March kicked off with one of Guido’s favourite new series: AirPods-gate. Plenty of noise was made over Angela Rayner billing the taxpayer for her £249 AirPods Pro (which she later lost), so Guido took it on himself to investigate other MPs splurging public cash on Apple products. Inevitably, Rayner was in good company: Matt Hancock had done the same thing, as had Fabian Hamilton – who racked up over £4000 on his tech expenses – and Peter Bone, who demonstrated his fiscal prudence by buying the £159 entry-level models. Presumably he doesn’t sit on as many video calls as Angela Rayner, who insisted her more expensive AirPods were necessary for all that intense Zooming.
Lockdown rules loosened slightly in two stages, with schools reopened on the 8th, and the rule of six reintroduced for outside gatherings on the 29th. Guido remained unable to get a pint. The vaccine rollout continued in earnest, with the most vulnerable groups covered with their first jabs by the start of the month.
One of the biggest stories of March arrived in the first week, when Piers Morgan stormed off the GMB set after an explosive row over Oprah’s interview with Harry and Meghan. Morgan then quit the show permanently for refusing to give an on-air apology to Meghan at the behest of ITV bosses – never to be heard from again…
Up in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon survived a vote of no confidence in the wake of the Salmond scandal, even though Holyrood’s Harassment Committee concluded she’d misled them in a “potential breach of the ministerial code”. She then sent her lawyers after Guido and The Spectator for daring to report the truth about the Crown Office’s redactions of Salmond’s evidence. Guido ignored them, and hasn’t heard from them since.
Guido was the first to publish the fact that Mike Hill, MP for Hartlepool, had resigned over sexual assault allegations. He had in fact approached Labour about the rumour the previous night, though later had it confirmed he was so on the ball he hadn’t managed to tell the party’s shadow chief whip. Guido then also revealed Labour’s plan for a one-person shortlist stitch-up – a decision that would go on to haunt them for the rest of the campaign…
Honourable mentions:
