Will ex-Labour Cabinet Minister James Purnell improve Auntie’s standards as the BBC’s new £300,000-a-year strategy chief?
As an MP he was embroiled in a fake-photos scandal when his image was crudely inserted into a publicity shot after he turned up late to an event.
Purnell claimed it was all a misunderstanding – but MPs who featured alongside him said they had discussed how the picture would be doctored.
Weeks earlier, he had accused broadcasters of ‘forfeiting public trust’ with scandals over doctored footage and faked competitions.
There were embarrassed groans when Tory chairman Grant Shapps issued a rallying cry to MPs to join the election trail in Eastleigh, where disgraced Lib Dem Chris Huhne was forced to resign. ‘Unlike its former MP, our excellent candidate Maria Hutchings does not tell lies about herself or anyone else!’ yapped Shapps. Is this the same Grant Shapps who posed as a ‘multi-million-dollar web marketeer’ called Michael Green at an internet conference in Las Vegas? Er, yes. Box of choccies for Dawn! Go figure...
When Labour MPs clubbed together to buy a ‘get well’ present for shapely Deputy Speaker Dawn Primarolo, left, recovering from a hip operation, they were told: ‘Don’t send her chocolates – she likes to look after her figure.’
So what did they buy her? The biggest box of choccies you have ever seen.
Relax, Dawn, you could eat a ton of Milk Trays and still be thinner than the lardy larrikins who sent them.
Get well soon.
Labour MPs who clubbed together to buy a get well present for Dawn Primarolo were told: 'Don't send her chocolates'It has been Andrew Mitchell’s constant companion throughout ‘Plebgate’, but Dog hears the ex-Cabinet Minister is parting with the trusty old bicycle he tried to wheel through the No 10 main gates.
Mr Mitchell, who resolutely maintains he never shouted ‘pleb’ at a Downing Street copper, is fed up with people asking to have their picture taken with the rusty old bike. The former Chief Whip is going to put it on eBay and give the proceeds to charity.Hague switches to reds
William Hague’s palate is unrecognisable from when he was a ‘14-pints-a-day’ man in his wild South Yorkshire youth.
When he was consulted on wines to serve at an official Queen’s Diamond Jubilee lunch last summer, the Foreign Secretary licked his lips before plumping for Chateau Cos D’Estournel 1990 or Chateau Leoville-Poyferre 1990 – both top-notch clarets costing well over £100 a bottle.
Beats a pint of Old Sheep’s Droppings – or whatever Hague used to sup – any day.
Senior Labour MP Keith Vaz enraged party leader Ed Miliband by praising David Cameron for pledging an EU referendum. Now he has upset Miliband again by calling for Right-wing Tory MP David Ruffley to be made a Home Office Minister. ‘He always comes to debates with good ideas,’ Vaz told the Commons. ‘It’s a mystery to me why he isn’t in the Home Office because he knows so much about it.’ A Labour aide said: ‘Vaz should stop cosying up to the Tories and do something for his own leader.’