Tory Shadow Exchequer Secretary John Cooper asked Labour ministers what the attendance was of staff at the Natural England Manchester office last week. Should be big – Burnham might pop in…
“The week commencing 28 Sept 2026, a total of 76 Natural England staff attended Manchester Arndale House office, equating to a daily average of 15.2 people. 144 Natural England staff have Manchester as their base office, equating to a daily attendance rate of 10.6%.”
The taxpayer-funded regulator mainly aggravates farmers, landowners, and YIMBYs by slowly blocking development and preventing highly effective wildlife management programmes. No one’s bothered to turn up – so the failing regulator should therefore be easy enough to abolish…
The Cabinet Office has spent £286,117 of taxpayer cash on consultants, advisers, and agencies to set up the government training school supposed to end reliance on external consultants. Classic…
Darren Jones announced the National School of Government and Public Services in January, with the government later boasting it would “move away from outsourced government training contracts”. Cabinet Office minister Mark Ferguson claims “Proportionate use of expert external organisations has been used to help establish the School.” Tory deputy leader Alex Burghart was handed the figures on the National School of Government:
- Consultants – £286,117: Spent on help setting up the school proper since Jones’ speech on 20 January.
- Big Four – £353.2 million: Paid through the Cabinet Office’s central training contracts over the last three years, £249.9 million to KPMG and £103.3 million to EY.
- Ads – £15,134: Handed to ad giant Omnicom for the strategy behind a ‘behaviour change campaign.’
- Budget – £172 million: The school’s budget this year with £138 million on the Fast Stream.
KPMG’s current contract, worth up to £186 million, was provided without a tender because the work “could only be provided by KPMG at that time for technical reasons”. Guido has already reported on the clay modelling. The school now answers to First Secretary of State Louise Haigh. Does the school provide phones?
Russell Brand case concluding at Southwark Crown Court:
Guilty on four of seven counts: one rape and three sexual assaults. Not guilty on two rapes and the attempted indecent assault.
- Count 1, rape: not guilty. Complainant one, hotel during Labour conference in Bournemouth, autumn 1999.
- Count 2A, attempted indecent assault: not guilty. Complainant two, MTV offices in London, 2001.
- Count 3, sexual assault: guilty. Complainant three, grabbed her breasts at a Soho bar party, summer 2004.
- Count 4, rape: not guilty. Complainant three, oral rape in a toilet at the same Soho bar, summer 2004.
- Count 5, sexual assault: guilty. Complainant four, Choice FM, summer 2004 or 2005.
- Count 6, rape: guilty. Complainant five, anal rape at his Hampstead home, winter to spring 2009, after meeting her at his Hammersmith Apollo gig.
- Count 7, sexual assault: guilty. Complainant six, working on a Channel 4 project, 2009.
It is Angus MacIntyre. At Old Billingsgate, in the City of London…
Reform struggled to appoint a spokesman for a very long time because candidates kept failing vetting. This one is also ‘Shadow Armed Forces Minister’, now Shadow Defence Secretary…
Someone pressed the wrong button…
Home Office staff have criticised ministers on an all-staff call over Labour plans to house 1,200 adult male asylum seekers in a North Yorkshire village with a population of 600. Why would the villagers be upset? They must be racist…
The call was held yesterday. It was hosted by Home Office Permanent Secretaries and was open to all departmental staff. In a Q&A section, the following popular comment was posted anonymously by a staff member:
Guido hears the senior staff chose not to answer that one…
The illegal migrants would outnumber the residents of the village by two-to-one. The village also has 100 children…
Immigration minister Anna Turley caused outrage when she said:
“We are not housing them in the community. They are being housed on a specific site that is self-contained and away from the community. All their needs are met on that site. Where they are not met, they are transported usually to larger places—cities or towns. That is certainly the situation at the two sites we have at the moment at Wethersfield and Crowborough.”
The base’s main entrance is just 22 steps from the nearest family home…
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”
