American News

Berlusconi’s Wife Seeking Divorce - Associated Press
Guido Fawkes Taught UK Government to Fear - Süddeutschen Zeitung
Blogosphere Making British Politics - El Mundo
Brown’s State of Mind Under Scrutiny - Simon Walters
YouTube If You Want To - Hazel Blears
Babe-Loving Berlusconi 75% Popularity Rating - Reuters
‘C-List’ Blog Stat Porn - Charlotte Gore
Fear and Filth in Brown’s No. 10 - Nick Cohen
Taxodus : Publisher Informa Goes Swiss - Guardian
Put Gordon Out of Our Misery - Richard Littlejohn
Hero to Zero - Indy
Will Brown Go - Comment Central
Labour MPs on Suicide Watch - Daily Mail
Tory New Intake Will Be Tories - Times
All Over for the PM - John Rentoul

SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2009

American News

American actor Clarke Peters (Mandela, The Wire) was on Adam Boulton’s Sky show this morning.  He cracked a joke that would have had Sunny Hundal putting Guido up on a thought-crime charge if it was first cracked here on the blog:

“People used to say ‘pigs would fly’ if we had a black president. Well 100 days into Obama’s presidency, swine flu.”

On a sadder note, Jack Kemp has died after battling cancer.   Guido wonders how different the world might have been if  the former NFL quarterback had been the vice-presidential running mate of Bush senior instead of Dan Quayle.  If  the libertarian-conservative Kemp had then succeeded the original President Bush, we might never have had Presidents Clinton or Dubya.  Instead after nine terms as a Congressman for Western New York, from 1971 to 1989, he served as Housing Secretary in the George H. W. Bush administration.

Kemp an advocate of low tax, supply-side policies was until recently still active in the Washington think tank world.  He was conservative on abortion and libertarian on immigration,  with Chicago school economic ideals.  His crucial contribution to the Reagan agenda was as architect of the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, possibly the greatest tax reduction in American history since the Boston Tea party. The world sorely needs more Jack Kemps.

Sunday Sleaze

Think the public have a right to know what happens to public money? The Sunday Times reports that expense receipts to be released in July will be cesored so that we don’t know what they were for, where the taxis went, the names of shops or hotels.

Labour MP Jim Devine has fiddled  a total of nearly £17,000 in “car” and “mileage” costs, but the office manager, Marion Kinley, told the Sunday Herald she did all the driving and “I received only £60.” Devine has some improbable excuses.

The Sunday Times reports that the Labour peer Baroness Uddin has named a flat in Maidstone, Kent as her main residence and claimed around £100,000 in Parliamentary expenses for it. This is despite the flat being empty and Baroness Uddin living in Wapping, East London - just four miles from the House of Lords.

After the Sunday Times challenged Uddin about her“main residence”, she appears to have done a quick“move in”.  This is prima facie fraud.

David Miliband wants a private jet and spare on standby according to theNews of the World.  Despite the fact that he invariably could fly commercial for a fraction of the price.

Well, even so, it is going to be hard for a Labour MP to cover up building a sauna on expenses…