October was the month that all ended in Tiers. There was a big rebellion over Curfew, saved by Labour’s official abstention. London was downgraded into Tier 2, meanwhile Manchester was put into Tier 3, leading to a peculiar press conference where £110,000 a year Andy Burnham bizarrely claiming he lives on a “middle income”.
Guido exclusively revealed Welsh Lib Dem leader Jane Dodds was avoiding Mark Drakeford’s ‘Firebreak’ lockdown, living it up in leafy Richmond, London instead. This, despite pretending to be suffering under the restrictions in Wales.
Guido revealed where some of enormous sums spent in Covid relief had ended up, with one solo drag act taking home £215,305 – twice what the act made in the last set of accounts filed with Companies House before Covid. The Arts Council defended the decision. Elsewhere, Labour MPs piled in to support police questioning of Darren Grimes after the Starkey racism incident. Thanks to help from the Free Speech Union, the police’s investigation was closed. Darren hit back by filing a formal complaint against the Met Police.
While September saw three Labour sackings/resignations over Overseas Operation Bill, October saw seven Labour MPs quit their front bench positions over the Human Intelligence Sources Bill. Guido also exclusively revealed Manchester MP Yasmin Qureshi had been hospitalised with Covid. Elsewhere in Labour land, Zarah Sultana advertised for a caseworker on a wage she earlier described to be “poverty pay“, and Angela Rayner heckled a 2019 intake Tory, calling him “scum”:
Media Guido revealed a surprisingly cosy relationship between BBC journalist Sally Nugent and Marcus Rashford, whom she consistently reported on. It wasn’t a great month for journalist over all, with Media Guido also revealing Mail on Sunday hacks had been told off by their news editor for “unacceptable and frankly embarrassing” stories.
October was also the month that EU corona cases spun out of control, Margaret Covid Margaret Ferrier ferried Covid up and down the UK, and Guido revealed UKIP had selected ‘Dr.’ Gammons to stand for the London Mayoralty. Boris also reacted to his Spitting Image puppet.
