble Lords will be aware that 650 is the product of three prime numbers: two, five squared and 13; 630 is of course the product of four prime numbers: two, three squared, five and seven. I defy anyone to find a similar formulation or number that involves five prime numbers. Maybe my noble friend Lord Winston, or some such person could come up with something.”