Inside Westminster
Kevin Maguire
Published 07 May 2009
The Jolly Roger's hoisted and no-one's laughing. All the gossip from the Westminster Village...
That serial resigner Stephen Pound’s punishment for quitting as a ministerial bag-carrier for a third time – his flounce over the Gurkhas making it a hat-trick of departures, after downing red boxes over Trident and foundation hospitals – was to find his replacement. The Lurch-like figure of the Treasury minister Stephen Timms decreed Pound must come up with a sane backbencher who is loyal to the government and rarely rebels. After much head-scratching and leafing through Dod’s, Labour’s Mr Punch realised it was Mission Impossible. The only name that might fit the bill is Lindsay Roy, the ex-head of Gordon Brown’s old school. The victor of the Glenrothes by-election was elected 15 minutes ago, so hasn’t had time to go native. Roy may be learning fast, however. If asked, I hear, he would say No.
An email arrived full of colourful talk about the rebel history of the so-called “Red Tory” Phillip Blond. The snout is the pal of a woman who was friendly with a flatmate of Blond’s and so is, as we say in the trade, well-placed. According to this clearly impeccable source, Blond hung out with class warriors in the 1980s at Hull University. His collar was felt by the boys in blue, added the snout, when eggs were thrown at the right-winger Harvey Proctor. Blond pleaded that he was passing the demonstration with his shopping, and the eggs in his bag were that evening’s omelette. I must make a mental note to check details with Druggie Dave’s pet philosopher.
It is perhaps lamentable, to coin a phrase, that Hazel Blears doesn’t read newspaper articles in her name ahead of publication, after a very un-Salford lass appeal for a “meta-narrative” was issued in the
Observer. The five-foot-nothing minister’s pointy-headed adviser, Paul Richards, was author of said item. In one of those remarkable coincidences, Mrs Pepperpot was close to Uncle Gordie’s North Queensferry home, looking at boats, when the cabinet Jolly Roger was hoisted. YouSail if you want to, and it was the first case, fumed a Brownite apparatchik, of a rat seeking a ship of its own.
Mr Quiffy, the immaculately attired cabinet mod Alan Johnson, is in rude health despite the swine flu crisis. Chairing a Cobra session joined by the Prime Minister via telephone, Mr Quiffy noted how the assembled boffins jostled to be heard. Once Uncle Gordie was off the line, Johnson gently chided the keen experts about how they no longer needed to impress anyone. Not even a PM-in-waiting-just-in-case.
Hacks renewing lobby passes are reminded to update the Register of Journalists’ Interests. Most political reporters claim not to earn upwards of £630 outside their media constituency. Exceptions include the Daily Mail’s Peter Oborne, who I discovered was rewarded for addressing the Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers, whatever that is. The industrious Quentin Letts, Oborne’s Mail colleague, is in the pay of Private Eye. Interesting.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
This article was originally published on 07 May 2009 in the issue Barack Obama's 100 days
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