Bumbling Tory Minister Oliver Letwin – who once let burglars walk into his house – has been forced to pay £100 to former Chancellor Lord Lawson after losing a bet over the Kyoto climate change deal.
Letwin banked on it being renewed when it expired in 2012 – but it wasn’t.
Global-warming sceptic Lawson said: ‘It was blindingly obvious that there would be no Kyoto successor.
Oliver is one of the nicest people in politics, but it is disconcerting that our policy is based on the advice of someone so totally divorced from any understanding of practical realities.’
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Labour bruiser Paul Farrelly is livid after the Commons upheld a ‘bullying’ complaint made against him by Emily Commander: the attractive clerk had helped him to mount his anti-phone hacking crusade, but took against his man-management style. Dog hears that the MP, who furiously protests his innocence, has asked Speaker John Bercow to appoint a retired judge to investigate Emily’s claims ‘from scratch’. Not something most ordinary punters can ask for…**********************
Will Jagger get any satisfaction from the Foreign Office?The Government has taken a breather from trying to reform the welfare state to come to the rescue of The Rolling Stones’ £300 million fortune.
Foreign Office Minister David Lidington – not one of life’s rock stars – has gone into bat for the group by urging the Japanese to extend their 50-year copyright period on music.
This is exactly the length of time the Stones have been together. If he succeeds, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards will continue to coin it in from the Far East. ‘The band isn’t usually foremost in our minds,’ admits Lidington.
Helping hand: Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger could benefit after the Foreign Office urged the Japanese to extend their 50-year copyright on music **********************Shamed Tory MP Aidan Burley, who was sacked as a parliamentary aide after joining a Nazi-themed stag party and then infuriated David Cameron by calling the Olympic Opening Ceremony ‘multi-cultural c***’, must think that he can get brass from his muck.He is setting up a consultancy outfit called Aidan Burley Consulting Ltd. Clients will doubtless lap up his advice on how – not – to handle a crisis. **********************Eatwell's many pies There is unease among Labour’s team in the Lords over the extra-curricular activities of Lord Eatwell, a Labour peer who helped lead the party’s crackdown on the banking industry.Eatwell, not the best name for an anti-fat-catter, holds down a total of ten jobs, including a university lectureship in sunny California.Perhaps coincidentally, the peer missed nearly half of the committee stages of the Bill to tighten City regulation. ‘We barely saw him,’ admits one member of the team. **********************Nigel Farage has donned his scarlet jacket to harvest votes from pro-hunting Tories.After learning that David Cameron has no plans to repeal the hunting ban, the UKIP leader leapt out of bed to join fox-pursuers at a Boxing Day meet.However, Farage, whose wife comes from Germany, admitted another motive: ‘Great chance to get away from the German in-laws.’
