Sunday, 1 August 2010



Coalition Better than Thatcher or Blair - Telegraph
Doctors Better at Medicine than Bureacrats
- ASI Blog
Cabinet End of Term Report – Jeff Randall
David Cameron is a Fatty
The Telegraph
Send for the WonksEconomist
Here Come the ShadCab elections
Political Scrapbook
Clegg: I Lied About View on CutsGuardian
UKIP Can Keep the CashBBC
Bingle Sucks Up to LibDemsFT
John Prescott Joins TPACrash Bang Wallace
Home Office Retracts Rising Alcohol Crime ClaimFullFact



Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge ruled

“The stark reality is that the defendants are alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as MPs to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege does not, has never, and, we believe, never would attach. If the allegations are proved, and we emphasise, if they are proved, then those against whom they are proved will have committed ordinary crimes.”



Yvette and Hazel’s Multi-Million Furniture Shopping Spree

Eric Pickles has been getting under the skin of his shadow John Denham with digs about the £2.78 million spending spree on furniture, redecoration and suchlike that his former Dept. of Communities and Local Government splurged before Labour was booted out. Pickles had a heydey in the press and parliament with tales of Harriet Harman’s multi-million pound Serene Green Tranquillity Room at the Equalities Office. Denham wasn’t going to let that happen to him.


Denham’s SpAd, Jake Sumner, knew where the bodies were buried and in a spirit of comradeship FoI’d confirmation that it was Yvette Cooper, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, who approved the spending in a letter of 2 June 2008 to the then Secretary of State, Hazel Blears, Denham’s predecessor at the Dept. of Communities and Local Government. So it was Yvette, not Denham, who authorised the purchase by Hazel of £134,503 of red sofas. Presumably chosen to match Hazel’s hair…