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…
Former Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry has finally broken her silence over finding out she is not now the Attorney General. She must have been waiting for a good enough consolation job…
Now she releases a statement:
“After eight-and-a-half unbroken years in the Shadow Cabinet, a longer record of service than anyone else in that time, I have always worked my hardest to keep the Labour Party united, support our candidates across the country, take the fight to the Tories, and put a positive case to the British people about what we would do differently, including – most recently – setting out our party’s policies to tackle every aspect of the fraud epidemic facing Britain, to support whistleblowers on sexual harassment in the workplace, to protect women in co-habiting relationships, and to treat the crime of stalking with the seriousness it deserves.
I am very sorry and surprised not to be able to continue that work in government, but I wish all my brilliant colleagues well, and I know that Richard Hermer KC – a much more accomplished lawyer than I could ever hope to be – will do an outstanding job as Attorney General. Nothing in the personal disappointment I feel can detract from the amazing and historic victory that all of us in the Labour movement worked together to win last week, and the chance that we now have to change our country for the better. I will continue giving my unstinting loyalty to our Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, as he leads that work, as I have done since he became leader, and I look forward to supporting his government in every way I can in the years to come.”
Starmer has gone ahead and appointed his own questionable Attorney General. Will Emily be a thorn in Starmer’s side from here on?
Up in Stockton leafletting drama has taken another turn. A warning has just been posted on the Facebook community notice board “Hartburn Matters” which discusses local news and the usual “bloody ne’er-do-well youths” fare. Locals are today told to “remain vigilant” after items were stolen from doorsteps…
The warnings stem from an incident back in March in which a woman in Fairfield appeared to film someone delivering Labour leaflets (employed by an outsourced delivery company) stealing a Pepsi that she had left by her door. A report was made to the Police at the time. These kinds of campaign shenanigans aren’t rare: Hertfordshire Police have just arrested a 29-year-old man for defacing numerous Grant Shapps election posters. Up in Stockton it’s: “Beware: here be Labour leafletters”…
Labour Senedd member Rhianon Passmore has been spotted driving out of the Welsh Parliament’s car park with her number plate hanging off, revealing a different one underneath. When the car was next seen the shoddily-glued plate had fallen off entirely…
Afterwards the car had a plate on the front and a different one on the back. Neither is legal – one is unregistered and the other is untaxed and overdue. It’s not the first time Passmore has parked herself on the wrong side of the law: she was previously banned from driving for 20 months after going for a jaunt post-several glasses of wine…
Guido hears the police are now investigating the case. Are politicians trying out innovative ways to avoid 20mph fines?
UPDATE: Labour have administratively suspended Passmore: “The Labour Party takes the conduct of our elected representatives extremely seriously and all complaints are investigated in accordance with the Party’s complaints procedures.”
UPDATE II: Police say no offence. Passmore readmitted.
Labour candidate for Batley & Spen Kim Leadbeater is clearly trying too hard to relive her by-election victory of July 2021 – she’s using banners from it this time around. Voters have been treated to material saying: “Vote Kim Leadbeater: Thursday 1st July“. Clumsy – she did forget to sign in as an MP when she was first elected…
The posters don’t have the proper imprint either. Leadbeaters’ team have now had to go around Batley with sharpies to obscure the date and slapping imprint stickers on the banners. Are they going to have to do it every time it rains?
It’s been 829 days since the Labour Party suspended John Bercow’s membership on an “administrative basis” pending an investigation into his bullying. Why they still haven’t reached a final decision when the “serial bully” can’t even set foot on the parliamentary estate is a mystery. Though that isn’t stopping him from going out and about on the campaign trail…
The former Speaker was spotted campaigning alongside Labour candidates and former MPs Tulip Siddiq and Marsha de Cordova yesterday morning.Once a Tory MP, Bercow looked right at home, cheerily standing outside a pub surrounded by fellow lefties and leaflets. Seems his Cameo gigs aren’t too taxing. Perhaps this is his way of buttering up the Party to hurry along his case…
