Cameron’s reshuffle panic, MPs’ expenses madness, and GB News fills with hot air
Cameron’s reshuffle panic
For starters, cast your mind back to the excitement of last Monday’s reshuffle, the sacking of Suella Braverman and the return of an old SW1 face.
Beachcomber’s sympathy goes to the staffer for new Conservative MP Lisa Cameron (late of the SNP), who found herself fielding dozens of phone calls on a torrid Monday morning.
She told Beachcomber: “People were calling asking if I was the new Foreign Secretary.
“It took a while for us to realise what was going on.”
After former leader David now “My Lord” Cameron was put in the job, she noted: “It’s a big clan.”
It turns out that when Ms Cameron was first elected, her mailbox was next to the former Prime Minister’s.
“I kept getting his Christmas cards,” she said.
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Expenses madness
Yesterday provided Sir Arbuthnot with something of an early Christmas present – namely the publication of the latest batch of MP expenses.
After combing through the 28,074-line document – ok there may have been some ctrl-F’ing involved – here’s a couple of surprise findings.
Earnings for Elon
Two MPs have decided to bill the taxpayer for their Twitter/X premium memberships, introduced by Elon Musk, which allows them to post longer tweets, customise the app and even make money by signing up to the ad revenue sharing scheme.
Helen Whately – a senior Health minister – and Andrew Bridgen both leapt on the new feature, and duly charged the taxpayer £100.80 for membership.
Toilet politics
While Labour tears itself apart over whether trans women should be allowed into the ladies, Claudia Webbe has no such toilet troubles – she billed the taxpayer £20 for a new constituency office loo seat.
Labour’s expenses blind spot
The most jaw-dropping claim of all came from Jonathan Ashworth, who was appointed Shadow Minister without Portfolio in Sir Keir’s summer reshuffle (otherwise known as Minister for the Today Programme).
Mr Ashworth is down as having claimed a whopping £3,206 in taxpayer-funded expenses for “New blinds for constituency office”.
This one was so surprising yours truly went to Mr Ashworth’s office for clarification – a missing decimal point perhaps?
Their explanation: that their 10th-floor Leicester office required custom-made blinds due to the very large windows, and they “had to be fitted by specialists for safety reasons”.
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GB News fills with hot air
Given the reactionary views of many of its pundits and presenters, the GB News Paddington studio is more than used to blowing hot.
Unfortunately for presenters, their jobs have been made much more trying over the last week thanks to the heater being stuck on full blast while they try to host live news.
Word is they’re now having to decamp parts of their operation to the yet-complete Westminster Studios.
Ukip fights to remain
Could Ukip be preparing for the end of a once-great and irrepressible political party?
Beachcomber’s eyes were drawn to a new application on the Electoral Commission website, entitled “UK Independence Party (UKIP) & English Democrats”.
Speaking with their press chap, it turns out the former Nigel Farage outfit is formally entering into a pact with the nationalistic English Democrats party, which not only involves standing down against each other in elections but sharing a party description on ballot papers – namely “Patriots Alliance”.
While both parties will maintain their branding, logos and separate leadership for the time being, Sir Arbuthnot was informed the parties “could end up amalgamating” in the future and forming one patriotic front.
Reform UK has apparently been approached to join the alliance, but for the time being is refusing to participate and – in the words of Ukip – “doing a huge disservice to voters”.
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