Gavin’s Gaily Gigest

As seen in last Wednesday’s Hansard (Parliament’s official record):
Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Prime Minister if he will make it his policy to conduct exit interviews with Ministers leaving Government; and if he will conduct an exit interview with Lord Jones of Birmingham to discuss the noble Lord’s experiences as a Minister. [249500]
The Prime [...]

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Labour Home Secretary Jacqui Smith today announced organisations in the United Kingdom believed to support the overthrow of the goverment will be banned from directly broadcasting on the airwaves.
The ban affects all 324 political parties registered with the Electoral Commission, but the Conservative party, led by David Cameron and St Green of Ashford, is understood [...]

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Moralising prig and sometime Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is at it* again. Not content with wanting to criminalise those who have no intention of breaking the law, but do want to pay for sex, she now wants to make it harder** for socially awkward men and women to see naked members of the opposite or [...]

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What you didn’t read:
Captain of the Titanic Alistair Darling has put a champagne cork in the hull in his pre-sinking report as part of an 20 minute package aimed at saving the ship.
But magic pixies – and compulsory prayer – will roll out to help make it work.

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Immigration minister Phil Woolas is one of those delightful left-wing racists history throws up from time to time, and in the Guardian yesterday he had this to say:
“Enoch Powell was trying to divide this country. I’m trying to heal this country by allowing us to have a mature debate on immigration”
Here’s what he meant, as [...]

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Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon on why Heathrow urgently needs a third runway:
“If I had to highlight one statistic that underlines Heathrow’s importance to the United Kingdom’s economy, it would be the statistic that more than 70 per cent. of foreign companies moving to the United Kingdom for the first time choose a location within an [...]

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My new post on Total Politics’ Party Lines blog argues we could see a general election sooner than you think.

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Gordon Brown today announced the establishment on a judicial inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the death of Russell Brand’s BBC career. The inquiry will look at the extent to which the BBC contributed towards Mr Brand’s death on air and whether the BBC should be shut down as a result. The Prime Minister’s spokesperson confirmed [...]

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Alan West yesterday, hurriedly throwing his toys out of the pram following the government’s defeat in the Lords on 42 days detention, on the current terrorism threat facing the UK:
Some of the measures that we have put into place in the past 15 months have made us safer, but that does not mean that we [...]

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7.30am (or thereabouts): Chancellor Alistair Darling announces a £50 billion rescue package for the banking industry.
9.13am: Stock markets look like this:
(as seen on BBC News)
Now that’s injecting confidence into the banking system.

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