Sadiq Khan has somewhat controversially been made the Shadow Justice Secretary by Red Ed. He was  also put in charge of constitutional and political reform, which is ironic. A relative unknown before his promotion there are all sorts of mysteries about the man that  Guido feels need some light shedding on them…

• Did you know that Khan has been exposed three times for fiddling his expenses, even after the public outcry last year? Using a thief to catch thief?
• Did you know that five members of Khan’s family and various clients belonged to fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahrir? Something he called “irrelevant” and “trivial” Well they must be proud of his line of work…
• Did you know Khan got the bent copper Ali Dizaei off the hook. He was later jailed in Wandsworth Prison, in Khan’s own constituency.
• Did you know Khan tried to join the defence team of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person convicted of the 9/11 attacks. The US government refused him clearance. As they did over a Guantanamo suspect’s trial. What do the Americans know about Khan?
• Did you know Khan voted for post office closures at 7pm in Parliament and spoke out against closures at 8pm in a public meeting in his constituency? What was that about two faced liars…

Come back next week for five more facts that raise serious questions about the new Labour leader’s judgement…

The union man gets the top job. Yvette Cooper is Shadow Foreign Secretary. Balls will tear chunks out of May as Shadow Home Secretary. Family bullet dodged, humiliating for Ed though…

BREAKING:

Leader of the Opposition Rt. Hon. Ed Miliband MP
Shadow Secretary of State for International Development Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rt Hon Alan Johnson MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP
Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department Rt Hon Ed Balls MP
Chief Whip Rt Hon Rosie Winterton MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Education Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP
Shadow Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice Rt Hon Sadiq Khan MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Business Rt Hon John Denham MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Health Rt Hon John Healey MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government Rt Hon Caroline Flint MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence Rt Hon Jim Murphy
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Meg Hillier MP
Shadow Leader of the House of Commons Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport Maria Eagle MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Mary Creagh MP
Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Angela Eagle MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Rt Hon Shaun Woodward MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland Ann McKechin MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Wales Rt Hon Peter Hain MP
Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Ivan Lewis MP
Shadow Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Royall of Blaisdon
Shadow Minister for the Olympics Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP
Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP
Lords Chief Whip Lord Bassam of Brighton
Shadow Attorney-General Baroness Scotland 

It was only a matter of time before certain sections of Dave’s conference speech were turned into this:

All innit together.

When the Big Society (B.S.) came up on Question Time last night it was greeted by the audience and the panel with an above average level of scepticism. However there was one surprising defender of the the B.S. dream. Step forward former BBC man in Baghdad, Rageh Omaar…

“One thing that David Cameron can’t be accused of in pursuit of this idea of a Big Society is inconsistency, you know, he said it before when he came to the leadership of the Conservative Party, right the way through the election... The idea of a Big Society although it hasn’t quite found it’s mojo yet in finding out what it actually mean, I think it does tap into an enormously important area in which politicians need to define a public role and the role that citizens can play in it.”

He went on to advocate British responses to international crisis as a good example and sung the praises of Help for Heroes before concluding that citizens need a sense of empowerment. The B.S. defined far more articulately than many a Tory MP….

However it wasn’t all good news for Dave from the “scud-stud”. He fired a rocket at Andy Coulson in no uncertain terms. Giving reference to Downing Street insiders and calling for the guilty spinner’s head on a plate he said:

“I think it’s a time bomb for David Cameron if nothing else, him and Andy Coulson have got to have a very very honest heart to heart chat about exactly what did go on because I know for a fact that the Channel Four dispatches program is going to be the first of many other investigations, it’s crossed the Atlantic, there’s been a huge amount of new evidence turned up in the New York Times of all places… I suspect David Cameron and his team around him are wondering how much people give a damn about this out in the country, that this is just a Westminster hot-house kind of story but I think it will come back to affect the reputation of the government and of David Cameron unless something is done about it soon.”

Interesting to note then that Rageh and Steve Hilton were sitting outside Bank restaurant in Birmingham having lunch on Tuesday afternoon during Tory Conference. What were they talking about in preparation for his appearance? Along with his dinner with tipped-Coulson-replacement Ian Birrell, a cynical man might suggest that Hilton was on manoeuvres against his governmental nemesis…

There has been much comment that Labour MPs didn’t look beyond the letter ‘M’ in the alphabetically ordered voting paper. That doesn’t explain the rejection of Abbott, Bradshaw and Bryant. Guido would point out only that the MPs rejected Woodward a toff, gayers Bradshaw and Bryant, Abbott who is black and Hain who is orange. As a result Labour’s Shadow Cabinet is just as white and straight as the government’s Cabinet.

UPDATE : Toby Young points out that half the Shadow Cabinet went to Oxbridge and 40% of them were privately educated. The Tories also point out that all of Ed Miliband’s “new generation” Shadow Cabinet members were on the government payroll when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. Eighteen were ministers Mary Creagh was a Government whip. Of the top ten Shadow Cabinet members, not one of them chose Ed Miliband as their first choice in the leadership election.