The Gordon Brown Topic

[afleitch]

He get's his own little thread. The government is going through one of those 'bald men fighting over a comb' moments. His government has about 13 months left to live, he faces a rebellion over privatisation of the Post Office, Alan Johnson now is the frontrunner for the fantasy race to become the next leader (before or after an election) and the Tories are feeling confident enough to divert resources from smaller marginals into seats like Dagenham (8+ % swing)

So Gordon get's his own thread to follow these events until they come to something. If anything.

[afleitch]

Photographers should be smacked for this photo, which was just pulled. Sometimes there is a line people...

[Platypus]

the swastika photo (it isn't loading)? Certainly an 'oops' moment...

[afleitch]

The Telegraph has got a hold of cabinet expenses.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8039108.stm

"Gordon Brown paid his brother about £6,000 for cleaning services for his Westminster flat, it has been reported.

It is among details of expenses claims made by Cabinet ministers which are to be published by the Daily Telegraph.

The paper says Jack Straw used his expenses to claim back the entire council tax on his second home despite already having a 50% discount on it.

Mr Straw said all his claims were within the rules and that he spotted errors himself and repaid the money.

The newspaper has obtained details of receipts for claims made by the prime minister, Mr Straw, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears and other senior Labour party figures."

[The Man From G.O.P.]

There's no way his cabinet can survive this in tact?

[afleitch]

The Telegraph has now went for the Tories on the expenses issue. Now, hand on heart it's not as bad as I thought they could have been but 'bad' is still bad, no matter what the severity.

The big scalp was Michael Gove, Cameron's right hand man. However;

"He is under fire for having flipped his second home designation but he did so because he moved homes. In other words, the property that was his second home genuinely changed. Gove discussed this in an interview with Fraser (he’ll have more on this soon) how he initially tried to live in his constituency full time and then found that simply was not possible with his work and family commitments so moved back to London. He has not sold any properties he brought with taxpayer-supported loans or anything like that so this strikes me as quite different from most of the other cases of flipping."

Which puts him in the 'clear' really, except that every expense in the eyes of the public is probably seen as wrong. A reraction by the Telegraph may be possible in this case. Alan Duncan and Francis Maude do not come off well. One or both may go.

Cameron (who appears to be in the clear) has apologised. His response so far has been pretty good.

EDIT: An allegation of 'Flipping' ie the swicthing of first home to second home and vice versa for ;shady; purposes has also been thrown at Andrew Lansley, but it seemed he switched when his daughter started nursery.

[Keystone Phil]

This is Brown related...

For the first time that I remember since his departure as Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith asked a question during PMQs! I was so happy! 

[afleitch]

Cameron responds;

- No more home 'flipping.'
- Cabinet and backbenchers will pay back expenses.
- Capital Gains Tax to be paid by MPs.
- Tory expenses to go online immediately.
- Internal scrutiny committee until if/when Parliament establishes similar measures,
- No more food, furniture and household bills.

And any Tory MP's who refuse? They get sacked.

[Silent Hunter]

Brown is in the clear regarding the cleaning bill. He was only paying for his share of the cleaning bill, which was done before his marriage. The Telegraph has stated that was never meant to be a suggestion of impropriety.

[afleitch]

Brown is in the clear regarding the cleaning bill. He was only paying for his share of the cleaning bill, which was done before his marriage. The Telegraph has stated that was never meant to be a suggestion of impropriety.

I have no problem with individual expenses of that nature; the list was old, had some errors and some claims can be easily explained. Now about everyone else. Can we have something from the PM, please?

[Јas]

Moat cleaning...really?

[Serenity Now]

This is Brown related...

For the first time that I remember since his departure as Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith asked a question during PMQs! I was so happy! 

The quiet man is back and he is TURNING UP THE VOLUME!!1

[Keystone Phil]

This is Brown related...

For the first time that I remember since his departure as Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith asked a question during PMQs! I was so happy! 

The quiet man is back and he is TURNING UP THE VOLUME!!1

I never understood why he was seen as "the quiet man." He always seemed to give Blair hell during PMQs. I loved those. Oh well. You guys would know better. He's still amazing though.

[afleitch]

This is Brown related...

For the first time that I remember since his departure as Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith asked a question during PMQs! I was so happy! 

The quiet man is back and he is TURNING UP THE VOLUME!!1

I never understood why he was seen as "the quiet man." He always seemed to give Blair hell during PMQs. I loved those. Oh well. You guys would know better. He's still amazing though.

He's still a 'quiet man' in the sense he's very influential on issues such as poverty awareness etc behind the scenes. That's where his talents lie.