It’s festival season and our elected officials aren’t letting their parliamentary duties stop them from making the most of it. According to the latest register of interests, seven Labour MPs, including two Shadow Cabinet members, registered expenses-paid trips to Glastonbury – to the tune of £13,500. These were: Ed Miliband, Louise Haigh, Alex Sobel, Kevin Brennan, Darren Jones, Clive Lewis and Mark Tami. All registered their donations across days in the working week and man of the people Clive Lewis was the only name on the list not to take up hospitality tickets. Ed Davey also had a good month, in addition to getting two all-inclusive Glasto tickets worth £2,462, he also registered £36,500 in donations. Will that be made out to his personal services company?
Whilst Labour MPs lived it up in Glasto, cricket appeared to be the preferred summer pass time for Conservatives. James Daly, James Morris, Bob Blackman and Michael Tomlinson all took a trip to the Netherlands with the APPG for cricket, worth a combined £5,000, whilst Claire Coutinho, Ruth Edwards and Andrew Griffith raked in £1,200 in Ashes hospitality tickets. It wouldn’t be a register of interests update without yet more Prime Ministerial plane bills. This time, Rishi’s donor-funded jet-setting amounted to a measly £55,000.
Given Sir Keir spent most of PMQs trying to hammer the government over tax benefits for private schools – “trickle-down education” is apparently the soundbite of the day – Guido thought it was worth taking a look at those sitting on Starmer’s own frontbench. After all, the parents of 600,000 kids struggling to pay fees might be entitled to think it is some cheek to put VAT on the schools they themselves attended…
- Keir Starmer attended Reigate Grammar School, which, as Guido reported, became a fee-paying independent school whilst he was studying there. When Keir joined in 1974, the school had been a state grammar for 30 years. In 1976, however, it went private – and according to their website of ‘notable Reigatians’ Starmer remained a student there until 1981. Today his old school charges £20,000 a year.
- Party Chair Anneliese Dodds attended Robert Gordon’s College. The independent Aberdeen school currently charges fees of almost £14,000 a year…
- Shadow Defence Secretary John Healey went to Guy Fawkes’ alma mater, St Peter’s School in York. St Peter’s School is an independent school where fees currently cost almost £20,000 a year…
- Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Louise Haigh was a student at Sheffield High School. Fees are currently almost £15,000 a year…·
- Shadow Leader of Commons Thangam Debbonaire went to two independent schools – Bradford Girls’ Grammar School and Chetham’s School of Music. Bradford Girls Grammar School didn’t end its fee-paying status until 2011…
The backbenches are also packed with those more than familiar with private education: John McDonnell skirts over his days at St Joseph’s College. Jeremy Corbyn, the independent Member for Islington North tries to forget he went to a prep school until he was 11. Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and Shami Chakrabarti in the Lords all sent their children to independent schools. Still, “trickle-down education” is a nice headline…
Boris’s surprise trip to Ukraine to meet with Zelenskyy set a pretty impressive trap for his opponents to fall into. Between the announcement of his pulling out and the revelation of his international visit, some on the left implied Boris was on the run. Labour lecturer Thom Brooks said it looked like the PM was “giving up on the North again”; Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said “I suppose his one saving grace is that @BorisJohnson recognises when he’s really not helping”; Angus Brendan MacNeil MP said “Boris is going to be such an asset in the Scottish independence campaign”; Business Insider’s Cat Neilan tweeted the move “allowed a prospective rival a free hit. And yet LEADERSHIP”, referring to the day’s No. 10 grid. The jewel in the crown, however, was undoubtedly Wes Streeting…
Absent leadership pretty much sums up this Government’s approach to the country’s problems. https://t.co/n5dfDarPRz
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) June 17, 2022
Wes’s latest bout of foot-in-mouth disease comes shortly after having to apologise to the Shadow Cabinet for expressing public sympathy with the rail strikes, though allies insisted he only apologised for the “bad publicity that resulted from the remarks”, earmarking him out as someone with even fewer principles than the current Labour leader. It also follows him being shown up by Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves for pocketing LBC presenting cash while she donated hers to charity. Centrists really do believe Wes Steeting is Labour’s best hope among the candidates to be next leader…
Labour’s leadership contest was in full swing last night after the PLP hustings, with almost all contenders taking to Strangers bar to lobby fellow MPs. Parliament’s bar’s veterans were amazed to see the likes of Starmer, Long-Bailey, Rayner, Thornberry and Phillips – almost never been spotted there – getting merry. Damian McBride, no stranger to Strangers, was seen pressing the flesh on behalf his mistress, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, in the forlorn search for a single endorsement. Burgon almost found his way to Strangers, instead he ended up having his dinner in the Commons canteen with Cat Smith instead, in turn missing a few votes…
After staying until closing in the newly inclusive Strangers bar (now allowing staff in as well as MPs) – an elite group of the Shadow Cabinet headed off to Players bar – where the resentful attitude of attending Labourites towards the Shadow Cabinet members for losing the election made things decidedly less merry. Ashworth, Louise Haigh, Chris Bryant and Lord Adonis still managed to enjoy themselves, dad-dancing and loudly singing along to apropos lyrics, “Losing everything, it’s like the sun going down on me”. Sad…
In the end, a row erupted after a singer in the bar adapted the lyrics of Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ to say “the record shows, we took the blows and we lost ’cause of your way”. Chris Bryant shot back with “no we didn’t” eventually resulting in the singer calling the Shadow Cabinet “c**ts”. Singing truth to the powerless.
Expect Labour MPs to be getting on the booze a lot over the coming months…
Shadow minister for policing Louise Haigh claimed on Politics Live today that “No one’s suggesting that we move to North Korean or Venezuelan levels of interference and state control of the economy.” Except Guido can remember one or two people who suggested exactly that. Seumas will be wanting a word…
