The SNP’s Stephen Flynn used his question at PMQs to dig at Rayner over Labour’s USA campaining trip:
“In today’s spirit of cross party working, will the Deputy Prime Minister join me in applauding the brave Labour staff members who’ve travelled across the Atlantic to campaign against Donald Trump?”
In response Rayner issued the Labour line verbatim: “People in their own time often go and campaign and that’s what we’ve seen. It happens in all political parties – people go and campaign and they do what they want to do in their own time with their own money.“ While housed by Dems…
It’s the battle of the deputies today as Dowden and Rayner trade blows in the Commons while Starmer flies to Samoa. Dowden jumped in with a simple question: “What is the Deputy Prime Minister’s definition of working people?”
Rayner swerved in response:
“The definition of working people are the people that the Tory party have failed for the last fourteen years.”
Dowden pressed on: Are the 5 million small business owners in Britain working people? Again Rayner dodged the question…
Rachel Reeves made it clear and public what the party’s definition of working people was during the election campaign: “Working people are people who get their income from going out to work everyday, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement.” The upcoming budget has had quite the effect on the Cabinet’s memories…
The Lords Commissioner Standards has completed an investigation into Lord Alli’s potential breaches of conduct. It concludes there are four breaches:
“Finally, while I consider each individual breach of the Code to be minor, I have found there to be four breaches in total, and have therefore recommended that Lord Alli write a letter of apology to the Chair of the Conduct Committee, Baroness Manningham-Buller.”
Lord Alli’s apology:
“I am writing to you today to offer my apology for my breach of conduct by not registering my interests correctly. I will endeavour to keep to the Code of Conduct at all times to avoid such circumstances again.”
The breaches are explained:
Read the full report below:
William Hague has levelled his guns over the prisoner release scheme at… the Tories. Raising a few eyebrows there…
The former Tory leader says Labour has “a really good point actually” when it blames its predecessors, like everything else, while letting thousands of prisoners out early:
“The Conservative government failed to grasp either they either had to build more prison places or they had to let people out, and they didn’t want to face up to it either over a long period. That’s a real failure um and so this situation now does focus everybody’s minds on what are we going to do.”
Guido didn’t realise that releasing the wrong prisoners and letting them cheer Keir Starmer while driving away in their sports cars was the Tories’ fault. One Tory source tells Guido: “No wonder the Tories are so irrelevant when their former leaders row in behind Labour to defend mass prisoner releases.” Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is uncorking the Gauke to lead a sentencing review – probably so she can blame another (former) Tory when it goes wrong…
All eyes are on the High Court this week, as law firm Pogust Goodhead brings the largest ever opt-in class action case against Australian mining giants BHP. Pogust represents some 600,000 claimants in the action – seeking £36 billion in damages. These cases are becoming increasingly common, as US-style lawfare spreads…
The election of the Labour government – with lefties linked to similar class actions and firms – has led to concerns over the impact on business in the UK. Starmer could usher in a wave of such cases…
Meanwhile, PR firm The PHA Group has been drafted in to sharpen up the lawyers’ press coverage. PHA has a roster of former hacks on staff and enjoys a varied client list, having included everything from anti-animal testing to Julian Assange. British business is fearing this area will become a cottage industry…
Of all the plum jobs in the Commons, Chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (FASC) is the sweetest. It gives the incumbent a strong media platform, endless global jollies, and the chance to quiz David Lammy, which should be nothing if not entertaining…
When Emily Thornberry was brutally but hilariously binned from the incoming Labour Government, she launched a hardcore lobbying campaign to become FASC chairman. Lady Nugee ‘put the thumbscrews on’, said one Labour MP, pressuring her parliamentary colleagues to back her and help her recover from the embarrassment of not getting a front bench role. There’s a little local difficulty however, which is being talked about on the Labour benches…
Thornberry is best friends with scandal-wrecked Lord Alli. She lived on the same street as him in the 1990s, and is credited with actually introducing Alli to the party in the first place: ‘Lord Alli was encouraged to join Labour by his next-door neighbour, Emily Thornberry‘. As Guido revealed, Alli has some exotic foreign policy preferences, joining figures such as Jeremy Corbyn as one of the very few British parliamentarians to go into bat for – checks notes – Bashar al Assad. As he boasted himself in a Lords debate: “I have visited Syria on a number of occasions and held talks with President Assad on several.”
And which Shadow Foreign Secretary caused outrage in 2018 when they praised Assad’s “depth and breadth of support” which is greater “than is recognised in the west”? Only Lady Nugee herself. An eyebrow raising coincidence making Labour MPs nervous about her chairmanship…
