Douglas Hogg, the disgraced Tory minister who infamously had his moat cleaned on expenses, has been made a Lord. Hogg charged the taxpayer for having his moat cleared, piano tuned and stable lights fixed at his country manor house. He’ll fit in well in our second chamber.

Other upstanding names on the list include Peter Hain, who had to resign and faced a police investigation after he failed to declare 20 donations to his deputy leadership campaign worth a total of over £100,000.

Also there is bonking David Blunkett and a very long list of Downing Street SpAds.

A proud day for parliament…

Peter Hain’s article in today’s Guardian reads like loony left bingo. Apparently focusing on the deficit is a “suffocating neoliberal orthodoxy” created by “the Mail, Telegraph and Murdoch stables”, and of course the Tories will take “public spending back to levels not seen since the 1930s when there was no NHS or decent state school system”. Hain insists “the deficit debate is a trap” and argues “Labour needs to learn to love spending again”:

“Labour will prioritise reviving Britain’s failing recovery by scrapping austerity… We urgently need (as some economists argue) £30bn a year for two years of extra capital investment in infrastructure, housebuilding, education, skills and low-carbon industries. This would rapidly expand the economy and cut the budget deficit by boosting tax revenues as people earn and spend more, working hours rise, and fewer families need to look to the state for support. 

Yes, the shock headlines would announce: “Higher Labour borrowing early in the next parliament”. But higher public spending and borrowing on capital investment today means lower borrowing tomorrow with the economy growing and tax revenues rising.”

Best of all, Hain accuses Blairites and Tories of subscribing to “Alice in Wonderland economics”. Says the spending-addicted debt junkie…

Wales Online reports that Peter Hain claims that it is “absolute nonsense” to suggest that Tracey Ullmann’s daughter Mabel McKeown is his preferred successor in the safe Labour seat of Neath. The former “Equalities Officer and Office Manager for the Office of Right Honourable Harriet Harman QC MP” is one of the front-runners to succeed him. Is it really absolute nonsense?

• Is it absolute nonsense that McKeown shares a flat with Hain’s former SpAd?
• Is it absolute nonsense that Hain’s constituency agent Howard Davies is running McKeown’s campaign to parachute in Mckeown?

Neutral? Nonsense…

Not content with retiring to his Spanish villa, picking up a peerage and sniffing around the Leader of the Lords job, Peter Hain is trying to stitch up his seat for his chosen successor. Next week he plans to wangle the selection in Neath for Mabel McKeown, daughter of £75 million comedian Tracy Ullman. As Guido revealed in yesterday’s Sun, Hain’s former agent Howard Davies is running McKeown’s campaign to parachute in his favourite candidate. Opponents claim she has no knowledge of Neath and no local experience since she was born in LA. Carpet-bagging former Harriet Harman aide Mabel has already lost out before for a local council seat and when she stood for the London Assembly. Christina Rees is the Unite union backed rival on the all women shortlist whom Ullman’s daughter is telling to “Move over Darling”…

Nelson Mandela’s family has criticised the tasteless “vultures” circling as he clings on to life in his Pretoria hospital bed. You would never find a Labour MP looking to make a quick buck from the sad situation, would you?

My biography of Nelson Mandela published in 2010 by Spruce is out today as an eBook http://t.co/zpDmomiyOg

— Peter Hain (@PeterHain) July 1, 2013

Peter Hain cashing in?  Whatever next…

The tension from Labour’s underwhelming performance at the locals last week is boiling over. Last night Peter Hain comically denied he was firing a broadside against Ed Balls for not pulling his weight:

Advance Mischief-making to suggest my coming piece in @ProgressOnline Gdn an attack – coded or otherwise – on anybody in Labour. It's not.

— Peter Hain (@PeterHain) May 7, 2013

It was described by the Guardian as a ‘coded attack’, but now the full piece in Progress is out, the word coded looks like a massive understatement:

“Labour’s Treasury team need to get out on the stump now and work even harder. It shouldn’t just be left to Ed and Harriet to carry the heavy load, whether on the World at One, the Today programme or anywhere else.”

If that is a ‘coded attack’, then bring on the open fireworks. Ever the master of subtly, Hain is so loyal to Miliband, Guido doubts he rumbled Macavity Balls without permission. Though worth remembering the lecture is coming from someone who quit the Shadow Cabinet to make some money…