Con (wo)men and their wives: yet another bad day for British politics
It’s not been a great day for British politics, I’m not going to lie. A quick glance at the Guardian’s politics homepage and any foreign visitor would think that our country is run by con (wo)men. And their wives. They’d be right.
Jowelly Jowells and Jacs in the Serpentine - for no other reason than I got a bit click-happy on Paint.
Your eyes have hardly taken in this stand-first:
Estranged husband of Tessa Jowell sentenced to four and a half years for accepting $600,000
Before they stumble upon the following:
Jacqui Smith is to face an inquiry into her claims for parliamentary expenses on her constituency home
First things first: Jowelly Jowells.
The woman in charge of raising £9.3bn to fund the 2012 Olympics was married to a man so bad with money he’s heading for an Italian jail. David Mills was paid $600,000 to “protect” Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi – but surely anyone with any money sense would have demanded at least a mill. Let’s hope his wife wasn’t too influenced by his prudence – or I wouldn’t be surprised if we’ll be swimming our 800ms in the Serpentine.
But let’s move on to Jacs. As I’m sure her friends call her.
Our HOME secretary (the irony of which, as the capitals demonstrate, has not been lost on me) has been fiddling her housing allowances. She, of course, denies any wrongdoing in her £116,000 “second home” expenses – but I reckon there’s something wrong with all expenses over £100,000. Forget second home, that’s a second flipping salary, that is.
The Commissioner for Standards (which the BBC delightfully terms “Parliament’s Sleeze Watchdog” – a title almost too good to be true) has ordered an inquiry into Smith’s second salary after three neighbours raised questions about her housing habits. The recent complaints of neighbours Dominic and Jessica Taplin that Smith often spends only two days a week at her “main” home in South London is thought to have instigated the Commissioner’s move.
But if this isn’t interesting enough (and I’ll admit, I’d have stopped reading when I got to “housing habits” also), there’s better to come. Because the Taplins didn’t go straight to the Commissioner with their Home Secretary-shaped concerns. Oh no. Where do you go if you want to complain about old Jacs? The Tories of course.
And so the Taplins trot off the Cameron only to be told that… this was not a matter that the Conservative Party could deal with.
Hang on a minute. There’s something fishy going on here. The Tories passed up an opportunity to draw attention to another Labour bungle? That doesn’t sound right. Far too dignified if you ask me.
And you didn’t ask me, but I take your reading this as tacit consent (Locke would be proud) so I’ll tell you anyway: it doesn’t sound right because it isn’t. The Tories, according to the BBC, sent the Taplins away with the advice:
You might want to contact a newspaper as this would be “in the public interest”
You can almost hear the cough that sounded scarily like the “Mail” following them out of the door.
You don’t think the Tories turned it down because their own house isn’t as clean as it could be?