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…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
