The latest update to the Register of Members’ Financial Interests is out. See who has the deepest pockets…
Nigel Farage trousered £42,549 from his Cameo video recordings, which must have upset the Guardian. His attempted trip to the Chagos islands – Farage registered it as a “humanitarian aid mission” – cost £25,000, courtesy of Reform donor Christopher Harborne. His £9,466 trip to Mar-a-Lago was picked up by US lobby group Club for Growth…
Angela Rayner banked £19,000 for a single speaking engagement paid by the Management Consultancies Association. There is still a grand total of £0 registered for her book deal advance. She did, however, accept £50,000 from Refrigeration House Limited and £2,500 from Trevor Chinn. Rayner described both donations as “staffing costs“. Quite a sum for a backbencher…
Kemi Badenoch accepted £7,549 in hospitality from Tory donor Neil Record. Five nights for herself and four family members at his private residence over half-term…
Rupert Lowe earned £5,803 from X for an estimated five hours of posting. Farage registered £524 and Lee Anderson £329 from the platform in the same period…
Oliver Dowden took £15,000 from hedge fund Caxton Associates for 30 hours of ‘strategy advice.’
And finally, Starmer registered another trip to the Arsenal Directors’ Box. Two tickets to the tune of £1,000, obviously. As always, nice work if you can get it…
Starmer has claimed this morning that it is “a little bit far-fetched” to draw a link between the timely theft of Morgan McSweeney’s phone and the Mandelson files. The quote is vintage Starm-bot:
“Well the phone was stolen. It was reported to the police. There’s a transcript of the call in which Morgan McSweeney gives his name, his date of birth, the details of the phone and the police confirm that it was reported.
Unfortunately, there are thefts like this. It was stolen. It was reported at the time and the police have acknowledged and confirmed that that is what happened.”
The idea that somehow everybody could have seen that sometime in the future there would be a request for the phone is, to my mind, a little bit far-fetched.”
Again, this line is total nonsense. The phone was reported stolen in October, after Mandelson’s sacking. Labour was already bracing for the Tories to use a humble address motion to extract evidence. Is it ‘far-fetched’ to expect McSweeney to tell the police he was the Chief of Staff? Or at the very least back up the phone? Which usually happens by default anyway…
DESNZ spent £64,376 flying ministers around the world in just three months, burping out around 22 tonnes of CO2 equivalent into the atmosphere. Almost all of it was on trips to climate conferences. That is the ministerial bill alone. As the TaxPayers’ Alliance revealed, the full cost of the department’s COP30 delegation came to more than £800,000, with 73 officials making the trip to Brazil. Their flights cost £210,450, with another £6,091 spent on carbon credits to ‘offset’ the emissions…
Ed Miliband flew to Brazil twice in a single month, first for the COP World Leaders’ Summit and then again for the main conference a week later, at a combined ministerial cost of £25,750. His two return flights produced roughly 4.6 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of nearly a full year of average UK household emissions…
The biggest single ministerial bill belonged to climate minister Katie White, whose seven-night COP30 trip cost £30,551. The flight was £11,078, but White also billed the taxpayer £19,473 in accommodation and expenses on the ground, nearly £2,800 a night.
Across the five ministerial trips, DESNZ ministers clocked up roughly 11.5 tonnes of CO2 from flights alone. Applying DEFRA’s own recommended “radiative forcing multiplier” for aviation bumps the total up to around 22 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The average UK household produces about six tonnes a year. The department responsible for cutting emissions burned through nearly four years’ worth in a single quarter…
Former Google executive Matt Brittin is the new Director General of the BBC. He starts on the 18th May. His statement:
“Now, more than ever, we need a thriving BBC that works for everyone in a complex, uncertain and fast changing world. At its best, it shows us, and the world, who we are. It’s an extraordinary, uniquely British asset, with over 100 years of innovation in storytelling, technology and powering creativity. I’m honoured and excited to be asked to serve as Director-General.
“Working alongside so many talented journalists, creatives and technicians, across the country and around the world, I join with humility, to listen, to learn, to lead, and to serve the public, working hard to earn their trust every day.
“This is a moment of real risk, yet also real opportunity. The BBC needs the pace and energy to be both where stories are, and where audiences are. To build on the reach, trust and creative strengths today, confront challenges with courage, and thrive as a public service fit for the future. I can’t wait to start this work.”
A tall order…
No mention that he happened to be the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff…
Call handler: Police, what’s your emergency?
McSweeney: Oh, hello, someone just robbed my phone.
Call handler: Did they actually take it from you just now?
McSweeney: Yeah
Call handler: How did they get away?
McSweeney: So he’s on a bike. He’s come onto the pavement to grab my phone and cycled off on a bike.
Call handler: And where did this happen?
McSweeney: It happened in Belgrave Street in Westminster.
Call handler: And whose phone are you using now?
McSweeney: I’ve got two phones. I’m using my personal one. That was my work one.
Continue reading “READ IN FULL: McSweeney’s Call Transcript to Police After Phone Theft”
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”