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“Pecunia non olet.” “Money has no smell”. Whatever its truth in the Rome of Emperor Vespasian, current events should have disabused the British political and financial establishment of the truth of this. Money smells. And how. And its stench lingers. As Britain is now finding out.  For years, as I set out here, Britain has opened its financial sector, its property market, its citizenship, its legal system, its political parties, its honours and its society to those with wealth, the…

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When an organisation in trouble loses its leadership, there is a tendency for the new management to embark on a reorganisation. This is usually a mistake. It’s not that reorganisation isn’t needed. It’s rather that it should not be the priority. It destabilises and distracts from the work which is needed. So it is with the Met. There are big questions to be asked about its responsibilities, about whether counter-terrorism should be hived off, about how fraud is tackled and…

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Waiting for a Tory VoNC is like waiting for bloody Godot. On and on it goes. Still, on the (questionable) assumption that there will be a vacancy before the days get shorter, it might be worth considering one MP who has not yet figured in any speculation, possibly because he has never expressed any public interest in the role. Nor has anyone else suggested him. The single biggest factor affecting any choice depends on the manner of the PM’s departure…

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On the BBC this morning Kwasi Kwarteng was asked about the statement made by the PM in the Commons this week that crime had gone down by 14%. As has been quickly pointed out, this is a statistical sleight of hand – or a flat out lie, as those of us not educated at Eton, Cambridge and Harvard Universities then working as a columnist at the The Daily Telegraph and a financial analyst at an investment bank might put it….

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He’s teetotal, tidy, smart-looking. He brushes his hair and smiles engagingly. He’s articulate and coherent. With a successful highly lucrative City career behind him and a blameless private life, he has no obvious faults: no sackings or embarrassing public apologies, at least. A perfect ethnic minority blend of William Hague and David Cameron, even down to being MP for the former’s constituency, its name and location combining the best of North and South. Honestly, a novelist couldn’t better it. And…

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On Monday in Parliament the PM made an accusation against the Opposition leader, an accusation described as a “smear” by Julian Smith, ex-Northern Ireland Secretary, the Minister with the enviable record of being sacked for being good at his job. On Tuesday on the Today programme the Deputy PM and Justice Secretary, ironically (or so I hope) described by the interviewer as a “distinguished lawyer“, said that, while he did not have the evidence “to substantiate” the claim (neatly throwing…

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Some thoughts. Even an update with the full facts is not going to say that there was any breach of the Regulations. Why? The Terms of Reference make it clear that Sue Gray has only been asked to look at what happened by reference to the guidelines. Not the Regulations. Also she says very clearly that she is not going to make a finding on breaches of the criminal law. Annex B – which sets out the Regulations is very…

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“When troubles come, they come not single spies but in battalions.” It’s hard these days keeping track of all the Tories’ various scandals. Outside business interests. Wallpaper. Doing favours for donors. Free foreign holidays. Parties. Disrespecting the Queen. Blackmailing MPs. Misusing public money. Sacking Muslim Ministers. Prioritising pets over people. So here is your handy Cut Out and Keep Guide to the various stages of how a small problem turns into a big crisis. For those in or supporting other…

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