Tony Blair famously mentioned considered one of his largest regrets as PM was introducing the Freedom of Information act. In his memoirs, he displays on the Bill: “You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.”
In that spirit, a passion of diarists has been inquiring about probably the most embarrassing subjects conceivable.
A month in the past, Sir Arbuthnot wrote to Parliament asking in regards to the porn habits of these engaged on the property logged into the wifi.
Bearing in thoughts even Downing Street has acquiesced to such a request earlier than, the presumption was Parliament would fess as much as the grownup viewing pastimes of MPs, Lords and aides.
No such luck. According to the Commons, whereas they do have the precise information requested, they refuse handy it over as they someway imagine that disclosing it “would be likely to prejudice the prevention or detection of crime” and will “undermine the safeguarding of national security”.
This is an odd excuse, given Downing Street - a constructing rather more instantly related to nationwide safety - happily admitted that advisors and civil servants had visited hardcore porn web sites 1,700 instances between 2016 and 2019.
Time for an electronic mail to the knowledge commissioner…
It is with a touch of remorse that Beachcomber has learnt of the passing of "Workington man" - that horny-handed, working-class man of the north who helped ship the Conservatives their well-known victory within the Labour Red Wall in 2019.
Apparently, after the boundary assessment, Workington will not be its personal constituency and its MP, Mark Jenkinson - who embodied so most of the qualities of the outline - is off to the a lot posher enlarged constituency of Penrith and the Borders.
Jenkinson, who labored at Sellafield nuclear energy station, was reminiscing in regards to the day again in 2019 when the our bodies at Conservative headquarters determined to launch their "Workington man" goal voter prototype.
"It was my turn to drive to work that day so I ignored my phone but when I arrived it had completely exploded with messages from all around the world," he mentioned.
Apparently, no one from CCHQ had thought to warn him of his impending fame.
Jenkinson was featured on TV interviews from stations throughout Europe and as distant as Japan because the world's media tried to find out about this new voter.
Sure sufficient, he received a seat which had nearly at all times been Labour in 2019 however now the main target is elsewhere.
Labour has recognized "Stevenage woman" as the important thing goal as a substitute. Somehow it would not have the identical ring…
There are few issues which annoy Beachcomber greater than individuals blocking the way in which and taking selfies on the street. It's a specific drawback in Westminster because the pavements are packed stuffed with vacationers wanting their grinning mugs taken in entrance of Big Ben or the Abbey.
But the opposite day as I used to be sauntering previous Parliament to get to my typical bar stool on the Red Lion, your entire pavement was blocked by Carriage Gates because the police ready for the Prime Minister to depart.
"It'll only be a couple of minutes," mentioned the copper.
We waited. The crowd on the pavement gathered with passholders not even allowed into parliament.
Ten minutes later the quite chagrined-looking police officer up to date us: "Won't be long. The Prime Minister is just having some selfies taken with people."
If I had been a Tory MP at that second my letter to Sir Graham Brady would have been winging its approach.
A Tory MP aide - admittedly from the centre wing of the get together - not too long ago realised that her neighbour is none apart from that vaccine-bashing, Tory-defecting MP Andrew Bridgen. She moaned: "How unfortunate to see this face both at work and on my street."
To make the scenario on this staffer’s patch of London much more awkward, none apart from vaccine supremo Chris Whitty can be a close-by neighbour of hers, and - by extension - Mr Bridgen.
Given Mr Bridgen and Mr Whitty couldn’t have extra heterogeneous views on the efficacy of Covid vaccines, it may very effectively make for a clumsy encounter of their native Tesco…
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