Adrian Beecroft is in the “premier league” of Tory donors. Electoral Commission data shows he’s given well over half a million to the Tories since 2006. He lobbied Cameron on workers’ rights and no-fault dismissal and he even got to write a report on it. The controversial document on what could be changed has never seen the light of day. Business Secretary Vince Cable did like the idea but No.10 insisted on meetings with Beecroft. Why was that then?

Donation, access and policy influence in one fell swoop . Guido sources confirm that Chuka Umunna and Labour have dropped the ball here. They had planned to raise this recently with an Urgent Question but the move was dropped for yet another failed attempt at stopping the NHS Bill. Whoops…

UPDATE: A u-turn on which donors have dined in the flat is imminent. Lord Gold will lead inquiry. He’s a Tory peer.

UPDATE: JCB Chairman Sir Anthony Bamford and those close to him have donated over £2.5m in recent years. Last month Downing Street commissioned a report from the industrial expert. It had direct policy suggestions. 

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?

The business card of former CCHQ staffer Sarah Southern, who was busted offering to retain undercover Sunday Times journalists for £15,000 per month in return for access to top Tories, will remain one of the more amusing yet important details of this scandal. Guido understands that the Cameron card was not the only one that Southern uses, and in fact she is said to have a range cards with different photos with various Ministers. Tory insiders suggest that they have been the source of amusement for some time, but not long enough for someone to say “hold on a moment here…”

After doing what is commonly known as “a Derek Draper”, an internet clean up job seems to have been done this afternoon, with various profiles being deleted, but not every trace of Southern’s connection to the British and American Project has been removed. She sits on the Executive Committee of the transatlantic networking group that puts rising stars in rooms so they can show off business cards. And the rest…

If you have been lucky enough to receive one of the sought after picture cards, then do drop us an email…

Picture via Political Scrapbook

UPDATE: Southern is a Director of the British American Project. She also set up Sarah Southern Consulting on the 16th of last month.

Fox is down three grand after the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner and the Standards and Privileges Committee ruled that he was in breach of the rules by allowing “his friend Adam Werritty to stay rent-free.” He’s managed to avoid another vocal apology in the House though, he’ll have to but in writing instead. He also got a slap on the wrist for running his now defunct charity Atlantic Bridge from Parliament. Any excuse to run Guido’s favourite graphic from that scandal last year…

Speaking at a rally of right-wingers in Parliament yesterday, Tory Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin, a man who has never really said anything on the record, ever, gave an intriguing nudge about gay marriage. In his speech to The Young Britons’ Foundation he declared that any vote on potential legislation should be a free vote. Given the stick he has carried when dealing with other contentious issues that his backbenchers don’t like, this could diffuse a mighty row.

Baroness Warsi’s people get in touch to point out that Guido was wrong to suggest that the Tory Chairman was full of it yesterday. When she said “I’m a vegetarian” what she apparently meant to say was that she actually eats meat. She keeps Halal, but this was seemingly too complicated to explain while being interviewed for a 2,500 word piece.

Glad that confusion is completely resolved then.

Deeply mistrusted by many in her party, Tory Chairman Sayeeda Warsi hardly does herself any favours when she can’t even get puff piece spin right. Talking to the House magazine she firstly says:

“…we do anything from between 8 to 12 constituencies a week so in that sense you know you get around you get to see them, you do dinners, you do teas. You campaign with them. There’s a lot of mushroom risotto – I’m vegetarian. Mushroom is the new vegetarian – you know it used to be pasta with a tin of tomatoes, it’s now mushroom risotto.”

Then later on she talks about life after politics:

“I just want my cookery show, and I just might leave politics. I love cooking. I just think it would be so great to kind of bring some of those fantastic, traditional recipes… I’m a huge cook and I love Come Dine with Me. My favourite things are yoghurt chilli chicken and slow roasted lamb with almonds and cashew nuts and yoghurt. It’s meat to die for, it just comes off the bone, four hours. It’s just brilliant.”

Fishy…

Ken wrote to the Prime Minister asking for a change in the law so that the Mayor of London could only have one job. The reply fell under the purview of Grant Shapps:

Dear Ken,

Thank you for your letter of 27 February 2012 to the Prime Minister; he has asked me to reply on his behalf as the Greater London Authority Act is the responsibility of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

I have considered your request carefully, but my department has no plans to amend legislation in this way.

I believe the electorate are best placed to make judgments on whether elected representatives are able to pursue other interests in their spare time. Indeed, it would be quite illiberal to pass laws restricting and regulating what individuals can do in their evenings and on weekends.

Indeed, the effect of your proposed regulations would have meant you were unable to serve as Mayor of London when you were first elected in 2000, since you were a Member of Parliament, had paid columns in The Independent and the Evening Standard, had a book contract with Victor Gollancz, and received five-figure sums from after-dinner speaking agencies. Subsequently, during the period you were Mayor, you had a continuing commercial interest in Localaction Ltd, receiving payments for television, radio and writing.

In this context, I view your new-found interest in this issue to be wholly inconsistent and a further argument against ill-thought-out regulation. Calling for regulation on ‘full-time mayors’ whilst running a part-time company is as consistent as calling for a clampdown on tax dodging whilst using a company to avoid paying income tax.

Obviously, outside interests must open and transparent – and the Coalition Government has taken steps through the Localism Act 2011 and the new local government Transparency Code to entrench such transparency in law. I would note that the Greater London Authority has been at the forefront of promoting the transparency agenda in the last four years, such as being the first local government body to start publishing its spending online.

Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP
Minister of State for Housing and Local Government

Well Guido laughed…

If the horse jokes were not bad enough, while Cameron was still at the Despatch Box, the news emerged that one of the Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party, Mark Pritchard, has quit his role in order to be able to speak out against the government.

This stalwart of the right was a key player in the referendum rebellion last year and away from the microphones is one of the PM’s fiercest critics. Guido had a few beers with Mark Pritchard at Tory confernece back in October, he was a bit “What’s it all about Alfie?” even then.

Expect fireworks here…

Guido’s favourite Young Conservative has defected to UKIP. Top Tory totty Alexandra Swann was the Deputy Chairman of Conservative Future and a Tory researcher, but will be taking to the stage tomorrow at their spring conference in the charming seaside resort of Skegness. This is the latest humiliation for the Heath-ite chairman of the Tory’s youth movement, Ben Howlett, who recently infuriated the party by siding with the Germans over Commonwealth countries at an international right wing conference.

That safe seat he boasts about in bars late at night is looking highly dubious…