News from the saddling enclosure

The Telegraph reports that "Gordon Brown's personal popularity has fallen to an historic low". This must be good news for David Miliband, Harriet Harman, Jack Straw, Alan Johnsone and the rest of the runners and riders, mustn't it? No it isn't as The Telegraph/YouGov poll also reports that:http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=3893698629458358623
Under Gordon Brown, Labour trail the Conservatives 25 : 47
However:
under David Miliband this would drop to 24:47
under Jack Straw this would drop to 24:45
under Alan Johnson this would drop to 19:49
under Ed Balls this would drop to 18:50 (Lib Dems on 18%) - popular chap Ed "so what" Balls, isn't he
For some reason Harriet Harman's name does not appear but I cannot see her getting many votes from men.

There is one possible Labour leader that would improve upon Gordon Brown's figures; he has the experience, the name recognition and the dreadful wife - yes, it's Tony Blair who would improve the figures to 32:41...

Tory Sleaze, Tory Sleaze, Tory Sleaze

The BBC have a report entitled - "Watchdog 'baffled' by MPs' probe" which starts:

"Standards watchdog Sir Christopher Kelly says he is "baffled" as to why MPs thought it appropriate to carry out a review of their expenses themselves.

The Commons Members Estimate Committee, made up of MPs, led by Speaker Michael Martin is looking into MPs' expenses.

Sir Christopher said the results of the review were unlikely to command as much public confidence as they would if there was outside involvement in it.

The MPs' report on reform of their allowance system is due in mid-June."

Obviously some examples of the kind of expenses issues under question are called for, so who do the BBC mention:

"Tory MP Derek Conway" and "Tory chairman Caroline Spelman".

No mention of Ann Keen's life assurance policy, Barbara Follett's window cleaning bill, Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper's questionable property expenses, Peter Mandelson's £3,000 shower, Tony Blair's £10,600 kitchen or the many allegations made against Peter Hain to name but a few examples.

Why would the BBC be so selective? Surely they are not biased against the Conservative party, they are after all independent by charter.

I think Libby Purves is angry

"The only regret is that while a couple of the more outrageous milkers of expenses have been sacked or demoted, most of them sail on undamaged, “within the rules”.

Not within natural justice or reasonableness: just the rules. Here is Barbara Follett, millionaire's wife, charging you and me £94 every three weeks for window-cleaning; meanwhile, Margaret Beckett's garden cost us £6,500, including rockery (so important for a minister to have a good rockery, don't you think?). Here are Ann and Alan Keen netting £100,000 of public funds by having a mortgage each, and Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper also doing rather well from his 'n' hers claims. Oh, and marvel at Peter Mandelson's new shower, for which we paid £3,000 five years ago (the ritziest shower in Hartlepool, I'll be bound).

And Tony Blair? Don't start me. Not only did his new Trimdon kitchen cost us £10,600 (plus £50 for servicing the Aga), but thanks to the fine ferrets who battled for disclosure we can now gaze, online, at the very forms on which a Prime Minister made us pay the mortgage interest on £90,000. He borrowed it against a house which - Mrs Blair writes - only cost them £30,000, plus the same again to do it up. Is that a legitimate expense? Did Blair need to spend that money in order to have a billet in his constituency? No. It was bunce. The loan - whose interest we paid - went to fund his future property in Connaught Square.

It was “within the rules”. Just as Honourable Members - who have hobbled employers with strict anti-discrimination law - can pay public salaries to their family members without any open interviews to see if there are better candidates; just as the ridiculous “John Lewis List” lets them charge the taxpayer £150 per dining chair, demand free dry-cleaning for their personal clothes, and spend £795 of our money on a sideboard and £750 on a stereo (God forbid they might have to go to Currys). They may charge a grand total of £23,000 of home equipment, to keep for ever, untaxed. As for MEPs, draw a veil. It's Monday. Nobody feels strong enough to think about that."

That's from Libby Purves's column in today's Times do read the rest. Personally I found it a touch sanctimonious about how wonderful working mothers are and how hard they work and how badly they are treated, but at least she recognises that Caroline Spelman's "crime" is minor when compared to the "within the rules" claims of many senior Labour MPs.

Are they all at it?

"She spends all of her allowances and all of her salary running her office and I actually subsidise it to the tune of every year at least a hundred thousand pounds a year." - Ken Follett

"There are no donations involved. The funds are either from my parliamentary income, or from the joint accounts that I hold with my husband, Ken Follett." - Barbara Follett

...admits that her office "is heavily subsidised by her husband, Ken Follett... In the financial year 2003-2004.. she claimed only £118,214 in expenses. She contributed her entire salary of £55,118 to meet some of the difference. The remaining £102, 673 was met by Ken." - Barbara Follett (2004)


"Lee Jasper, the senior Ken Livingstone aide currently under investigation by the GLA, lives in state-subsidised social housing, despite earning £117,000 a year, the Standard has learned.

"Mr Jasper, the Mayor's director of equalities and policing, pays around £90 a week - a sixth of the market rent"


Discuss... or read more at Guido Fawkes