There is some disbelief in government that Sue Gray is still managing to make herself the story a week after she got the sack. She’s now “on a break” while actually battling in Downing Street for a golden goodbye and new salary…
There has been some speculation that Gray will be punted off to the Lords imminently – other briefings play down the chances of that. It looks like there’s at least one person who believes the rumours…
Guido hears that Sue has, incredibly, been heard boasting that she’s the first name on the list to get into the Lords in the New Years honours. Enough time for her to settle in to her fake envoy job before being quietly whisked to the upper chamber…
A government source tells Guido:
“Pushing for a job at a house full of unelected great n’goods saying no to politicians and ignoring the voters? Sounds about right.”
Safe to say there’s not much sympathy left for “Britain’s most powerful woman”…
Baroness Jenkin is really tightening the straps in the Lords. After whipping up a storm with her written question about fetish clothing in the civil service, she’s now got her sights set on a matter that really binds the nation:
What is she smoking…
UPDATE: A co-conspirator gets in touch to say it appears Jenkin has mixed up the BDSM acronym with the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions Movement while the question was written during minutes of the meeting. Still, there does seem to be a bit of a theme…
Jacqui ‘I’m a disgrace and shouldn’t be a peer’ Smith was given a peerage over the weekend to serve as education minister in Starmer’s “change” government. Co-conspirators will remember that Smith was the first to fall to expensegate in 2009 – taxpayers paid for her husband’s porno thrills and almost everything else, literally including the kitchen sink, right down to her 88p bath plug. She resigned and declared in 2012 on Question Time: “I don’t think people who have been disgraced should go to the House of Lords”…
It’s worth remembering what the former Home Secretary said last time an ex-politician with experience of government entered the Lords to work again. Literally nine months ago on the For The Many podcast she said:
“It is a bit of a sign that you’re coming to the end of a government… it’s not undoable, where I think it matters more and it mattered when Peter Mandelson came back is – it slightly suggests that you don’t think there are any of your own backbenchers who are able to do it and there might be a few people that are a bit peeved about it… it is also done, as the Peter Mandelson thing was done, as an attempt to try to limit a potential defeat that is coming down the track…”
Starmer will be surprised to hear his government is coming to an end…
Apart from booting octogenarians out of the Lords, Starmer’s manifesto promises “to introduce legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote“. That drags a few descendants of Labour giants down with the rest…
- Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate (son of Tony).
- John Attlee, 3rd Earl Attlee (grandson of Clement).
As a bonus, also up for the chop are Raymond Asquith (great-grandson of Herbert) and Rupert Carington (son of Peter). Some devoted history fans might view the remaining Lords as a bit of a rump…
Sunak’s bill designating Rwanda as a safe country was approved by the Lords at 12:09 a.m. after Lord Anderson withdrew the final remaining amendment. In the fifth round of ping pong Anderson, whose amendment would have made had another body judge Rwanda safe (not just Parliament), said “the time has come to accept the primacy of the elected house and withdraw from the fray“. James Cleverly has put out a celebratory video. Sunak, meanwhile, says the “focus is to now get flights off the ground, and I am clear that nothing will stand in our way of doing that and saving lives.” The government has booked charter flights for June. That’s the easy bit over – it’s open lawfare now…
An interesting nugget of skullduggery was unearthed by the Mail’s Martin Beckford yesterday, who examined the House of Lords report into the conduct of Lord Geidt. Co-conspirators will remember Geidt as the establishment standards supremo who – eager to demonstrate how beyond reproach he is – flounced out of Boris Johnson’s government after agreeing to advise it on standards. A resignation covered breathlessly by the media pack…
As it turns out, the report reveals that during Lord Geidt’s investigation into the No 10 flat, he was simultaneously working as an adviser to Theia group, which wanted to sell the MOD satellite technology. Just two days before Geidt published his report into the flat, he conducted a meeting with officials on behalf of Theia. The committee has now found his conduct in that meeting was a breach of Lords rules…
While the left and Johnson’s Tory critics raged over flatgate and canonized Geidt for his role, he was working as the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Interests while simultaneously working as a paid advisor to a defence company seeking government work. Who will independently advise the independent advisers…
