In which Mr Pecksniff lays before his readers for their approval certain observations and speculations reflecting on the political life.
Friday 10 December
Recently, Pecksniff revealed how one of our region’s MPs, George Freeman (Conservative, Mid Norfolk) had been inventing parliamentary rules in order to avoid having to answer constituents’ difficult questions. Mr Freeman explained that he had no choice, he had to do it. Actually he meant that he could have voted against those measures quite easily, but he would have had to give up the prestige and salary which go with his junior government position to do so.
Now we have another old favourite who is also inventing rules to suit himself. In a letter to constituents – actually 87 of them, which has got him into the embarrassing position of having initiated a political protest group against him – Richard Bacon MP (Conservative, South Norfolk) declares that “MP’s [sic] are only permitted to correspond with those residing within the constituency they represent”.
Overlooking the grammatical error – which Pecksniff is loathe to do – this is simply not true. MPs can and do correspond widely, excepting Mr Bacon, of course. Your correspondent has had endless communication with MPs of all persuasions. The rule which Mr Bacon has chosen to elaborate to the point of untruth (in order to save himself writing more tiresome letters) is simply that constituents with a particular personal issue on which they want the help of an MP must always go to their own.
In fact, Mr Bacon’s reluctance to discuss with or even respond to his constituents has caused grief not only to himself but to several of his colleagues. The protest group which sprung up so spontaneously following his data breach cock-up has spread to neighbouring constituencies. Pecksniff is informed of other groups already forming, inspired by the Bacon Out brigade, and unlikely to endear ‘Fatty’ Bacon to his colleagues. Those MPs to whom their voters are planning to give the bum’s rush include James Cartlidge (South Suffolk), Matt Hancock (West Suffolk), Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds), Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk) and Uncle George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) and all. And the natives seem distinctly restless across the rest of Norfolk as well.
Received wisdom says this doesn’t matter: these are all safe Tory seats and impervious to the displeasure of the peasantry. But then, no political party has seriously tried to fight them. Perhaps the voters, combining, might achieve what the parties haven’t been arsed to try.
In the meantime, Pecksniff would be intrigued to hear from any reader who feels similarly incensed and would like to cock a snook – or any other appendage – at their MP.
Were there any doubt that Boris Johnson is under pressure, readers may care to note the present flurry of glittery pictures of two MPs from our region: Priti Patel (Conservative, Witham) and Liz Truss (Conservative, South West Norfolk). Bizarre though it may seem to the reasoning mind, both have ambitions for the top job and, even more incredibly, have found backers who would like to see them there.
The first possible breach in support for Downing Street over the Christmas party affair among MPs in this region was from Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk). He told Suffolk News: “It would be incompatible with having a position as a senior Downing Street official with a major role in devising and implementing Covid rules and restrictions and at the same time break those very same rules. However, at this stage the facts about whether a party took place remain unclear.”
It seems we can clear up the point about whether or not a party took place. That now seems cut and dried. Dr Poulter’s reference to ‘officials’ is puzzling though. One official has already resigned, in tears, Johnson’s media spokesperson. But what of Johnson himself? The prime minister would not normally be described as an official. Did Dr Poulter therefore mean that, if Johnson were involved, he should resign too? Or did ‘official’ mean that only the staff should be dismissed and Johnson remain untouched?
It is not clear, but let us give Poulter the benefit of the doubt. Pecksniff assumes he meant Johnson should resign too. If that is a misinterpretation, we shall be delighted to publish a correction.
On one point however, Dr Poulter was quite clear. “It is now for the Metropolitan Police to decide if there is sufficient evidence to open an investigation,” he added. A reasonable assumption on his part. But the Met disagrees, claiming there is no evidence of law breaking – in spite of their being logs of everybody in the building on that day and half of them being coppers.
Charlie Sansom describes himself as a political commentator and music impresario, but made his name a couple of days ago when he resigned live, on air, as chair of South Basildon Conservatives. Subsequently, ‘Mickey Blue Eyes’ as apparently he likes to be known, told GB News that he had done so over the principle of covid passports, until the interviewer corrected him and told him he had really done so over mandatory vaccinations for all unvaccinated. Eager to oblige, Mr Sansom agreed that it really had been mandatory vaccinations he had resigned over, even though a blanket requirement is not part of government policy and are unlikely to be.
Finally, LibDems from this region have been flocking to the North Shropshire byelection, eager to be part of history in the making. Can their party possibly overthrow an almost 23,000 Tory majority? Always intrigued by the missionary zeal of our LidDem friends, Pecksniff has been eavesdropping on their experiences.
It seems missionary zeal isn’t out of place there. Apparently, the subject of religion comes up on the doorstep often – some canvassers put it down to its being dangerously close to Wales. The voters are eager to know that the LibDem candidate is a true believer and want to know they can trust what they are told: ‘like wet nosed little puppies’, as one canvasser described them.
Friday 3 December
When Pecksniff began this diary, he hoped to tell tales of the risqué and the audacious, larger than life characters doing the kind of things that we hope larger than life characters ought to do. But instead, too often it has become a list of the mendacious and the mundane, small people with their snouts in the trough and a heedless regard for the people they are supposed to serve.
Whatever happened to the heady days, both of politics and the way it was reported? Pecksniff remembers standing on the Ipswich Cornhill with a national political figure who had cut his teeth on Ipswich politics. The election results were being announced through loudspeakers from the town hall balcony. Our man was not impressed.
“Look at that!” he jeered. “In the good old days, the returning officer would stand up there and read the results to the public with the candidates around him, so you could chuck bottles at them.”
Our man sighed. “Politics has changed,” he mused. “What we need is more fighting in the pubs.”
More fighting in the pubs… which brings us to the ways politics used to be reported and to old Fleet Street. These were the days of hot metal, and Robin Day eviscerating government ministers in front of millions. The daily excitement in the bowels of all the major newspapers where monstrous printing machines awaited the shout, a loud rasp from a klaxon, and suddenly and deafeningly the machines were in motion. The hacks retired to the Harrow or the Mucky Duck and threw London Pride over each other till the early hours.
Good times, when the politicians were bruisers and so were the hacks and, for a minister, lying to the House meant resignation in shame. Now we have pusillanimous politicians who will go to any lengths not to be accountable, and hacks who confuse politics with showbiz and see questioning government ministers as being out of bounds.
Ho hum. One day Pecksniff will spill a few beans on the good old days. We might even touch upon the wholly unreported incident involving Princess Diana and ace Mail columnist Keith Waterhouse. But for now, it’s back to the sewer.
First up, Stephen McPartland MP (Conservative, Stevenage). Tory MPs are not renowned for their sensitivities and certainly Mr McPartland seems to have taken a chance with the views of his constituents. He already has a second job as a non-executive director, which brings in £50,000 a year. Now it is reported that, only days after the Owen Paterson sleaze scandal, McPartland has taken on a new £60,000 a year role to provide strategic advice. So that’s £110,000 a year on top of his MP’s salary.
Now it is with some trepidation that we turn to Jackie Doyle-Price MP (Conservative, Thurrock apparently) and Mark Francois MP (Conservative, Rayleigh and Wickford), who this week voted against reintroducing the wearing of masks to counteract covid. We shall ignore Doyle-Price and allow her to drift back into the obscurity in which she has hidden thus far in her parliamentary career. But Francois is another matter…
This diary has appeared for some weeks now, and throughout that period your correspondent has realised that, sooner or later, the name of Mark Francois would come up. And when he did appear, as from Pandora’s Box, there would be no putting him back.
It is said that a gentleman always eats his porridge standing up. If that is the case, then it is certain that Mark Francois eats his in what Stanley Holloway would have called a “recumbent posture”.
Where to start? Francois has previous on the masks issue, as you would expect. In May he was forced to apologise publicly after failing to wear his mask properly in his local Asda. Pecksniff tries to picture the scene, the MP being apparently incapable of fitting on a mask, and being upbraided in public by an Asda shelf stacker. Just imagine, readers: all his life must be like this. Around him people recoil in either distaste or embarrassment, but Francois is impervious to both.
But onwards and upwards. Our hero has revealed that he has written a book! It is apparently a blow-by-blow account of his central role in bringing about Brexit. The tragedy is that Francois can’t find a publisher. He has tried any number, but his oeuvre has been rejected by them all. This, it is clear to Wickford’s finest, is because they are all Remainers. So he has decided to dig out his old John Bull printing outfit and publish it himself.
A man who can’t even fit his own mask properly in a supermarket is going into what is politely called ‘vanity publishing’, certain that the public have been waiting for this moment. Who knows? It is quite possible he sees this as the turning point in Brexit’s fortunes. In the Francois mind, all things are possible. His day will come.
And indeed it might. It was recently revealed that scientists who for years have been trying to find something in the universe more dense than a black hole are excitedly turning their attention to Rayleigh and Wickford.
Two weeks ago, EAB featured a story about George Freeman MP (Conservative, Mid Norfolk) and his excuses for supporting the apparently insupportable. Sewage pumped into our rivers? ‘Let it flow, let it flow, let it flow!’ sings Mr Freeman, seasonally. He had no choice but to vote with the government; the whips know where he lives.
This week he was on TV to talk about Johnson’s by-now notorious Christmas party last year. He hadn’t been there personally, he explained. (No need to explain, George, you’re a parliamentary under secretary of state, we could have assumed that for ourselves.) But he could personally guarantee that no regulations were ignored, no laws broken.
Exactly how could he assure us of this was not made clear. But George couldn’t see why his word, as somebody who wasn’t there and knew nothing about it till the whips rang him and told him to put his trousers on and shlepp round to the TV studios, should be doubted. Such circumstances were not likely to lead to a happy outcome, and critics were clear in their own minds that they didn’t. On social media, one constituent remarked that the interviewer “basically handed him his arse on national TV”.
Scientists had all but given up trying to find anything more dense than a black hole…
Friday 26 November
“Nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it,” proclaimed the last Tory manifesto. Yet the irony of being recalled from their £35,000-a-seat Tory fund raising dinner in order to vote for the Health and Social Care Bill, which would rob the poorest in the country of their homes, was naturally lost on those ministers present. They seemed surprised and alarmed at the presence of media snappers waiting outside. Some hid behind their phones as they scuttled the few yards to their waiting limousines, but among them unmistakably were a couple of East Anglia’s finest, James Cleverly MP (Conservative, Braintree) and Oliver Dowden MP (Conservative, Hertsmere)
Imagine though, if you can bear it, paying £35,000 for dinner and finding yourself sitting next to Oliver Dowden.
But Pecksniff is happy to report that, among those who rebelled against their own government and voted against the bill were four other of our Tory MPs. So, a hat-tip where it’s due to Peter Aldous MP (Conservative, Waveney), Dan Poulter MP (Conservative, Central Suffolk), Mike Penning MP (Conservative, Hemel Hempstead) and John Baron MP (Conservative, Basildon and Billericay). In fact Poulter, a practising doctor, claims: “I told the chief whip I probably knew more about care provision than he did”.
A reader writes, with complaints about his local MP “always wanting to go for a photo shoot to make herself look good, like photos at a food bank”. Now, who could this possibly be? Go on, you’ll kick yourself for not getting it… Yes, it’s Jo Churchill MP, (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds).
What particularly spurred on our reader was an audience he had been granted with La Churchill. He explained that his 93 year old mother was having trouble getting a blue badge, in spite of having had two hips replaced, triple heart bypass surgery, cataracts removed and colorectal cancer.
With a sensitivity worthy of her party leader, she quipped, laughing: “Well obviously she’s had her money’s worth out of the system!” But when the fun stopped, there was to be no help in getting a blue badge.
Now, Pecksniff has a long memory. There was that occasion when Churchill had arranged another of those photo opportunities, in which she can appear Madonna-like posing with the sick and the handicapped, this time a charity cycle ride for the disabled. Unfortunately, only a few days earlier she had voted with her party to reduce disablement payments, and with breezy arrogance saw no connection between the two.
Unfortunately for her, others did. There was outrage among the riders, and Churchill took the line which Pecksniff had predicted in advising certain parties at the time, of trying to hide behind the charity. But the charity was having none of it, and Churchill withdrew from the function.
Ms Churchill is another MP not known for her alacrity in responding to constituents’ concerns. In fact, other than for complimentary photo opportunities, she is rarely seen at all. This has earned her the sobriquet of ‘No Show Jo’, a name which frustrated hacks are pleased to use when, once again, she declines an invitation for an interview on government policy. La Churchill is happy to vote for it, whatever it is, but deeply reluctant to have to explain it to the voters.
It seems that when first elected she took the view that the best way to climb the greasy pole would be to grab the limelight whilst staying out of any kind of controversy whatever. (It was noticeable that when recently there occurred a major demonstration over the lack of dentists in Bury St Edmunds, Churchill was nowhere to be seen.)
But this strategy hardly seems to be working. After six years she is on her third job, still a very junior parliamentary under secretary of state, still making the tea, and now it seems she has the added misfortune of her electorate seeing past the paper smile. If that weren’t enough, it is understood that her seat is a prime target for the Green Party. And planned boundary changes would mean she would have to fight for it, possibly against Matt Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk) whose own seat, EAB has previously reported, is likely to disappear.
We return, with some distaste, to Joanathan Djanogly MP (Conservative, Huntingdon). In last week’s diary (below), Pecksniff revealed claims that he is being paid £1,000 per hour as chair of Pembroke Venture Capital Trust, which has a stake in a company called Thriva, which in turn has been handed covid-related government contracts worth £186 million.
Djanogly is a member of the militant Covid Recovery Group of Tory MPs and was prominent in arguing against the use of lockdowns. It so happens that Pembroke VCT is a venture capital trust specialising in investment in the hospitality sector. According to the Guardian, in a prospectus letter sent out to investors as Pembroke launched a new share offer aimed at raising up to £60m, Djanogly wrote: “Whilst the social and economic challenges of Covid‑19 will continue for the medium term, the unwinding of government restrictions have begun to have a positive impact across the company’s portfolio of businesses.”
So Djanogly boasts to potential investors about how the ‘unwinding of government restrictions’ is having a beneficial effect on his business, but which presumably would have no relevance to his having campaigned with the Covid Recovery Group for exactly that.
Djanogly has previous. In 2011, while he was a justice minister, he was stripped of his responsibility to regulate businesses seen as ‘ambulance chasers’, following a Guardian investigation which revealed how he and his family could profit from controversial changes to legal aid he was piloting in parliament.
Are the good people of Huntingdon aware of their MP’s record and his apparent assiduity in promoting his own interests? If there are readers with friends or family living in the town, it might be kind to point out his foibles to them. And Pecksniff would be pleased to hear anymore about Mr Djanogly which they have to recount.
In vain, Pecksniff continues to search for gossip about anyone other than Tories. There was one promising story, something about cycle plans in Cambridge. But on investigation it seemed more likely to be a failed attempt by the Tory opposition to smear the council. So expect more on Tory sleaze and Tory incompetence unless you, esteemed reader, can leaven the mixture.
Friday 19 November
In a bumper fun-packed Diary this week, we turn first to the discomforts visited upon Richard Bacon MP (Conservative, South Norfolk) over his emails howler, as exclusively reported in EAB last week and later chased up by the rest of the region’s news media. Those infuriated voters to whom he was so good as to provide a platform have established a vigorous ‘get Bacon out’ group, though it is understood they have not yet decided on a name. It is believed the problem lies in finding one which sufficiently incorporates their feelings for their MP without breaching the boundaries of decency.
However, nameless or not, they have – as that former social fomenter of social unrest Captain Swing would have put it – ‘commenced their labours’. Hardly a week has gone, and all over Bacon’s South Norfolk constituency there are posters…
We at EAB feel smug suits us, so accordingly we move on to EAB’s national exclusive last week on the government’s huge hidden stash of PPE material, scattered around Suffolk. The Good Law Project have now made clear the exact value of the contracts the government awarded to Uniserve for provision and storage of the material. The company was awarded £304 million to procure the PPE, and another £572 million to handle logistics. There have been contradictory reports since our story broke, but just to emphasise the point: “More recently,” says the GLP, “Uniserve has been paid over £124 million (£1 million/day) to store excess PPE.”
These figures emerged from a leak of documents revealing those involved in handing out these massive contracts worth £1.6 billion through the notorious ‘VIP channel’, in which firms recommended by Tory MPs and lords were placed at the head of the queue and handed contracts without need for tender. Regular readers of EAB and Pecksniff’s Diary will not be surprised to find, prominent among them, the name of Matt Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk), who just happened to be the Health Secretary at the time.
And speaking of Matt Hancock, which we usually seem to be, our man has been embroiled in yet another embarrassing setback. Readers may recall the incident, hardly a month ago, when Hancock had himself been introduced to an official of the United Nations who happened to be visiting the Tory conference. Then a few days later she announced he had been appointed to some official role, which our Matt gratefully and publicly accepted – only to have it snatched away when the woman’ s boss withdrew the offer.
Now we learn that apparently our Matt has been offered a huge £100,000 publishing deal for his account of how he single-handedly fought off Covid-19 and saved the nation. Only it turns out that, whatever Matt’s favourite tabloid newspaper claims, the publisher coldly and emphatically denies it.
It has to be understood that Hancock was always recognised as an extremely ambitious politician. For years he clung on to the coat tails of George Osborne when he was in his pomp and was known as his creature. (There is an extremely rude joke about it circulating among Tory MPs, reputedly the work of former speaker John Bercow.) So this is not a man to accept public humiliation easily. Our man is determined to come back and rehabilitate himself. When an attempt at planting himself in the UN is given the bum’s rush, he turns instead to an attempt to blag his way into a publishing contract.
Sadly for him, there is no VIP channel in publishing for has-been and discredited politicians, but our man is unlikely to leave it there. We look forward to whatever wacky japes our Matt gets up to next. Descended from a forgotten love child of Edward VIII and making a claim to the throne? Don’t forget, you read it first here…
Amid the tsunami of sleaze this week, one bijou scandalette involves two of the region’s MPs. They are James Cleverly (Conservative, Braintree) and John Whittingdale (Conservative, Maldon) again.
In all, the scandal involves 16 MPs, 14 Tories and two Labour. Since April 2016, Mr Cleverly has claimed more than £71,000 in expenses for his own rental payments while letting out another home. He charges the public purse £1,200 a month for the flat he lives in, while also receiving an income from a jointly-owned residential property in London.
It is hardly surprising to see Whittingdale’s name once again linked with murky dealings. He too has been letting out one property, pocketing the money and then charging the public purse for the rent of the property in which he lives. Like Cleverly, he is not acting illegally. He is using a convenient if wholly amoral loophole to enrich himself at the expense of the taxpayer.
Sir Alistair Graham, former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has called the revelations “shocking”. Others have called them greedy, immoral, an abuse of the system and a cynical ploy to scam the taxpayer. But voters who demand to know why MPs are not thronging the cells awaiting lengthy jail sentences will remain thwarted for the foreseeable future.
This is so grubby, but it seems there is no end in sight. More tales of sleaze from the region’s Tory MPs. This time we turn to Jonathan Djanogly MP (Conservative, Huntingdon). The Daily Mail claims that he is being paid £1,000 per hour as chair of Pembroke Venture Capital Trust, which has a stake in a company called Thriva, which has picked up covid-related government contracts worth £186 million.
Thriva’s published accounts show it was worth just £922,000 at the end of 2019, but according to the Pembroke website, this figure had miraculously soared to £30 million a few months ago. The company’s first £61 million covid contract was awarded without competition in August 2020, after its directors had met former health minister Lord Bethell. He was sacked two months ago amid controversy over his use of his private email address for official business.
In his defence, Djanogly insisted he had not made any personal approaches to ministers on behalf of Thriva.
“My remuneration is standard for a non-executive chair of a venture capital trust,” he said. “I intend to remain in my post at Pembroke. Outside interests are beneficial to MPs’ experience.”
And another, we’re not done yet. This one is Richard Fuller MP (Conservative, North East Beds), who has reportedly received £700,000 from extra work. This includes £300,000 from a private equity outfit which bankrolled a firm working for the Chinese government on surveillance systems, capable of being used against the oppressed Uyghur Muslims. Labour’s Angela Rayner has demanded an inquiry into whether Fuller’s links have put our own national security at risk.
We turn now to another sordid story, but not involving money. In his regular column in the Ipswich Star, his local paper, Tom Hunt MP (Conservative, Ipswich) wastes no time in returning to his favourite theme of immigration.
“As a local MP I see many complaints coming into my inbox about the courts procedure and how long things are taking,” he writes. Then in a vertiginous non sequitur: “I am also inundated with individuals who are concerned about illegal immigration across the channel.”
And hey presto, in what no doubt he or one of his minions thought was smart he concludes: “To free up capacity in our courts system, we need to stop immigration cases from clogging up the legal process.”
Pecksniff pondered on how to answer this nonsense when a response from a different source saved your correspondent the bother.
“This article by the spectacularly dim @tomhunt1988 is an embarrassment to the editors who allowed it to be published,” tweeted the ‘Secret Barrister’. “It dishonestly conflates immigration with the backlogs in criminal courts. Those backlogs were caused by government cuts, not immigrants. Stop lying.”
It is claimed that, following the article, the Ipswich Star and the East Anglian Daily Times both withdrew their comments section on it. However, it was explained to Pecksniff recently that they do that for almost every story now, since whatever the subject, the racists still pitch in. How well Mr Hunt seems to know his electorate.
In August, East Suffolk Council promised to meet Woodbridge Town Council to discuss the controversial planning dispute over what had become known as the ‘cheese wedges’, a discredited plan to build houses on the site of the former council offices. The council was forced to drop that plan, and ESC told the press at the time it “would like to see potential developers coming forward forging a close working relationship with the local community and Woodbridge Town council, to ensure that local people’s views are being heard and taken into consideration.”
Since then, however, ESC has twice refused even to meet WTC to discuss any proposals and have watered down “forging a close working relationship with the local community” to suggesting it will only “strongly recommend” it.
But ESC rebuts criticism. A spokesman says: “Our role in this matter is merely as the planning authority.” However, that is untrue. Whether this is incompetence or a deliberate attempt to mislead the public is difficult to tell. It is noticeable and disappointing however that the East Anglian Daily Times hack failed to challenge it.
There is a clear conflict of interest. As the planning authority, ESC is expected to choose the best design for the site and the local people. But as the owner of the site, it has a contradictory interest in trousering as much moolah as it can, whatever the design. But the sassy folk of Woodbridge (over whose eyes it is usually unwise to attempt to pull the wool) are unlikely to let the matter rest. There will be ructions.
So what news do you have, dear reader, to pass on? Pecksniff waits…
The stories in this edition of Pecksniff’s Diary all feature Tory MPs. One reason is because most of the MPs in this region are Tories. There may be those who consider that another reason might be the culture of the Tory party, which at the moment means it is rather more prone to talking out of its backside than others.
But any kind of absurdity or skulduggery among the political classes, of any party, is fair game. So please send Pecksniff your stories care of: [email protected]
Avid readers will not have missed – or fail to have been moved by – the story on Richard Bacon MP (Conservative, South Norfolk) and his misfortune in having apparently breached the Data Protection Act. Then – and to quote Mr Oscar Wilde, one would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh – he inadvertently launched a militant activist movement to replace him. But hardly had my fellow hack blotted his copy on the story, cast aside his eye shade and reached for the bottle, when more news arrived. Too late for him, but he will not begrudge Pecksniff.
It appears that the number of irate voters whose details were given away by their MP is not 20, as first reported, but is actually more than 80. This will come as a further blow to Mr Bacon. To return to dear Oscar and misquote Lady Bracknell: “To commit 20 breaches of the law may be considered a misfortune, but over 80 makes one look like a plonker.” Especially when they’re all holding hands and swearing blood oaths to remove him from office.
We turn now to George Freeman MP (Conservative, Mid Norfolk), who seems to have been misleading his voters about his voting on the Environment Bill, permitting sewage to be dumped into our rivers. (Though to be fair, just about every Tory MP has been doing the same.) For all his pomposity about his principles, he claims the assertion that he voted “against an amendment passing unlimited costs onto consumers” was a “typo”. Pecksniff has always understood that a type refers to a careless finger slipping on the keys. But according to his office, not only did he not vote against, he was actually miles away. He was on a ministerial visit at the time and wasn’t even in the Commons. So the description of ‘typo’ hardly seems to qualify. In fact it looks rather like being caught out on the first story and then coming up with another.
But there is more. Freeman also insists to a constituent that he had no option but to vote with the government because of ‘collective responsibility’. Now here, he appears to be inventing an entirely new meaning for the phrase. Collective responsibility in its Westminster definition is usually restricted to the most senior members of the government, those in the cabinet, and refers to their commitment to stand by policies agreed in that committee. But Mr Freeman is a very long way from the cabinet. He is in fact a lowly parliamentary under secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, a role which in Westminster is often referred to as the tea boy.
There is no collective responsibility for under secretaries because they don’t make decisions. (Well, other than one lump or two.) They, like other MPs, are at liberty to vote as they choose, though they are expected to vote with their masters and, of course, most (like George) are docile and vote the way the party whips tell them. They are more scared of them than their voters, so party interests take precedent over those of the constituency. The reasons why they do so are either a lack of backbone, the vain hope for future advancement, or as may even be the case here, the danger of losing the lowly position they already hold. Compared to this, the dumping of raw sewage in our rivers, you will notice, does not feature.
It is tiresome to have to return to Nadine Dorries MP (Conservative, Central Bedfordshire), but it can’t be helped. It has belatedly been brought to Pecksniff’s attention that La Dorries has claimed Boris Johnson has created 180,000 jobs in Hartlepool. The town only has a population of 93,846.
The Conservative government was pleased as punch at winning Peterborough from Labour at the last election, but clearly the good people of that city have annoyed their political masters in some way since. The government has just instructed the Tory and independent-run city council to sell off all their public conveniences.
Town halls, libraries and leisure centres all have to go too. Apparently there are fears the council may be in danger of bankruptcy. (This is nothing to the danger awaiting Peterborough if there is Nowhere To Go.) They have cut millions from their budget in recent years, but it is not enough, apparently. Now, they must face this most alarming deprivation of all. Pecksniff looked in vain for some published comment from the Labour opposition. Surely if ever there were an opportunity, this is the moment when we should hear the party’s proud invocation of: “This great movement of ours!”
In vain, Pecksniff continues to search for gossip about anyone other than Tories. There was one promising story, something about cycle plans in Cambridge. But on investigation it seemed more likely to be a failed attempt by the Tory opposition to smear the council. So expect more on Tory sleaze and Tory incompetence unless you, esteemed reader, can leaven the mixture.
A reader sends in a reply received from Dan Poulter MP (Conservative, Central Suffolk) on the sewage debacle. It is reassuringly lengthy, and inevitably patronising. The theme is: ‘This is all complex stuff which you wouldn’t understand, so don’t worry your little heads about it’. It is witless, no doubt deliberately confusing, and makes assertions which in view of recent events might make voters laugh like, well, like a drain.
But we shouldn’t blame Dr Poulter. After all, he didn’t write it. The reader points out that friends from other constituencies have received almost identical letters, because of course it was drafted by Conservative Central Office and just cut and pasted by compliant or lazy Tory MPs across the country. Voters might like to wonder how often, when they write to their MP, the reply comes almost direct from Tory HQ.
All of this is such a pity. At the beginning, lefties in Central Suffolk agreed that, for a Tory, Poulter was a breath of fresh air. Pecksniff recalls taking tea with Dr Dan on the Commons terrace soon after his election. Instead of asking his aide to get it, he himself did the queueing. During his absence, Pecksniff asked the aide how things were going.
“Some and some,” he said. “We seem to have made a lot of enemies here already, but they’re all on our own side.”
More cries of ‘shame’ at the behaviour of Tory MPs. The story is known by now. It involved the so-called ‘Leadsom amendment’, introduced by Andrea Leadsom MP (Conservative, South Northamptonshire). In a gesture of transparency, Pecksniff will admit that Ms Leadsom once bought him a House of Commons cream tea, but in spite of this your correspondent is still prepared to dob her in.
(Tea with Dr Poulter, tea with the fragrant Ms Leadsom. Pecksniff is nothing if not a boulevardier.)
A group of Tory MPs had been keen to let off one of their own, Owen Paterson MP (Conservative, North Shropshire), after he had been condemned by the watchdog set up to report wrongdoing in parliament. They found that he had been guilty of an “egregious” breach of the lobbying rules, in accepting over £100,000 a year from two companies to twist ministers’ arms on their behalf.
Leadsom’s amendment was passed, but such was the public and media outrage the government promptly dropped it, and the usual chaos ensued. But our main interest lies in the man put forward by the government to chair the committee whose work was to dismantle the watchdog, one of the last outposts of government scrutiny. Step forward John Whittingdale MP (Conservative, Maldon).
Whittingdale has an extremely colourful past, so Pecksniff was keen to interview this paragon of transparency and democracy. But sadly, this was not to be. He was not available. He was in his constituency, no doubt explaining to his voters his part in the week’s scandal. A helpful member of his team was reluctant to pass on his phone number, indeed reluctant to admit he even knew his phone number. The best he could do was to pass on Pecksniff’s email and Whittingdale may call back. But, said our interlocutor sadly, he couldn’t guarantee it.
Much as Pecksniff would like to dwell on other matters, Matt Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk) cannot help making news, albeit as usual not of his own choosing. It seems the Committee on Standards in Public Life have begun to hear whispers that perhaps things aren’t all they should be. So they asked 1590 people what they thought.
Hold on to your chapeaux. It seems that the increasingly Stan Laurel-like Hancock finds his name is one of those immediately associated with the word ‘sleaze’.
Respondents to the poll are reported as being “visibly angry as they recounted the strict pandemic rules they had to follow, which they believed were disregarded by various politicians who subsequently faced few or no consequences”.
Many people feared that apparent examples of dubious contracts being awarded without tender had been overlooked by the public. Others, in parliament, rather hoped they had. But apparently not. Participants easily recalled examples of public procurement contracts during Covid being awarded to friends of MPs and ministers.
The committee concluded that present arrangements to uphold ethical standards in government are not fit for purpose, and their report has been handed to the Cabinet Office where, Pecksniff has no doubt, they are awaited eagerly.
29 October 2021
Whilst idly reading through the long list of 268 Tory MPs who voted to allow raw sewage to be dumped in our rivers, Pecksniff happened to see a name that rang a bell. Rebecca Harris MP (Conservative, Castle Point). A few years ago when Ms Harris was recently elected and was still finding her feet, Pecksniff approached her regarding one of her constituents.
The woman had been carrying a dead foetus in her womb for months without doctors realising it, and when the child was eventually removed it was found to have become mummified. Doctors became excited – this was very rare – and seemed more than disappointed when the mother wanted her child back for burial.
Eventually it became clear why. The mummified foetus was handed back to the mother in a brown paper bag, by a secretary in the hospital reception, in waxed slices. The hospital had wanted it for research.
The matter was taken to Rebecca Harris, who was understandably appalled. The doctors should be held to account. She declared that she would take it to a friend who was a junior health minister…
But there the story stopped. From thereon for some reason Ms Harris refused to answer emails or take phone calls. Her outrage was no more. She declined to have any more to do with it. Now it so happened that, in the meantime and for whatever reason, the government had made clear its refusal to contemplate a duty of candour for doctors. An embarrassing predicament.
Can it be that her friendly health minister had warned her not to make waves? The junior minister would have to take it to her boss, which could mar her ministerial career prospects, and likewise Ms Harris, as a new MP, could hardly expect to make progress if she made life awkward for her own government.
So the world heard no more of the ignominious end of somebody’s child. Ms Harris is now a government whip, telling her fellow backbenchers what to do and how to vote. She was one of those whips who insisted Tory MPs voted to back plans to release raw sewage into the rivers last week. A perfect exemplar then of today’s Parliamentary Tory party. From doing what she was told, she has now been promoted to the role of doing the telling.
MPs doing what they’re told reminds Pecksniff of a meeting with the late and late lamented Frank Dobson. He had relinquished ministerial office at the time, though Labour were still the government. During light refreshment at Portcullis House the division bell rang. Mr Dobson grumbled about having to leave, and Pecksniff asked politely what the vote was about.
“No bloody idea!” barked the bearded one. “No bugger ever has any idea. The only time I know what I’m voting for is when I’m voting against my own bloody government.”
The present hoo-ha over raw sewage dumped into the rivers has prompted furious public reaction, of course, and the spontaneous setting up of a number of protest groups. But it should be pointed out that what passes for politics in this country has been so far off the pace for so long that political parties are passé, and new groups have been springing up everywhere. Exasperated by their ineptitude in combating the Tories, voters have been remaking politics for themselves. It is estimated that there may be as many as 750 independent political groups across the country, many of them here in East Anglia. In all, it’s thought they have a total membership of perhaps half a million activists, which is about what Labour is proud of boasting it has.
It’s not clear whether Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are even aware of them. But all these groups share the same belief: that the future of politics in this country is to build anew from the ground up, village by village, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. If he can get them out of the pub, Pecksniff will encourage his colleagues to report more on what is happening among them around the region.
And finally more government chaos. On 30 September Rishi Sunak (as chancellor) and Therese Coffey (as work and pensions secretary) announced the Household Support Fund for vulnerable households. One concerned citizen called West Suffolk Council, to track down the fund, and was referred to Anglia Revenues Partnership. (Me neither.) But it seems they only deal with council tax, and suggested Suffolk County Council, who in turn passed our enquirer on to the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Nobody, it seems, had ever heard of the Household Support Fund.
So our diligent enquirer went to the local MP, Jo Churchill (Conservative, Bury St Edmunds), who hadn’t heard of it either but confidently redirected the enquiry back to West Suffolk Council. But “No no”, said WSC, this time changing their minds and confidently redirecting the enquiry instead back to Suffolk County Council.
About this time, having received an aggrieved call from WSC, Jo Churchill wrote to our enquirer declaring, with undimmed confidence if a completely different answer, that our enquirer should really go to Suffolk County Council. So after almost a month, most parties seem inclined to believe that, although they may still not know what it is, SCC hold all the answers.
But if they do, they’re not saying. Our enquirer is still trying.
22 October 2021
We return to Matt Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk) and this time his abortive attempt at becoming the UN’s special envoy to its Economic Commission for Africa.
The job was offered, accepted, and then withdrawn within a couple of days.
The withdrawal was just too late to save Hancock from the embarrassment of declaring his appointment on Twitter, or of several erstwhile cabinet colleagues applauding the appointment.
Matt Hancock UN Envoy Twitter announcement / Matt Hancock UN Envoy LinkedIn profile
Hancock’s excuse for the humiliation of having the offer withdrawn was that it was over a ‘technicality’. He couldn’t accept the position, he claimed, because it precluded his continuing to serve as an MP.
This is clearly untrue. Gordon Brown held a similar position whilst still serving as an MP in 2012.
Perhaps the real reason, hinted at by the UN, was the manner of his appointment – some question of ‘not going through the proper procedures’. According to Hancock, “I was honoured to be approached by the UN and appointed as special representative to the Economic Commission for Africa”. But what in practice that seems to mean is that, rather than the UN approaching him, it was the other way round.
He was introduced to Vera Songwe of the commission when she attended the recent Tory conference in Manchester. The introduction was through Nimco Ali, a Tory activist presently embroiled in accusations of covid lockdown breaches with the prime minister and his wife last Christmas.
News of his appointment came only a few days after the conference – on the face of it a swift decision given the usual checks likely to be needed. But then, Mr Hancock is probably not cognisant of the usual checks for handing out jobs and contracts, having conducted his tenure as health secretary without apparently having recourse to them once.
So he initially gained the position because of who he knew. UN sources suggested that rules on conflicts of interest had been a factor in the decision of secretary general António Guterres to withdraw the offer. But leaked documents showing that Britain and the U.S. blocked attempts by poorer countries to manufacture their own vaccines can’t have helped.
Nor can the unfortunate timing of the excoriating Commons report on his record of handing Covid as Health Secretary, released that week.
So Matt Hancock’s attempt to rehabilitate himself has ended with oeuf sur le visage. It was one of those occasions when having friends in the Jockey Club wouldn’t pull the right strings.
There are strong rumours that Richard Bacon MP (Conservative, South Norfolk) may not stand again at the next election, and that this may not be his own idea.
‘White English people at the back of council house queues…’ ‘Immigration needs to stop and we need a good clear out of the wheat from the chaff…’ ‘Christians who now fear for their lives…’ ‘An armada of invading immigrants…’ ‘Send all the economic migrants back…’ ‘We have enough in Ipswich…’ ‘We soon be taken over buy foreigns no more please…’ ‘Stand your ground Tom we have enough in Ipswich…’
Where could these comments possibly be found? Well, on the Facebook page of Tom Hunt MP (Conservative, Ipswich). One might have assumed that he goes through the comments periodically, removing those which he deems unhelpful. But then, perhaps he does.
Suffolk people may be understandably angry and disappointed to learn that Suffolk County Council no longer oppose the building of Sizewell C nuclear power station. The council claim their position has changed because circumstances have changed. Recently the Tory-run council has lost two or three high profile seats to the Greens, and cynics might consider that the most important circumstances to have changed for the Tories is that the county council elections are now safely over.
So what news do you have, dear reader, to pass on? Pecksniff waits…
The stories in this edition of Pecksniff’s Diary all feature Tory MPs or Tory councillors. One reason is because most of the MPs and councils in this region are Tories or run by Tories. There may be those who consider that another reason might be the culture of the Tory party, which at the moment means it is rather more prone to talking out of its backside than others.
But any kind of absurdity or skulduggery among the political classes, of any party, is fair game. So please send Pecksniff your stories care of: [email protected]
Friday 15 October 2021
We begin with the views of a former Conservative Wisbech mayor, former constituency executive member of Steve Barclay MP (Conservative, North East Cambridgeshire) and failed Tory candidate for Cambridgeshire County Council, Jonathan Farmer. Mr Farmer was unfortunate enough to be held up by the traffic accident referred to, in which tragically somebody died.
His response on Twitter showed all the empathy and sensitivity to which we are becoming accustomed from some politicians: “If the police are dossing about for a day dealing with a routine road accident, then it is no wonder that crime is on the rise… It still should not take more than 20 minutes to put a body into an ambulance and clear the road for traffic.”
It may surprise none of Pecksniff’s readers that Nadine Dorries MP (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire) makes another appearance in this august column. This time she is threatening to intervene in the appointment of a new head of the Charity Commission, to rebalance what she and her predecessor both consider the ‘woke agenda’.
The fact that to do so would be unlawful has not occurred to her, of course, but the Good Law Project is keen to point this out through the courts if necessary.
Therese Coffey MP (Conservative, Suffolk Coastal) apparently danced the night away at Tory conference, singing ‘Having the Time of My Life’ on the very eve of cutting the incomes of the poorest among us by £20 per week.
One of the reasons for her high spirits might possibly be her expense bill as an MP of £201,000.
Dr Coffey is not a popular MP among the local hacks. In fact she is scarcely on speaking terms with at least two of them. This is a characteristic which she shares with two other Suffolk Tory MPs. Yet she enjoys a huge majority among voters, even though it can be difficult finding any who find her an attractive candidate.
This huge majority is a puzzle in so many constituencies, but perhaps the answer lies not with Coffey and her fellow Tories but with the abysmal performance of the opposition parties in these seats.
Not so long ago, a Labour General Election candidate was forbidden (on pain of ruining her future political career) to canvass in her own constituency. She was instead despatched with other members as a humble door knocker in Ipswich. So the two remaining Labour activists were left to fight an election when they didn’t even have a candidate.
Unpopularity with journalists is a trait Dr Coffey shares with our old friend Matt Hancock MP (Conservative, West Suffolk), in whom the courts are taking an increasing interest. It is required by national security guidelines that all official correspondence should pass through official channels. Mr Hancock and two of his erstwhile ministerial colleagues at Education were not persuaded by this and, throughout the Covid crisis and the scandal of PPE contracts, it seems they used private emails and messaging to conduct business.
The High Court however takes a more serious view of national security than apparently Mr Hancock does, and has ordered an urgent hearing into the matter on 25 October.
We turn to the correspondence style of Anthony Browne MP (Conservative, South Cambridgeshire). It’s always nice to get a personal letter from your MP, and instructive when instead you get a multiple choice response in which somebody in his office has forgotten to delete those choices not applicable.
A constituent wrote regarding Afghanistan. The reply, hot from the desk of her MP, signed off with the sentence: “I do hope this answers your questions/reassures you/makes you leave us alone.”
The constituent has since received a grovelling apology, but Pecksniff senses le chat est en dehors du sac.
Lastly to the curious case of the disappearing Tories. Though they hold a hegemony over most of East Anglian politics, they are curiously shy creatures, rarely appearing before their voters. There have been reports recently that the party no longer puts up election posters and has difficulties finding candidates. (In one council election recently, the candidate eventually coerced into standing didn’t even know which council it was.)
But now we find they are missing from our town councils too. Or so it seems, judging from some curious omissions from the declarations of interest. Three out of five Tories on Newmarket Town Council don’t admit their party membership, three out of five on Woodbridge TC don’t either. Even though the National Association of Local Councils says they should. And there are tales of more.
How can we explain these councillors, who have always claimed to be Tory, who don’t announce the fact in their declaration of interests? An oversight? A natural reluctance to admit what they represent? Or perhaps another reason entirely…? Pecksniff will sharpen his quill to explore further.
Friday 8 October 2021
In an attempt to ingratiate himself with his enraged constituents after the scandal of his resignation from the cabinet, Matt Hancock MP (West Suffolk, Conservative) announced to the world that he was to take part in the London Marathon, in aid of his local hospice.
Sponsors on the Just Giving page are allowed to leave comments, and many did, and they were far from complimentary. It seems he may be even more unpopular than he thought. Voters are even prepared to pay money for the opportunity to abuse him.
Meanwhile, there is more hot water for Hancock’s leading supporter and financial backer Rachel Hood, Conservative County Councillor for Exning and Newmarket. We have previously noted (EAB issue 2: ‘Newmarket no confidence motion in ‘morally bankrupt’ Hancock‘) Councillor Hood’s histrionics at losing face. So one can only wonder how many cats were left unkicked in the Hood household when she found herself at the centre of the scandal over Suffolk’s deplorable failures in educating pupils with special educational needs.
No doubt the parents of some of those children are her constituents, in which case they will know what to do at the next election.
There is a to-do in Alconbury Weald in Cambridgeshire over the failure of a much vaunted £10.5 million vocational training centre. It was built in 2018 and closed in less than two years. During that time it provided only 12 full-time jobs, at a cost to the public purse of £875,000 each. It is estimated that the losses run to £8 million.
Though the centre was all glossy high-tech and there seemed a great demand for it from apprentices and businesses, nobody had considered whether it was wise to build it in the middle of nowhere. So the official report into the collapse pointed out that it failed because the students couldn’t afford the bus fare.
Now on to Duncan Baker, MP (Conservative, North Norfolk) and his views on Universal Credit. He writes to a constituent that he won’t be supporting the continuance of the £20 top-up because “Now, as the country unlocks, and the economy is abundant with jobs, it is only right we focus on improving prospects and supporting people back into work, particularly in sectors like tourism and hospitality where there are so many vacancies in North Norfolk”.
From which you might assume that he is trying to get these work-shy scroungers off their backsides and start filling all the gaps left when he and his government decided to give EU workers the bum’s rush, and sent them all home.
But wait… He goes on to say: “most families are in work receiving Universal Credit. Yes, that’s generally right because whether you are in work or not, the benefit is to help people on a low income, not just the unemployed”.
So… He knows that most people on UC are already employed, just badly paid. Is he suggesting that they double up and take on jobs as waiters or lorry drivers as well? Or is it possible he hasn’t even seen the letter, and it’s been copied and pasted by some junior member of staff who hasn’t actually realised that, under his editing, his boss appears to be talking horlicks? For those interested in asking North Norfolk’s finest to explain, the very best (and quite the most public) way of approaching him would be via Twitter. You can find him at @duncancbaker.
To the surprise of everybody, including perhaps herself, Nadine Dorries, MP (Conservative, Mid Bedfordshire) has been appointed culture secretary. This promotion was no doubt due to her often expressed outrage at all the lefties corrupting the BBC.
Hardly had La Dorries got her knees under the desk than she quickly warmed to her theme, attacking the BBC’s nepotism, and declaring that the corporation is staffed by people ‘whose mum and dad worked there’. She might have had a point, but she was perhaps not the ideal person to make it…
It seems she had employed both her daughters at a cost of up to £80,000 of money from the public purse to work in her office, in spite of one of them living nearly a hundred miles away.
The stories in this edition of Pecksniff’s Diary all feature Tory MPs or Tory councillors. One reason is because most of the MPs and councils in this region are Tories or run by Tories. There may be those who consider that another reason might be the culture of the Tory party, which at the moment means it is rather more prone to talking out of its backside than others.
But any kind of absurdity or skulduggery among the political classes, of any party, is fair game. So please send Pecksniff your stories care of: [email protected]
