If there were ever a sign of the LibDems’ increasing irrelevance, figures released by the electoral commission today revealed Laurence Fox single-handedly raised almost as much as the entire LibDems in the first quarter one of 2021. Total returns revealed Fox’s Reclaim party brought in £1.53 million, versus the LibDems’ £1.28 million. Fox’s incoming was exclusively from 18 individual donations by Jeremy Hosking…
Unsurprisingly, even Nick Clegg couldn’t turn the LibDems’ fundraising efforts around. The former deputy prime minister resumed donating to his former party, for the first time since the 2019 general election. Electoral Commission records show their former leader gave £5,000 to his old branch in Sheffield, and £10,000 to the Scottish LibDem branch. Guido would have thought his Facebook wage would allow him to be more generous…
Peter Cruddas, the billionaire City tycoon, has donated £500,000 to the Tories after Boris Johnson overruled advice from the official Appointments Commission and made him a peer. Lord Cruddas – a long-time Tory donor – gave the the Conservative party the donation on February 5th, three days after his appointment to the House of Lords. Boris Johnson overturned the advice, describing concerns as “historic” and praising Cruddas’s “outstanding contributions in the charitable sector”. According to the House of Lords Appointments Commission, this is the first time the organisation’s advice has been ignored. Cruddas has given over £3.5 million to the Tories on top of the £1.5 million he gave to the Vote Leave campaign – which he co-founded.
The Appointments Commission advised against Peter Cruddas’ nomination due to a supposed “cash for access” scandal that was in fact a stitch up – of which he was cleared. In 2012, the Electoral Commission ruled that there was no evidence that rules had been broken and Cruddas won £180,000 in damages from The Sunday Times. Guido can’t understand why – given he was cleared – that the Appointments Commission raked over the old story…
Guido is delighted to inform co-conspirators that the Express’s Crusader is saved, after the takeover of the Daily Express by Reach – the rebranded Mirror Group – they tried holding a “brand review” of the Express conducted by a consulting company. There was a genuine fear that the new owners would cancel the problematic-for-wokesters Crusader logo of the paper. Apparently, after a panicky management received hundreds of emails from Express readers alerted by Guido’s stories, they swiftly reverse-ferreted on the whole plan. The righteous Christian warrior fights on…
As the number of rebels ahead of Monday’s vote on cutting foreign aid rises, a senior Tory source has slammed the group of wets as “old timers” who are “more interested in patronising and preaching than representing.”
Around 30 Tory MPs have now signed up to vote for an amendment by Andrew Mitchell, tabled for next Monday’s debate, with only 10 or so more required to overturn the Tory majority. Backers include a number of old hand Rt. Hons., including Theresa May, Sir Peter Bottomley, Damian Green, Sir Edward Leigh, Tobias Ellwood, Jeremy Hunt, Sir Roger Gale and Sir Desmond Swayne. As Guido’s rottweiler Tory source points out, the sort of MPs with massive majorities and who represent “largely well off constituencies”…
Tobias Ellwood won’t have won over any waverers with his ultra-patronising performance on the Today Programme this morning. When pointed out by Mishal Husain that the majority of the public support the government’s move, he said he hoped the amendment’s vote “will actually help educate the nation”.
Guido’s top Tory source blasted the rebels:
“We are still spending £10 billion this year on aid, but it’s just never enough for these people who seem totally out of touch with public opinion. Cutting the overseas aid budget is overwhelmingly popular, especially in those newly won red wall seats.”
Monday looks like it’s heading for an increasingly rare parliamentary fireworks display…
A former Sky producer who worked with Kay Burley has told Guido of how Sky’s soon-to-return presenter has a “divide and conquer approach to how she treats her team”, ensuring loyalty from those she likes, and shunning those who upset her. In one anecdote from the whistleblower, Burley is accused of turning against one senior producer and treating her “like a bit of a slave”, humiliating her by having her carry Kay’s shoes around. Resulting in mockery from Burley’s loyalists.
The former producer confesses she was very young at the time, however became aware that Kay was running “weekends away” at her Cotswold holiday home in Lechlade, something Guido’s source said felt like “grooming”:
“What Kay does is this divide and conquer thing, but she has her favourites. And suddenly they’re getting the best stories. And suddenly, they’re kind of working on her programme
And then she ran the sort of weekends away, where she would invite people to come away to her Cotswolds place. I think if you were invited, obviously you had to go. I mean, I had a friend who was invited, she said ‘what the hell do I do?’ They didn’t want to go but sort of thought, Well, I better go. And in a funny way, I was always quite relieved, not to.
I thought it felt like she was grooming people really.”
Another producer tells Guido that a mere issue with a printer on set resulted in Kay pushing him aside socially, despite getting along “really well” with her up until that point. Referencing the infamous image of Kay grabbing a photographer by the throat, Guido’s whistleblower said it was “absolutely” her revealing her true colours…
Media sources point out that in the US Ellen DeGeneres’ long-running daytime TV show was wound up amid similar toxic workplace claims. Degeneres’ show ran on the Comcast-owned NBC network. Comcast also owns Sky…
The Boundary Commission for England (BCE) has announced the start of its review today – the first changes to constituency boundaries in over 10 years. As Guido first revealed in January, the government will keep the number of MPs to 650, abandoning David Cameron’s plan to reduce the number to 600. As expected, the review revealed that the North will lose a number of seats. The North East and North West will drop two seats respectively, whilst the Yorkshire and the Humber area will see no change. The West Midlands will also lose two seats potentially threatening Jess Philips’ constituency in Birmingham, Yardley and Zarah Sultana’s constituency in Coventry South.
The South will see a huge increase in its seat share, with the South East acquiring 7 seats, and the South West 3 seats. London will also be increasing its seat share by 2, Eastern by 3 and the East Midlands by 1. Due to the huge Tory gains throughout the red wall in the 2019 General Election, this boundary reform may not benefit the Tories as much as people previously expected. Instead the LibDems, who typically do well in London and the South, may end up benefiting the most from this boundary review…
