Responding to 2019 accusations that she was a ‘champagne socialist’, Shadow Attorney General hit back saying she is, in fact, a “blue vodka and oyster socialist to you mate”. Now she’s going about proving it…

Taking to Instagram, Thornberry showed off her lovely father’s day breakfast spread from this Sunday, replete with pastries, juice, flowers, bread… and a £28 bottle of vodka.

Guido’s sympathetic to the stresses of family life, though breakfast might be a tad early for Emily’s coping strategy…

Not content with blocking parliamentary staffers’ access rights to Strangers’ bar, Guido hears a fierce turf war has kicked off between MPs and Lords over terrace access rights. Speaking to a noble friend last night, it emerged they had recently been told they didn’t have permission to be served in Strangers’, leading to awkwardness in front of the guest for whom they’d tried buying drinks. By coincidence, a co-conspirator got in touch at the same time claiming that earlier this week, Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was asked to leave the Lords’ terrace because he didn’t have access privileges…

It was apparently in retaliation to this that Hoyle issued the reciprocal edict for Lords attempting to enjoy the Commons half of the terrace. The battle spilt out into the open when Commons doorkeepers assumed their new role as terrace bouncers, blocking peers from entry. Peace talks are said to be scheduled today…

After the original revelations were printed in the Daily Mail, one of Starmer’s Political Advisers (PAd) told sympathetic left-wing journalist Ava Evans, “It’s a relief Durham police aren’t handing out retrospective fines, because we would probably get one”. This expression of relief may now turn out to have been premature.

Another PAd has now told her “I just don’t want to get fined for having a curry with Keir Starmer. It was already a bad Friday night. The curry was bad and the chat was worse”. This candid on-the-record admission rather gives the lie to official public party statements of untroubled indifference.

Ava also reports that one Labour MP told her they would not be participating in any media interviews for the next few days, for fear of being asked to defend Sir Keir. His actions were “indefensible” she reports them as saying. Which explains why we are only seeing Emily Thornberry abasing herself in studios…

With just a week to go before the locals, Labour are really pulling out all the stops: they’re currently running Facebook attack ads in key marginals claiming the LibDems are “soft on drugs“, and would even decriminalise their use if elected. To the untrained eye, they look exactly like the LibDems’ own material. In fact, the LibDems may as well go home. Labour have decided to do their campaigning for them – a real joint effort to keep the Tories out…

Guido will have whatever the Labour communications team have been smoking. It’s so strong it’s caused them to forget drug decriminalisation is a popular policy… especially with Labour’s own voters. According to YouGov, just 24% of Labour voters want soft drug use to remain a criminal offence. A whopping 42% want it fully legalised. Hilariously, the YouGov data shows that LibDem voters are actually more opposed to decriminalisation than Labour voters.  Presumably Starmer’s been on the strong stuff again…

Sunday saw a landslide election victory for Labour in Malta, delivering the party a third term victory against the odds. The win came despite the forced resignation of the disgraced former PM, Joseph Muscat, in January 2020. Muscat’s fall from grace took place during the investigation that followed the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Despite these major scandals, Partit Laburista were victorious; helped on their way to victory by legalising cannabis for personal use last year. 

They were advised by a British political consultant who had been playing a key behind-the-scenes role in the campaign advising ministers on how to move on from Muscat and clean up their image at home and abroad. David Taylor, who cut his teeth as a young New Labour staffer and SpAd in the Blair-Brown years, has a reputation for deploying a robust approach to campaigns. It’s a style which clearly found favour in Malta, the small island nation known for its deep-rooted partisan tribalism, where Prime Minister Robert Abela increased both Labour’s share of the vote and its majority over the opposition Nationalist Party.

Ironically, five years ago when David Taylor stood for North Wales Police Commissioner on a “zero tolerance platform” promising to be tough on crime, Taylor said he would “wage war on drugs and trafficking by Manchester and Merseyside gangs”. He even promised a Rudy Giuliani-style war on “anti-social riffraff who threaten to ruin so many lives”. He lost.

Now the government he advises, which legalised cannabis in December, has just won an election on the back of going in the opposite direction and liberalising. Legalising drugs can be electorally popular – who knew?

This morning the chairman of the Commons Procedure Committee Sir Charles Walker has written to MPs’ offices telling them staff must not abuse their access to the estate by getting drunk and sleeping in their office:

“I am writing to all Colleagues to express my concerns that some Parliamentary passholders, including Members’ staff, are abusing their privileges in relation to working at the House of Commons.

During a recent meeting with Alison Giles, Director of Security for Parliament, I learned that passholders are returning to the premises, having missed the last train home after a night out, to sleep in their office. This behaviour, though isolated, is wholly outside the rules, both for security and fire risk purposes.

In view of the above, I am asking Colleagues to be vigilant in ensuring that passholders, be they our staff or anyone else, conduct themselves to the highest standard at all times. If you see unacceptable behaviour, please bring it to the attention of the Serjeant-at-Arms who will deal with it.

Any member of your staff struggling with addiction can access support through the confidential Employee Assistance Programme: XXXXXXXXXXX

The House will be communicating directly with its own staff. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Yours,

Sir Charles Walker
Chair of the Committee”

There is a venerable tradition of hammered, worse for wear young staffers sleeping overnight in their offices. Sometimes more adventurous and exciting activities occur, those flames of passion are not actually a fire risk. Ignore the killjoys and take your chances…