Mark Reckless: “To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government whether his Department plans to support the European Year of Citizens 2013 campaign.”
Brandon Lewis: “No.”
Why was a BBC boss under fire over Jimmy Savile in court yesterday?
Find out over on MediaGuido…
It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for BBC News director Helen Boaden. First she was accused of blocking the Newsnight Jimmy Savile exposé, and now she has had to take to the witness stand to defend the Beeb over another alleged cover up. Twice looks like carelessness.
This time round Boaden was facing questions over why the BBC are refusing to answer a freedom of information request asking which scientists attended an infamous 2006 climate change seminar. The BBC Trust have admitted that the seminar led to an unprecedented editorial decision to no longer give equal airtime to opponents of the climate change lobby. Boaden and co’s refusal to disclose who spoke during this all-important discussion is suspicious to say the least. Why would they not want us to know who these “scientific experts” that dictated their editorial policy are? The legal costs billed to the license fee payer are rumoured to have hit six figures…
UPDATE: Tory MP Peter Lilley and former Chancellor Nigel Lawson have today written to the BBC complaining about bias in their coverage of climate change stories. Lord Patten has a lot on his plate…
The printed Hansard costs us a million pounds-a-year, or £1,538 per MP. With MPs now offered digital tablets on expenses should the 200-year-old transcripts of parliamentary debates ditch the printed version and go digital? You decide…
As we go to pixel 28 Tory MPs have now signed the rebel amendment calling for the EU budget to be reduced in real terms. One insurgent co-conspirator has passed on to Guido a document produced by the backbench rebels counter-whipping operation, accusing their own party whips of peddling “mis-information and spin” over the vote:
It’s all boiling down to a very difficult day for Dave tomorrow…
£90,000-a-year Communication Workers’ Union fat cat Billy Hayes managed to boost his salary by another £29,580 this year by converting backdated unused annual leave into cash. Normally annual leave must be taken in the period it is due but Hayes has been able to accumulate unused leave over twelve years and write himself a five-figure cheque. Furious CWU members have written to union bosses accusing Hayes, who seems to earn so much he has lost count, of “deliberate abuses of the union’s money”.
They also claim the CWU’s pension schemes are haemorrhaging money and have left the union “on the verge of a financial meltdown”. Not exactly what you call performance-related pay…
