17 May in Liberal England history

I enjoyed doing this for 18 April - whether my readers enjoyed it as much is another question - so here is a survey of what has concerned this blog down the years on 17 May.

2019

Hard times in the Shropshire hills. Stiperstones primary school was to close and Bishop's Castle residents were planning to block the road in a protest against bus cuts.


2018

I previewed A Very British Scandal as the first episode was about to be shown.



2017

"Boris Johnson moos 'like a cow' and devours cakes on bakery visit" ran my Headline of the Day.

You can't say we weren't warned.


2016

Talking of Boris Johnson, I blogged about his failure when mayor to publish a report on air pollution near London' schools.


2015

Included in a Six of the Best, Down at Third Man was worrying about the future of English cricket:

"The players coming in during the next few years come from a generation deprived of free to air cricket. This generation will have come in on the echoes. Soon it will be a privileged generation: in the main sons/daughters of club cricketers and sons of parents able to afford a very expensive education, or sons able to win scholarships to such institutions."

2014

I went to Woodhouse Eaves, which had once been a sort of health resort in Leicestershire's Charnwood Forest:

Today, the first hot day of the year, the countryside was alive with hikers and Scouts, giving it something of the atmosphere of its 1930s heyday.

2013

UKIP supporters, I suggested, were not that keen on the UK. They were English Nationalists.


2012

I quoted Christopher Hitchens and his praise for Karl Popper's insistence on the importance of argument:

It is very seldom, as he noticed, that in debate any one of two evenly matched antagonists will succeed in actually convincing or "converting" the other. But it is equally seldom that in a properly conducted argument either antagonist will end upholding exactly the same position as that with which he began.

2011

Lord Bonkers reacted to the headline "Fox blasts British overseas aid plan":

It was clearly set out in the Coalition agreement. Now clear off down the garden and leave our dustbins alone.

2010

I quoted something I had written for the Guardian website back in 2006 (when it paid much better than it does today):

When [Charles] Kennedy stood for the leadership of the Liberal Democrats in 1999, the West Highland Free Press - a radical newspaper published in his own constituency - remarked that people in London were beginning to ask what it had been asking for 15 years: what exactly does Charles Kennedy stand for? 

Though he won that contest and went on to lead the party for nearly seven years, we never really found out.

2009

Those were the days. I wrote seven posts on 17 May 2009 and most of them were about politics.

In one of them I argued that:

the causes of the anger over MPs' expenses go beyond indignation at what has been done with our money. That anger is so great because this affair has laid bare what an unequal society we now live in.

2008

Michael Gove wanted to tell teachers what they should wear:

No doubt this is meant to appeal to Tory voters who like tradition, but in reality there is little tradition of teachers dressing smartly. The traditional dress for teachers was the academic gown, which was designed precisely to distance education from the world where a good business suit matters. 

Less grand teachers wore a tweed jacket with leather patches and a worried expression.

2007

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I asked why people could not forgive Ming Campbell for being old:

If a comedian or journalist had made similar reference to the fact that a politician was a woman or was gay or was Black, it would have finished that comedian or journalist's career. Yet in our society it is perfectly acceptable to make fun of people for being old.

2006

The idea that the state should decide the speed at which people walk their dogs is ridiculous.

I still hold that view today.

2005

I discussed Siôn Simon Syndrome:

there is a law that people accuse others of the faults they most fear in themselves, much as those who make most fuss about homosexuality are supposed to be repressed homosexuals themselves.

2004

Iraq Body Count estimated the number of civilian deaths in the country since the start of the invasion at somewhere between 9,148 and 11,005

It turns out Alan Moore was wrong: Governments should not be afraid of their people

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It's the line everyone knows from Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta and the film that was made from it:

People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

But is it as obviously right as it sounds? Is fear really a good thing in politics?

Take the current situation in the Commons, where it highly likely that a majority of MPs believe it is against Britain's interests to leave the European Union.

Why don't they vote in accord with their beliefs? Because of fear.

They are afraid of their party's whips. They are afraid of their local activists. They are afraid of being deselected.

They are afraid their career will never recover. They are afraid of what the press will say. They are afraid of the far right.

Yes, they are afraid of the voters, but the voters' option of voting for someone else next time is at the root of democracy. You stand up for what you believer, but if the voters look elsewhere, that is their right.

Perhaps there is some truth in the idea that is good when governments are afraid rather than individual politicians. Certainly, there is nothing like a resurgent Labour opposition to persuade a Conservative government to treat the average voter better.

But for the most part, fear seems to me to be corrosive to democratic politics.

Equally, the contempt the average voter has for politicians - they are all the same, they are all in it for themselves, they are all out to feather their own nests - seems to me both ill founded and damaging.

When they come to write the histories of the extraordinary period we are living through (if it results in a world where books are still allowed), I think the Daily Telegraph's publication of MPs' expense claims will come to be seen as a key moment.

The BBC's Question Time, for instance, has spent years trying to recapture the public anger that featured in its first programme after the story broke, and has trashed its brand in the attempt.

And why did the scandal over MPs' expenses arise? Because the authorities were afraid of what the press would say if they were given a pay increase and told them to fill their boots from their expense allowances instead.

No, fear is not a good thing in democratic politics.

If we want to like our MPs again, change the system

I have contributed another opinion column to the Leicester Mercury.

I was asked to write something on MPs' expenses in the wake of the Maria Miller case. But, as you will see, I ended up arguing that expenses are not at the root of our problems with our politicians these days:

There is a terrible lack of big ideas in British politics today. 

Voters sense this and that politics is now just one more career. And a very exclusive career it is, because knowing the right people is paramount. 

The typical path to becoming an MP these days is an Oxbridge degree followed by working for one of the parties or as a special adviser at Westminster. 

The troop of children of ministers in Tony Blair's government getting themselves selected for safe Labour seats at the moment represent the logical culmination of this trend.

There is a good Bagehot piece on a similar theme in The Economist this week.

David Cameron on corporate lobbying: "We can't go on like this"

From a speech David Cameron gave at the University of East London on 8 February 2010:

Now we all know that expenses has dominated politics for the last year. But if anyone thinks that cleaning up politics means dealing with this alone and then forgetting about it, they are wrong. Because there is another big issue that we can no longer ignore. 

It is the next big scandal waiting to happen. It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long, an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money. 

I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out. 

Now, I want to be clear: it’s not just big business that gets involved in lobbying. Charities and other organisations, including trade unions, do it too. What’s more, when it's open and transparent, when people know who is meeting who, for what reason and with what outcome, lobbying is perfectly reasonable. 

It’s important that businesses, charities and other organisations feel they can make sure their voice is heard. And indeed, lobbying often makes for better, more workable, legislation. But I believe that it is increasingly clear that lobbying in this country is getting out of control. 

Today it is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over one hundred times a week by lobbyists. Much of the time this happens covertly. 

We don’t know who is meeting whom. We don’t know whether any favours are being exchanged. We don’t know which outside interests are wielding unhealthy influence. This isn’t a minor issue with minor consequences. Commercial interests - not to mention government contracts - worth hundreds of billions of pounds are potentially at stake. 

I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works, with money buying power, power fishing for money and a cosy club at the top making decisions in their own interest. 

We can’t go on like this. I believe it’s time we shone the light of transparency on lobbying in our country and forced our politics to come clean about who is buying power and influence. 

Politics should belong to people, not big business or big unions, and we need to sort this out. So if we win the election, we will take a lead on this issue by making sure that ex-ministers are not allowed to use their contacts and knowledge - gained while being paid by the public to serve the public - for their own private gain. 

Today, the guidelines state that former ministers shouldn't lobby government for at least twelve months after leaving office. We will start by doubling that to two years. 

But there's another problem. Those guidelines are simply that: guidance issued to ex-ministers by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, explaining what kind of jobs they can take up. Today, ex-Ministers can ignore this advice without sanction. 

So we will rewrite the Ministerial Code to make clear that anyone who ignores the advice of the Committee will be forced to give up some or all of their Ministerial pension. Dealing with the lobbying issue may be painful, but it needs to happen and because we are from a new generation at ease with openness and accountability, because we believe in social responsibility not state control, we will clean things up. 

So that is the choice the country faces. Five more years of Gordon Brown blocking reform, whether it's money from big business or money from big unions. Or reform to clean up lobbying from a new Conservative government committed to transparency and accountability.

Lord Bonkers sues the Harwich and Manningtree Standard

From the newspaper's website:

And finally, what is clear from the crimes of all these parliamentarians including Lord Bonkers is that they need a rigorous system to govern their expenses, and it needs to be run by people who take the job seriously.

Lord Bonkers replies exculsively for Liberal England:

I am not sure whether this comment, which has been drawn to my attention, is by the rag or one of its readers. Be that as it may, I have placed the matter in the hands of my solicitors.

Eric Pickles, Chairman of the Conservative Party, justifies his expenses

Lest we forget.

MPs, the expenses scandal and stress

Dr Ashley Weinberg from the University of Salford presented a paper about stress in MPs to the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference today, and I have just spoken to him about it.

He has been looking at this subject for some years now, and his latest study compared figures he obtained between the summer of 2009 and the spring of this year with those from just after the 2005 general election. In each case the samples contained more than 30 MPs.

Although the questionnaires were completed anonymously, Dr Weinberg collected enough demographic information to be sure he was comparing like with like.

The paper found that 39 per cent of the MPs surveyed in 2009/10 reported high levels of stress, up from 22 per cent in 2005.

I asked what a high level of stress meant in this case. While it is not severe enough to lead the sufferer to seek medical help, it would mean they would be in low spirits and find it harder to make decisions or cope with their workload.

The obvious event to ask about between 2005 and the present day is the expenses scandal, and Dr Weinberg did ask about this. The answers here showed that 76 per cent of the sample felt more negative about the job of MP because of the scandal and 90 per cent felt more negative about the House of Commons.

Perhaps more importantly, 30 per cent felt the scandal had made it harder for them to do their job as an MP.

It is easy to say that no one if forced to be an MP - in fact, many people slave and scheme for years to make it to Westminster. And some level of stress is inevitable in any responsible job. But if it is affecting MPs' ability to make decisions then it should be viewed with concern.

And while there were some example of outrageous behaviour revealed - some of which are currently making their way through the courts - it is not true that all MPs are bad as each other.

If reform of the Commons can restore its esteem in the eyes of the public, it may make it easier for MPs to do their job too.

That matters. You may be a sceptic about government, but that just makes the role of MPs in righting injustice and helping those wronged by the system more important.

Parliamentary Standards Commission to reopen investigation of Margaret Moran

I don't want to gloat at others' misfortunes, what with it being my birthday and everything. But it is hard to suppress a smile at the news that the Parliamentary Standards Commission is to resume its inquiry into whether Margaret Moran has breached the MPs' Code of Conduct.

As Dunstable Today reports:

The Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, launched an investigation last year after the MP referred herself to him following the expenses scandal.

But it suspended the inquiry at the end of last year because of the MP's ill health, which has seen her unable to work since her expenses claims were exposed.

But the MP was seen in a Channel 4 documentary on Monday night saying she was able to work immediately for a firm that wanted her to lobby on behalf of its clients.

Liveblogging Dispatches: Politicians for Hire

"MPs offer political favours in return for thousands of pounds a day."

Tony Blair has made millions since leaving Downing Street.

Sir Alistair Graham: "The first principle for MPs is selflessness". Ho ho.

The programme approached more than 20 MPs. Ten agreed to meet the "company" -Anderson Perry.

Sir John Butterfill offered company his CV at the start of the meeting.

The programme quotes David Cameron saying lobbying is the next big scandal waiting to happen.

Butterfill: "I can organise a meeting in a minister's office or possibly ... he could come to you."

Said he could arrange a meeting with David Cameron.

Asks for more than £30,000 per year for sitting on the company's board.

Margaret Moran, for it is she. Keen to take paid work from "Anderson Perry".

Boasts of her contacts with special advisers.

Ready to start at once: "I'm free now."

She has not voted in Parliament in May and has not been seeing her constituents because of bad health. The programme was told by her office that she was too ill to see constituents.

So she is a liar.

Stephen Byers coming up. "I'm a bit like a cab for hire."

Since resigning from the cabinet he has developed a high-flying business career.

Already working as a consultant while an MP.

"I do a bit of work for Rio Tinto." Neither that interest nor the one with National Express is registered.

How much would he expect? "Between three and five thousand a day." "Sometimes I can charge more."

Tony Blair's earnings since leaving government have reached an estimated £20m.

Byers says he may be able to get Blair along for a drink.

Ooh look, it's Robert Maclennan.

Since the last election 46 minsters have been approved to work in private sector. Almost half work in areas they used to be responsible for.

Patricia Hewitt works for BT, Boots, Barclays and BUPA.

"I'm interested in taking on another major board position."

Robert Maclennan was against her being allowed to take up certain posts as a former minister. He is on the body that oversees such matters - The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.

How easy is it to arrange meetings with ministers and civil servants? "It is very doable."

The ways:

1. Hospitality
2. Use a think tank - sponsor a seminar "and for your money you get to sit next to the minister".
3. Sponsoring events at a party conference
4. Straightforward invitation
5. Meet them via your presence in the constituency.

Persuaded review of mental health in prisons to talk to the private sector. Got a private sector representative on the task force. "I've kind of got them into the system."

Back to Stephen Byers. The general election is a great time to see civil servants.

Boasts that he helped National Express get out of its East Coast Mainline franchise without high penalties or losing its other franchises. He spoke to Andrew Adonis ("you have to keep this very confidential") on their behalf.

They agreed Adonis would talk tough in public but National Express would get off lightly - i.e. the would not abide by the contract they signed.

Now Tesco. Hilary Benn wanted to chose food labelling. Tesco rang Byers to get it stopped. He rang Peter Mandelson to complain about it. Mandelson got it delayed then amended.

Byers later emailed to say he had not spoken to either Mandelson or Adonis. Tesco and the Department of Transport both also said no such exchanges had taken place.

It seems his defence was that he was lying.

Coming next: Byers on defence.

Looking forward to translating his contacts into a way of making money.

Now Baroness Sally Morgan.

Gets £135,000 for jobs outside politics.

The programme had hired offices where Tony Blair first hired them after leaving No, 10.

Sally Morgan asks £5,000 per day.

She knows lots of senior civil servants because they worked at No. 10 when they were younger.

She can have conversations with people and push the direction of policy travel without lobbying.

Offers to put the company in touch with ministers. "I do anything as long as I am reasonably transparent about it."

She has interested in diabetes treatment but did not declare them when asking a Lords question.
She helped an educational charity win a £50m government contract.

Back to Sir John Butterfill.

"It is quite likely that I will go to the Lords." Perhaps less likely now.

"It gives me another string to my bow, as far as you are concerned."

That got that wrong. Geoff Hoon does not have a constituency home. His seat is in Nottinghamshire and he lives in Derby. Southern journalists do not understand Midland geography.

"I do not want to be seen to leave politics and then go back as some sort of lobbyist."

Still has Ministry of Defence contacts that might prove useful to clients.

He is helping American firms take over European companies.

£3000 a day "seems about right". After parliament is dissolved, "I am yours." Offers to chair the board.

All very depressing. As far as what the MPs doing is unobjectionable, that should be part of the job they are paid to do.

Byers' only defence is that he lied to the TV people. And can't Margaret Moran be prosecuted for something?

News of the World: "Former Cabinet ministers embroiled in cash-for-access row"

This story, which reports on tomorrow night's Dispatches - "Politicians for Hire" - on Channel 4, has just gone up on the News of the World Politics blog.

Twenty senior MPs and peers were offered payments of up to £35,000 a year for helping a fake firm forge lucrative links with the government.

Six of them demanded between £3,000 and £5,000 A DAY to sit on a make-believe advisory board.

And several are said to have exaggerated their influence in the hope of cashing in.

Ex-Transport Secretary Stephen Byers even claimed he was like a “cab for hire” to the tricksters as he boasted about how he still has a direct line to the heart of government.

Others caught up in the sting include ex-Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, ex-Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon and former whip Margaret Moran.

To see how fair is we will have to watch Dispatches tomorrow.

Jim Devine faces claims of bullying and harassment

Jim Devine, the Labour MP for Livingston, who is currently trying to prove that Parliamentary privilege means the Theft Act 1968 does not apply to him, faces another problem.

The Scottish Sunday Mail reports that the day before Divine is due to appear in court he will face an unfair dismissal claim from his former constituency office manager Marion Kinley. She worked for him between June 2006 and October 2008 and is taking him to an employment tribunal claiming bullying, harassment and unfair dismissal. Mr Devine denies all the charges.

She originally won a claim of unfair dismissal in August last year. You may not be surprised to learn that Devine failed to submit the forms required by the tribunal correctly.

He later challenged the judgment and was granted a review. It will take place in Edinburgh from 8-10 March, when Marion Kinley will present her evidence against him.

Devine is due to appear in court over his expenses claims on 11 March.

Sunday Times: David Chaytor "used daughter in expenses scam"

Tomorrow's Sunday Times contains further allegations about expense claims by the Labour MP for Bury North.

MP repays £755 expense claim for astrology software

In June of last year I wrote about one of the more entertaining expense claims that had come to light at Westiminster. David Tredinnick, the Tory MP for Bosworth in Leicestershire, had claimed for astrology software bought from a company called Crucial Astro Tools and for tuition from the same company to show him how to use it.

News comes today, courtesy of the Leicester Mercury, that he has repayed the £755 he received for these claims. Though Tredinnick still defends this use of public money:

"There are, in my view, links between astrology and healthcare and this is held to be the case in India and other healthcare systems and that was what I was looking into."

he told the Mercury:

"I thought, however, that to avoid any doubt about this claim that I would repay the money."

Strange, you think he would have foreseen that this claim would cause him problems.

I later had fun with this story and some of Tredinnick's other wacky beliefs in a House Points column.

Writing on his blog Adventures in Nonsense, Simon Perry does not take the member for Bosworth so lightly:

I find it unbelievable that a democratically-elected MP seems to be suggesting we should be looking into using astrology within our system of health care ...

Radionics is a system of healing where you take a sample of hair or blood, or even a signature and use it in what I can only describe as a kind of remote psychic healing machine.

It's the friendly but equally wacky equivalent of sticking pins into a voodoo doll. Yet it seems Mr Tredinnick is suggesting we should consider it within the NHS.

Though it does not say so on the blog, I think this piece was originally one of Simon's columns for the Leicester Mercury. Clearly, he fancies himself as the Ben Goldacre of the East Midlands.

MPs bringing politics into disrepute

When Carter-Ruck and Trafigura attempted to curb the free reporting of Parliament, which most of us thought had been guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, I complained in House Points that while:

Nick Clegg, David Heath and Paul Burstow all spoke out in defence of the public’s right to unimpeded reporting of Parliament ... their expenses were far dearer to the hearts of most members. Second houses, furnishings, gardening... that was what moved them.

It seems that Labour MPs have now remembered the Bill of Rights. Yesterday's Sunday Times reported:

Three Labour MPs being investigated for expenses fraud are arguing that they should not be prosecuted because their suspect claims are covered by parliamentary privilege.

The MPs have hired legal experts to assert that the 1689 Bill of Rights protects them from prosecution.

The three MPs in question are Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine.

Why should any party worker bother to defend Parliament against widespread cynicism when this is how MPs behave? They show no interest in defending the rights of the public, yet seize upon the very same piece to legislation when their own deeply questionable financial dealings are brought into question.

More and more, the British political elite resembles the nomenklatura of the old Soviet Union.

Jackie Ballard's new job

Jackie Ballard is one of the candidates to join the board of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, set up after the expenses scandal. Her name was among those announced by John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, on Tuesday. She will have to be approved by MPs.

As the BBC website reminds us, Jackie:

was Liberal Democrat MP for Taunton from 1997 to 2001 and has served as director general of the RSPCA. She is currently chief executive of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

David Curry, Chairman of the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee, resigns

From the Daily Telegraph this evening:

David Curry, the MP who heads the committee responsible for policing Commons expenses, has claimed almost £30,000 for a second home that his wife has banned him from staying in.

Mr Curry has resigned his chairmanship of the Parliamentary Standards and Privileges Committee and told the Telegraph that he will refer himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner.
The newspaper goes on to allege:

The Conservative MP is accused of having an affair with a headmistress in his Yorkshire constituency and using a taxpayer-funded cottage to meet his lover.

A Telegraph investigation has learned that four years ago, after discovering the affair, Mr Curry’s French wife Anne demanded that he does not stay at the Yorkshire property as a condition of the couple’s reconciliation.

However, the former Conservative minister has continued claiming thousands of pounds a year for the house – which he could expect to sell for a substantial profit after leaving Parliament.

David Wilshire MP in trouble over expense claims

The Tory MP for Spelthorne may be in a little trouble.

From tomorrow's Daily Telegraph:

David Wilshire, a senior Conservative MP, used his House of Commons expenses to pay more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money to his own company, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Mr Wilshire claimed for more than three years for office assistance provided by “Moorlands Research Services”. Parliamentary expenses rules forbid MPs from entering into arrangements which “may give rise to an accusation” of profiting from public funds. But on Wednesday night, Mr Wilshire – the MP for Spelthorne in Surrey – admitted that he and his partner, Ann Palmer, were sole owners of the business.

The Telegraph has established that, between 2005 and 2008, Mr Wilshire paid up to £3,250 a month to the business. Extra invoices were also submitted and the total paid to the firm was £105,500. However, there is no official record of the company’s existence and it has never filed public accounts.

There's more:

Mr Wilshire is now certain to face significant scrutiny from his constituents, already angry at his use of parliamentary expenses. Despite having a constituency 20 miles from Westminster, he has consistently claimed the maximum second home allowance for a flat in central London. In total, he has claimed £141,039 since 2001.

In a highly unusual arrangement with the fees office, he claimed thousands in monthly payments that he said went towards the cost of decorating and replacing its curtains and carpets in the future. He has refused to repay the money despite conceding that it has not all been spent.

With his main home in Somerset, he has also claimed more than £43,000 for travel since 2001.

And:

Mr Wilshire ... is best known for his controversial creation of Section 28 of the 1988 Local Government Act, which he introduced “to prevent local authorities from promoting homosexuality”.

Jon Craig adds on his Sky News blog:

the response from the Tory high command, so far, is measured. "David Wilshire is referring himself to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon," I was told. Before expressing a view, the Tory leader will wait and see what Lyon's probe uncovers, I was informed.

It seems to me, however, that the accusations against Wilshire are rather similar to those against a number of Tory MEPs a year or so ago. And we all know that Cameron came down on them like a ton of bricks.

Baroness Scotland faces questions over £170,000 expenses

More pressure on the attorney-general. Again from the Sunday Times:

The attorney-general, Baroness Scotland, is facing serious questions about payments of £170,000 that Cabinet Office rules say she was not entitled to receive.
Scotland is already at the centre of a row after she was found to be employing an illegal immigrant as a cleaner.

It emerged yesterday that she has for years been receiving an allowance intended for peers who live outside London, despite saying her main home is in the capital.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Corby trouser press

Our week at Bonkers Hall gathers pace.

Wednesday

I shall not pretend that I was delighted back in the 1930s when a steel works was built beside the pretty little Northamptonshire village of Corby: I had Meadowcroft (or perhaps it was his grandfather?) plant a spinney lest it spoil the view from the South Terrace here at Bonkers Hall. My foresight was rewarded over the following decades as Corby grew into a large town of quite preternatural ugliness.

Nevertheless, when the works closed in the 1980s I did what I could to help the town’s inhabitants by encouraging the establishment of new industries. I struck gold with the Corby trouser press. This ingenious device allows one to crease one’s trousers smartly if one is away from home and one’s valet, and can also be used to keep the eggs and b warm if one is having breakfast in bed.

I have always urged my Liberal Democrat colleagues at Westminster to buy the things; thus I fear I must shoulder some of the blame for Huhne getting into hot water after claiming for one on his expenses.

Previously on Lord Bonkers' Diary

Monday: Sense on MPs' expenses

Tuesday: David Boyle - a star is born

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Sense on MPs' expenses

Liberator 334 is with subscribers and Liberal Democrat Voice has a summary of this issue's contents.

All of which means it is time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

Monday

We Bonkers have never been flippers – though in the Roaring Twenties my daughters were certainly flappers. You will not find me claiming that some wretched basement flat in Pimlico is my principal residence so that I may charge the upkeep of Bonkers Hall to the hard-pressed taxpayer.

I do not claim for cleaning out my moat: I clean it out myself. (Or, to be precise, the Well-Behaved Orphans clean it out – the Rutland alligator is not as dangerous as the books make out). Nor do I call upon public funds to house my ducks: they (or at least those who have escaped the attentions of the alligators) are buying their own homes through a thoroughly Liberal housing co-operative.

At times like this, I remember the wise words of my old friend Lord Hazlerigg, Lord Lieutenant of Leicestershire, when someone proposed paying allowances to county councillors: “If a man hasn’t the brains to earn his own fare once or twice a month into his county town, I don’t think he’d be much help in administering the spending of a million of money.”