Emily Thornberry found herself squirming on Question Time last night when asked about Labour’s stance on the government’s plans to house asylum seekers in barracks. Even after multiple questions from Fiona Bruce, the Shadow Attorney General couldn’t clarify Labour’s position:

FB: Do Labour support or object to the idea of using barracks to house asylum seekers?

ET: *huffs* I mean, I think that, as I say, I think that it’s not actually – what I- what I object to with the use of barracks is that it’s going to be used as an add on to the hotels. So it’s not a solution to the hotels

FB: So in principle, you don’t have a problem with asylum seekers being housed in barracks?

ET: I don’t have a problem with people being treated humanely…

Guido does have sympathy for Thornberry and the rest of the Labour Party. Pretending to be tough on immigration is difficult for a party full of leftie London lawyers.

As Gary Lineker’s BBC career hangs in the balance, even Labour are beginning to shift their line on the footballing star. Appearing on Sky News with Sophy Ridge last night, Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry pushed back on the millionaire pundit’s comments, claiming he “went too far” in comparing the government’s small boats policy to Nazi Germany, and she “wouldn’t have said that” herself:

“I know that Gary Lineker feels very strongly about this issue, and he has brought refugees into his home and he campaigns on this issue. I think some of the language that Gary Lineker has used in the last 24 hours has been really very unfortunate, and I wouldn’t have used some of the [comments]… I just think that there is a special place in hell for the Nazis… I don’t think you should be making those comparisons. So I wouldn’t have said that, I think that he went too far…”

Starmer’s spokesperson already gave Lineker a yellow card earlier in the day, saying “comparisons with Germany in the 1930s aren’t always the best way to make your argument. But Gary Lineker has been a passionate advocate on behalf of refugees…”. Directly saying he went “too far” and shouldn’t have made the comments at all is enough to send him off the pitch. Which would make things awkward for James O’Brien, who is now suggesting Tory criticism of Lineker’s comments is somehow out of the fascist playbook. What does he think of Thornberry, then?

As Shamima Begum has today lost her appeal for British citizenship, it’s worth taking a look at what the leading lights of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, have had to say on the matter:

Leftie lawyers backing Begum is no surprise:

• Keir Starmer, as seen above, said the Home Secretary made the “wrong decision” on the case. He then agreed the decision was a recipe for “moral cowardice of the worst sort”.
• Emily Thornberry wanted to “bring her back to Britain”.

They were not alone:

• Lisa Nandy and Nick Thomas-Symonds backed her return to the UK.
• Jo Stevens called the removal of Begum’s citizenship “pathetic posturing”.
• Diane Abbott said the government’s actions were “morally reprehensible”.
• Jeremy Corbyn defended Begum’s right to remain in Britain, saying she deserves our support.

All eyes now on how captain hindsight will find a way to revise his line…

To be fair, not all members of the shadow cabinet were so full-throated in their terrorist sympathies. Yvette Cooper dodged questions on Begum – admitting it was a “matter for the courts”. Presumably, now the courts have upheld the decision, she agrees the government took the right approach…

This week was scheduled on the Labour Party’s media grid to be “Government Procurement Card” week – exposing the “GPC files” of the Tories and their big spending ways. The Labour Press team even mocked up a fake Rishi Sunak GPC:

The reputed author of the dossier is the reformed former attack dog Damian McBride. After a time away from politics following Smeargate, McBride returned to SW1 as Emily Thornberry’s political advisor in March 2016. Thornberry being the Shadow Cabinet MP in whose name all the written questions were asked to create the GPC Files…

Damian was around for the birth of Government Procurement Cards in 1997, climbing government ranks as Labour’s GPC spending soared. His “Power Trip” book provides an explicit account of the sort of taxpayer “put it on the card” spending in the Treasury and No. 10 during his years there, for which he’s now attacking the government…

Booze

• ‘We were going to hold a proper end-of-trip party on board, and would happily serve our own drinks so they could have a break’ 
• ‘… if the galleys were still full of unopened bottles of champagne, wine and beer when we were on our return flight from Japan, Santiago or Cape Town, that was all booze already paid for by the hacks just waiting to be drunk’ – this last point is a fiction, the ticket charges for hacks barely covered their own flight costs.
• ‘We were going to hold a proper end-of-trip party on board and would happily serve our own drinks… [after Gordon went to bed] the hard drinking would ensue. I’d kick things off with a quiz then there’d be hours of standing around swapping war stories and jokes, a bit of singing, and … all-night sessions of poker… all while steadily draining what was left of the booze’

Private jets

• ‘If we chartered a flight from BA, Virgin or one of the occasional private airlines we used, then all the food and booze we’d normally consume on a flight was obviously thrown in as well’
• ‘Chartering a plane or, less preferably, block-booking dozens of seats on a scheduled flight was always the most expensive aspect of any overseas visit, and the way we paid for it was by inflating the fares charges to the press to subsidise the travel of Gordon and his team’ – in truth it “didn’t pay for it”, it slightly reduced the overall cost to taxpayers.

Luxury meals

• ‘Gordon did a briefing at the G8 summit in Japan about the need to tackle the world’s waste of food, and then found himself at a luxurious thirteen-course banquet laid on by the hosts that same evening’

Extracurriculars

• ‘When Gordon finally came down, Balls said: “Damian’s got a theory about this hotel to tell you.’ Before I could say anything, Gordon said: “I know, we’ve got to get out of here, this place is full of hookers’
• ‘We’d drive out to Summers restaurant and Sports Bar in Arlington on Saturday mornings, Sunday lunchtimes and weekday afternoons to catch any live Premiership or Champions League games. Gordon wouldn’t drink…’

It is clear that Damian and the Brownites particularly enjoyed their times in America. Guido has come across an old Freedom of Information release from the days when his inseparable pal Ed Balls was Education Minister and he with Damian McBride would let the government procurement card be their flexible friend when it came to drinking and dining. Remember that civil servants not ministers are the ones issued with cards. Note the thousand dollar American bar bills and the thousand pound plus dinners in two of Guido’s favourite Westminster restaurants; Osteria Dell Angelo and the Cinnamon Club:

Apart from the Freedom of Information release above, all the quotes are taken from Damian’s 2014 confessional book “Power Trip: A Decade of Policy, Plots and Spin”. Guido asked the Labour press office to confirm or deny McBride ever had a GPC of his own, or whether Labour commits to ending these practices in government. They haven’t answered…

The big day’s come – the one you’ve all been waiting for. It’s the release of Labour’s much-trailed ‘GPC Files’, which Guido managed to spike last Friday. Apologies to the Labour press office…

This morning Labour’s all over the airwaves promoting the ‘dossier’, though only the Guardian bothered to splash it. There are, to be fair, some good revelations of absurd government waste by departments; including £1,903 for a ‘Hot Pink Photo Booth’, £14,957 on luxury flowers and just under £500,000 on home furnishings. Guido welcomes the Taxpayers’ Alliance-style investigation after years of covering examples of such waste himself – we are hiring if anyone at Labour Press is interested…

The only problem is the hypocrisy of the messengers. Angela Rayner was out on the radio this morning and was confronted about her expensing two sets of luxury Apple AirPods Pro, after she lost the first pair. She also spent £1,619.00 on an Apple computer and put a smashed phone screen repair on the public credit card. No one’s saying MPs don’t need headphones and computers – much the same way civil servants obviously need hotel rooms. Whether they need to be uber-expensive Apple products/5* hotels is the exact point Labour’s making on waste…

Rachel Reeves, on the other hand, actually had her official expenses credit card suspended in 2015 after ” failing to show spending was valid”. At the time IPSA suspended her expenses card, she owed over £4,000. Shadow education minister Toby Perkins also had his card suspended while owing almost £700.

Emily Thornberry was the Shadow Minister responsible for creating this dossier, asking 350+ written questions to force the information from the government. At around £150 per written question in time and administrative costs, she spent £52,500 asking about government waste. One of her questions was about a hotel stay by Rishi and his Treasury team in Venice – information already publicly available thanks to a 2022 Guido article. Wasting taxpayer cash to ask a question about wasting taxpayer cash…

Does anyone really believe that the Labour Party will be any more frugal and careful with taxpayers’ money? It is just not in their DNA.