No.10 rocked by secret love affair: 'Stunned' PM holds crisis talks over fears tryst will 'blow political agenda out of the water' | Mail Online

Apparently ' David Cameron has held crisis talks at Downing Street after being told of allegations of a sensational love affair which has potentially significant political implications for him.

For legal reasons, The Mail on Sunday cannot disclose the identities of the people involved or any details of the relationship – even its duration – other than that they are middle-aged figures. The affair has now concluded.'
More here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2334483/No-10-rocked-secret-love-affair-Stunned-PM-holds-crisis-talks-fears-tryst-blow-political-agenda-water.html


What is 'middle aged'? Who can we exclude from the list of possibles? Do we know it was a man & a woman? Two men? Two women? Who really cares?

BBC and Tory sleaze

The BBC are obsessed with sleaze, so long as it is Tory sleaze, any excuse and off they go. The Caroline Spelman story is the lead on Newsnight again, that's the 10 year old story. Other headline Tory sleaze stories recently have been: Derek Conway and his son, Giles Chichester and the Wintertons. Meanwhile try and spot stories about the far more serious allegations against Ed "Gordon's Brain" Balls and Yvette Cooper, Wendy Alexander or Peter Hain (a much underplayed story). These stories about Labour politicians are always underplayed almost to the point of invisibility, whilst the TORY SLEAZE stories are headline news.

The BBC's pro-Labour bias is so blatant that it is little more than a Gordon Brown propaganda conduit.

Unbelievable - Sadly not

The Times reports the unsurprising news that:

"THE House of Commons has shredded more than 1m documents detailing expenses claims by MPs that were due to be revealed to the public.

The Commons authorities said last week they had destroyed all documents for MPs up to April 2004, even though official guidelines state that such records should be kept for six years.

Martin Bell, who was elected as an independent MP on an antisleaze platform in 1997, said: “I think it is likely that some racketeering by some MPs has been so outrageous that, if it was revealed, they would be under pressure to resign.”"

I wonder how many of the shredded documents relate to senior Labour MPs? Why have I heard nothing on the BBC about this story, just more and more about TORY SLEAZE Carolind Spelman.

Something fishy in Scotland - Updated 10.07.07 @ 18:10

Thank you Mr Eugenides for alerting the world to this strange story about Alex Salmond. In March the SNP stated that "He will do exactly the same as Donald Dewar did, Jim Wallace did and Donald Gorrie did, which is to stand down at the next Westminster election... And he will only take one salary." you can read the whole story here. So that's clear Alex Salmond will have stopped taking his Westminster salary since the Scottish elections.

However, there is this question & answer in Hansard "Jo Swinson: To ask the Leader of the House which hon. Members elected at the 2005 election are not drawing their salaries as hon. Members.
Ms Harman: All current Members elected at the 2005 election are at present drawing their salary except for the five Sinn Fein MPs, none of whom have taken the Oath."

Hmm, so is Alex Salmond still drawing his Westminster salary contrary to his party's promise before the elections or did Harriet Harman lie to Parliament or is there some other reason?

If I find out the truth I will post an update.



UPDATE:
It appears that Alex Salmond is still intending to take just the one salary, that of a Westminster MP rather than a MSP. Presumably this is because of the better pension arrangements that would accrue. There seems to be some debate as to whether Alex Salmond promised to take just one salary and did he specify which one he would take. It also seems most peculiar that the Scottish First Minister who wants independence for Scotland will draw a salary from Westminster which he wants freedom from and not from the Scottish Parliament that he heads. Furthermore, "He said arrangements were being put in place for him to receive only one of the parliamentary salaries." Arrangements would, I have thought, involve his office calling or writing to the relevant accounting department to say "please stop paying me my salary", not too tricky really. How many "unwanted" payments has he received since the election? I assume the May and June salary payments. I would have hoped that he would have noticed the large "unwanted" deposits in his bank account within that time or is he as vague on his family's finances as Tessa Jowell. I hope that we find out the answers to the above and that the excess monies are returned forthwith.

UPDATE:
It appears that Alex Salmond has done the decent thing. He will be putting his MSP salary into a charitable trust, "The trust is expected to generate about £18,000 a year until the next General Election, and will fund youth and community projects in the north-east" of Scotland. However I note from the same report that "In addition to both salaries, Mr Salmond also collects £77,000 as first minister." I would have thought that as a proud Scot and a supporter/proposer of Scottish Independence, Mr Salmond would rather take a salary for his work in Scotland rather than from the Westminster Parliament. Maybe like Scotland as a whole Mr Salmond is just quite happy to take money from Westminster.

Undue influence?

Former employees of the EU receive a pension, usually a very generous one. That seems fair doesn't it? However the EU can remove this pension if in the view of the Commission or the Luxembourg Court they "fail to uphold the interests of the European Communities". Ex EU Commissioners are often members of this Country's legislature, for example Lord Kinnock. Since the terms of his pension preclude him from criticising the EU then surely those in receipt of such monies should declare receipt of these pensions in the Register of Members Interests and in House of Lords debates. This is a view that is held by the ex Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf. You can read the full speech by Lord Pearson in Hansard and thanks to theyworkforyou.com for bringing this to my attention. Of course Lord Kinnock and his wife have been on the EU gravy train for many years now and I doubt if they would ever criticise the organisation that has made them extremely wealthy and taken them many miles from their old house on Clovelly Road in Ealing and curry nights on South Ealing Road.

Wolf connections to Brown

I wasn't going to comment on the Paul Wolfowitz affair at the World Bank. Not because I hadn't recognised the blinkered and biased coverage here, as usual more concerned with being anti-American and especially anti-Bush than in reporting facts. Not because I couldn't think how to contrast the vehement coverage of the Paul Wolfowitz affair with the desultory coverage of the UN oil for food programme corruption coverage or indeed coverage of any corruption at the UN. I just decided that there was enough coverage elsewhere in the Blogosphere - here, here and indeed here.

However I just read of the recent activities of Gordon Brown's new Chief-of-Staff, Tom Scholar, at the World Bank - see Guido's report here. I wonder if the BBC will pay as much attention to this as they have to the Wolfowitz affair. Somehow I doubt it.