ANDREW PIERCE: Davey's stamp of approval is sheer hypocrisy
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has long made sanctimony an art form. But increasingly he’s excelling at hypocrisy, too.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain last week that he backed Post Office campaigner Sir Alan Bates, who is calling for postmasters to sue the Government over unpaid compensation relating to the Horizon IT scandal.
‘I think Alan Bates is right to take legal action,’ said Davey. ‘The sub-postmasters deserved compensation years ago. The last government dragged its feet and now the current government is dragging its feet.’
This is the same Davey who, as Postal Affairs Minister in 2010, initially refused to meet Bates when the scandal began to break; and who trousered £275,000 for his consultancy work with law firm Herbert Smith Freehills between 2015 and 2022 – the very company hired by the Post Office to crush the likes of Bates in court.
Does he have no shame?
It was good to see Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner release their tax returns for the year 2023-24 last week. If only their paperwork hadn’t exposed them as financially feckless. They both put down their base salary as an MP as £76,955, when – as of April 1, 2023 – it has been £86,584.
Money talks... for a price
Speaking of the Chancellor, remember when she said her tenure at the Treasury would be all about ‘growth’?
Well, there’s no sign of that thanks to her disastrous tax-raising Budget in October.
But that hasn’t stopped Labour launching a new series of ‘growth and innovation’ events, with the first in June to feature talks with Reeves, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds and Science Secretary Peter Kyle.
But, before you rush to buy tickets, be aware that it’ll set you back £5,000 (plus VAT) to hear the not-so-bon mots of these financial wizards who tanked the economy.
Cool beans, Maggie!
Radio 1 DJ Andy Peebles’s funeral paid tribute to his greatest interviews. But less of a high point was when, in 1977, he tried to catch out Margaret Thatcher by asking about the price of baked beans. ‘We’re not mad on beans,’ she said. ‘But cod was 80p a pound ten days ago.’
Former Labour big beast Harriet Harman says she is enjoying the calmer House of Lords. ‘It’s post-ambition politics,’ she tells Sky News. ‘People are not stabbing you in the back because you’re not an obstacle to their rise up the ranks.’
She recalled one group who were particularly ‘courteous and friendly’, adding: ‘I discovered to my horror they were 14 members of Thatcher’s Cabinet sitting on the front row of the House of Lords.’
Fabricant's holy plea
If it wasn’t humiliating enough to be voted out first from Celebrity Big Brother, ex-Tory MP Sir Michael Fabricant has now come up with another fool’s errand.
The 74-year-old is planning a ‘naked charity bike ride’ through his former constituency of Lichfield in Staffordshire. And clearly he’s hoping for some divine guidance.
Calling on Jan McFarlane, dean of the city’s cathedral, to join him, he rather sacrilegiously announces: ‘Jan, you can do it! You can hide your modesty with your cross.’
Take the next left: The new adviser to Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is former Daily Mirror political editor Jason Beattie. An intriguing choice for the centrist Kendall, as Beattie’s so Left-wing he’s nicknamed ‘Stalin’. Is she hoping to burnish her standing with Labour’s Trots?
The politics of Pope Francis' funeral seating plan revealed: How Donald Trump DID get in the front row after all - while Prince William and Keir Starmer are relegated to the cheap seats 
