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HoC Climate change committee

Politics.co.uk notes the appointment of chairmen to the select committees of the UK's House of Commons. This one is striking...

Energy and climate change committee - Tim Yeo (Con)

Yeo has easily made the transition from the environmental audit committee, which he chaired in the last parliament, after that committee's chair passed to Labour hands. He beat Philip Hollobone despite declaring an impressive range of interests, including a non-executive directorship of Groupe Eurotunnel, a non-executive chairmanship of AFC Energy and a consultant role for Regenesis.

It is very hard to look an anything that goes on at Westminster without getting a faint whiff of something unpleasant.

How to be speaker

Here's an amusing little picture. The graph is for the candidates for speaker of the House of Commons and examines the relationship between their expenses - specifically their total Additional Costs allowance for the last five years - and the number of votes they received in the first round. This is the only correlation I can test because it's the only chance people got to vote for the whole field.

Does it look like there's some sort of a relationship there? Looks to me as if money can't buy you love, but unless you are willing to get down and dirty then you're just seen as goody two-shoes.

The trougher-in-chief

So John Bercow is the new speaker. The man who is going to restore our faith in the ancient and venerable institution of Parliament.

The man who had the largest additional costs allowance claims in parliament in pretty much every year since he was elected.

They just don't get it, do they?

What is the state?

It looks like a fraud against the British public from where I'm standing:

Kinnocks have six state pensions

BBC stars are paid twice

Card fraud probe targets 300 detectives.

These chickens will come home to roost eventually.

Is this for real?

Kreepy Gerald Kaufman's excuse for claiming £220 for two grapefruit bowls: he has diagnosed himself as having obsessive compulsive disorder and so he has to have them.

This has to be a joke....

.....doesn't it....?

Conspiracy theorising

1. Yesterday Lloyds TSB reported that they are to repay £2bn on their bailout money (the economy has turned).

2. Yesterday again, Gordon Brown, survived a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party which might have been expected to unseat him. Perhaps Labour MPs felt the economy was on the turn.

3. Today, Lloyds TSB accounced that it is to close down all of its Cheltenham and Gloucester branches.

Could it be that these news items are in some way linked? Institutional investors in Lloyds may have needed persuading that the time was ripe to repay the bail-out. The government is, of course, the majority shareholder in the group. Could it be that government agreement to the closure of C&G was the price the investors extracted? It is certainly odd to find a company making major stock exchange announcements on consecutive days. Even odder when you notice that the good news preceded Gordon Brown's moment of truth, while the bad news came later.

If this is right, then C&G would effectively have been closed down in order to allow Brown to take some good news - the repayment of the bail-out - to the House of Commons yesterday.

Interesting thought, isn't it?

An indictment

It really says something about our parliament that two of the four candidates to be the next speaker appear to be tainted by the expenses scandal.

Do they think we've forgotten?

Another MP we might want to be rid of

A little nugget from Hansard:

Dr. Julian Lewis: To ask the hon. Member for North Devon, representing the House of Commons Commission for what reasons the information on hon. Members' expenses which has been leaked was not processed solely on paper, prior to scheduled publication by the House authorities in redacted electronic form.

To some hon. members, it seems, the problem is still that we know what they were up to, rather than the fact that hon. members had their snouts in the trough. Not the kind of MP we want in the House.

Quote of the day

If we cannot trust ourselves, and cannot be trusted by the British people to sort out our own pay and allowances, how on earth can we be trusted with the nuclear deterrent, the state of the economy and the other much more important things with which we are meant to be trusted?

Bernard Jenkin

(How indeed?)

Does Gordon Brown have to stand down as an MP?

• Gordon Brown claimed for a cleaner on expenses. He did this while provided with grace and favour home in Downing Street.
• The rules require that MPs can only claim for costs that are "wholly and necessarily incurred in connection with their parliamentary duties".
• A cleaner does not meet that test.
• Therefore Gordon Brown has broken the rules.
• But Gordon Brown says that any MP who breaks the rules cannot stand as a Labour MP.
• Therefore Gordon cannot lead the Labour party into the next election.

Is my logic flawed somewhere?

A thought

Has the opposition been so supine over the last ten years because they had their fingers in the till?

In other words could an MP have been told not to protest the actions of the government too loudly, in case word of their expense claims should find their way to a newspaper?

More good news on the expenses front

LabourHome is reporting that the constituency Labour party in Luton south is standing behind their troughing MP, Marge Moran - her of the rotten house in Southampton.

This is wonderful news. The party is demonstrating to everyone that not only are its MPs corrupt but their supporters are too. Believe me, they are going to be toast.

More of this please.

The speaker must stay

No, really! DK is saying he's got to quit, but let's face it: if he stays on (with the connivance of Gordon Brown) we could well be looking at a complete wipe-out for Labour at the next election. I mean complete. One so big that the Lib Dems end up becoming the next official opposition.

And that's what I call a win.