Labour’s West Midlands Metro Mayor campaign appears to be in trouble, as the unlucky former Treasury minister Liam Byrne loses staff members, he appears to also be running out of cash and using his MPs’ expenses to fund the running of his election efforts. To sum up his campaign using his own infamous memo, “I’m afraid there is no money”…

According to leaked emails seen by Skwawkbox, the MP candidate has been accused of using his publicly-funded parliamentary staff to run his mayoral campaign according to an NEC complaint made against him by a former staff member. The complainant accuses their former employer of withholding £11,000 of salary.

Liam’s staff records seem to back this accusation up. His ‘constituency assistant’ described his primary role on LinkedIn as “managing” Liam’s “campaigns”, with very little of the job description appearing to fit the definition of parliamentary work. This advert makes it clear Byrne is deliberately and brazenly siphoning off public funds meant for parliamentary work, for his private political campaigns:

Byrne’s former parliamentary ‘head of research’ also professes to having “developed local policy” for his West Midlands mayoral campaign. 

There are also reports of “half” of Byrne’s team leaving, resulting in his parliamentary staff having to pick up the slack and work full time on his mayoral election. Guido doesn’t find this hard to believe judging by the complete lack of proofreading in his latest leaflets; the latest one sent into Guido last week featured 21 separate typos. In 2008 it was revealed Byrne had an 11-page dossier on what he expects from staff, including “If I see things that are not of acceptable quality, I will blame you.” How times change…