Iain warns that if they don’t sort it out he will drop using Blogger. Google’s Rachel Whetstone has promised Iain things will be sorted. Quickly please.
Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC suggested the LibDem’s biggest backer will face a jail sentence when he is sentenced on 25 September. He has been on remand in Wormwood Scrubs for months.
Maybe he’ll get to talk at some date about the future of political financing with Lord Levy. The not too distant future…
Mr Brown has on 14 separate occasions failed to attend Commons votes when issues relating to gay equality were voted on. He failed to support the government’s equalisation of the age of consent, the abolition of Section 28, gay couples being able to jointly adopt, civil partnerships and the Equality Act. The registration of civil partnerships are the responsibility of the Treasury, the department that Mr Brown heads.
In late July, the Labour rebel John McDonnell, MP for Hayes & Harlington declared his intent to challenge Mr Brown for the leadership of the Labour party. Unlike Mr Brown, Mr McDonnell has voted positively in every one of the fourteen divisions relating to gay equality held since 1997.
Mr Brown could possibly argue that he was “too busy” to attend the votes. However, even with his greater work load, Mr Blair managed to attend four divisions relating to equalising the age of consent and allowing gay couples to jointly adopt.
Indeed, Mr Brown could be considered to posses a worse record than David Cameron, the leader of the Conservatives.
Hain flew in specially chartered planes to a Dublin rugby international and two Sligo motor racing events within the past year. The bill for Hain’s costly jollies comes to £10,754. Hain, a keen motorsports fan, flew with one official last October to Sligo to attend a motorsports event. The cost of this one-day trip was £2,491. In February he flew to Dublin to attend an Ireland versus Wales rugby match. Three officials went with him and the bill for the one-day trip came to £5,002. In March, he was back in Sligo again to attend another Rally Ireland event. Two officials flew with him on a charter plane for a two-day stay which cost £3,271.
The use of taxpayer-funded charter flights to attend jollies has even provoked the Conservative Party’s Northern Ireland spokesman, David Lidington: “Everyone accepts the need for Ministers to travel, sometimes at short notice, but these three trips sound like costly jollies at taxpayers’ expense.” Guido thinks Hain can get a bloody Ryanair flight to the rugby at his own expense like the rest of us.
Onslow pointed out that if France were to attack Dover we would need to respond quickly and there would not be time for a debate in the commons. Exactly.
All the more reason Guido thinks for Britain to develop a truly independent of the Yanks short-range nuclear deterrent. Onslow knows…