Guido hears a line has finally been drawn under the row sparked from the Mail on Sunday by Glen Owen about Angela Rayner’s legs. In April the MoS published a now-notorious piece, “Tories accuse Angela Rayner of Basic Instinct ploy to distract Boris: MPs claim Labour deputy leader likes to put PM ‘off his stride’ by crossing and uncrossing her legs at PMQs”. At the time IPSA received over 6,000 complaints from pearl-clutching members of the public, however because many of the complaints related to accuracy they could only proceed were Rayner to put forward her side of the story.
“Such an investigation would not be possible without her involvement, and because of this, we declined to consider complaints made under this Code clause. This does not affect the ability of Ms Rayner to make a complaint on this point.”
Despite the story resulting in Glen Owen being hounded, and Dan Hodges revealing it was Rayner herself who made the comments while drinking with Tory MPs, Guido understands Rayner never got involved and as such IPSO has closed the investigation.
Asked for a comment on the above, IPSO told Guido, “Many thanks for your email. We have no comment.” Seven months to draw a line under the incident – and people say Britain has a productivity crisis…
As Guido predicted, Glen Owen is the new Mail on Sunday political editor. Glen’s intensive prowling of the bars of Westminster for the last decade has finally paid off. Glen has noticeably smartened up his look of late as befits a would-be doyen of Her Majesty’s Sunday Lobby. This will trigger a small round of musical chairs in the Lobby…
Tory conference finally saw the energy and passion it has been lacking this week courtesy of the InHouse Communications karaoke night. Partygoers witnessed peak Matt Hancock as he took to the stage to sing Happy Birthday to himself, before performing a high octane duet of Don’t Stop Me Now with Therese Coffey (watch above). James Cleverly and Kelly Tolhurst attempted Don’t Go Breaking My Heart before Clevz redeemed himself with a more impressive rendition of Twist and Shout, complete with memorable hip action. Will Quince demonstrated surprising depth as he had the room hand-waving to My Way. Nigel Evans gave us Delilah, David Mundell just about made his way through 500 Miles and a Brexit-backing cross-party trio of Paul Scully, Anne-Marie Trevelyan and Ian Paisley Jnr had the room rocking to Sweet Caroline. Then it was the turn of the Lobby…
Faisal Islam took great pleasure in adapting the lyrics of Don’t Look Back in Anger to belt out “So, Boris can wait” – just the latest MSM smear. Dan Hodges and Glen Owen teamed up with Number 10 Sunday Lobby specialist Kirsty Buchanan to murder Mr Brightside. An emotional David Wooding, one arm raised aloft, sang You’ll Never Walk Alone, the only time he’ll be able to do that in Manchester. The night ended with Number 10’s Richard “Tricky” Jackson nailing You Raise Me Up. Hic…
